Will Bachman 00:02
Hey, welcome to Unleashed. I’m your host Will Bachman Umbrex. Member Jennifer Hart’s emailed me with the following question Jennifer wrote, will I send out a newsletter via MailChimp about six times a year? I also publish these on my website, I figure I ought to put them on LinkedIn as well. Do you have an opinion about whether I should make them LinkedIn articles or posts, and if they are posts, will I need to monitor LinkedIn actively to address comments, etc. So Jennifer, first congratulations for using MailChimp. And for sending out a newsletter. That’s awesome, you are ahead of the game. And I point everyone to her website, which is corporate hearts.com. And that’s h AR Tz. And I’ll include a link in the show notes. So I I love your newsletter. And here are my thoughts based on my experience, and particularly on what I’ve learned from the podcast linked in formed, that’s LinkedIn informed. So LinkedIn formed one word with Mark Williams, and he goes by the moniker, Mr. LinkedIn. So here’s my thoughts. Number one, LinkedIn articles seem to get very low levels of engagement. On my LinkedIn articles I might get anywhere from on my LinkedIn posts, I might get anywhere from 1000 to 8000 views of a typical post that I do on LinkedIn, whereas the articles that I’ve written might get three or five or 10 views. What I’ve learned from Mark Williams, is that this experience is pretty typical. So don’t expect to generate a lot of engagement with a LinkedIn article. LinkedIn articles are a lot less likely to go viral. And they don’t help people discover you as much. That said, someone who actually goes to your profile, and is evaluating you for a possible specific project, may well look at your articles. And if you’ve written an article that is relevant to them, then they’re likely to read it. And so articles I think are most useful for credibility building with someone where you’re already in the consideration set. Number three. So my answer is, go ahead and repost your newsletter as an article on LinkedIn can’t hurt. Articles allow you to add more photos and videos and multimedia, and provide a lot more formatting options, then posts. And if you own the content that you publish somewhere else on your blog, or as a white paper on your website, then by all means repurpose that content and publish it as an article on LinkedIn. It can’t hurt at the end of the article, include links to your own blog, and provide directions on how to sign up for your newsletter. So make that as easy as possible. And maybe if you just say some, you know, say just a subscribe as a comment, then you could go and you could add that person. And that also helps alert people in that person’s network, that they’ve subscribed to yours and maybe leads those people to check you out. So that’s even better, including saying, scribe as a comment, it’s better than saying go to my website and sign up there. Number four, when you first publish your article, LinkedIn automatically produces a post as well saying that you’ve just published that article. But that doesn’t have to be your last post on that topic. I’d suggest doing a handful of additional posts about it, maybe quoting one section, or showing one graph or photo or table from your article, and then providing a link to the article. Even if people don’t go and read the article, you’re doing reminder advertising, and you don’t have to only be posting about your most recent article if your content is evergreen. Number five in your posts. The tip that I’ve learned from Mark Williams is to try to make your posts conversational. The goal is to get comments, and not likes, or the new LinkedIn form of interactions with the handclaps etc. So ask a question and your posts. Mark did a great episode on the types of posts that engage. That was Episode 242 of LinkedIn formed. And I’ll include a link to that episode in the show notes. The summary is the five types of posts that engage are observational and debatable tips and tricks, just very helpful. A personal story and something cool. Number six, when you publish an article or post it only goes initially to your own connections to get seen by people you aren’t already connected with, comment on posts by other people, and then you’ll get seen by their followers. And if your comment is witty or insightful, their followers might even look at Your profile. So liking someone else’s post is just not that helpful in generating profile views. I will like posts when I want to be able to find them later, because I can go back to my own activity and see what I’ve liked. But generally, I try to comment and contribute to the conversation. And if you if publishing articles or post only six times a year on LinkedIn, Jennifer, don’t expect that publishing activity to make much of an impact. So unless a newsletter that you mail out has a decent chance of getting open, people are much less likely to engage on a post in LinkedIn. So while your newsletter, a lot of people are going to open it on LinkedIn, people may a lot people may see your posts, but it doesn’t just generate that much engagement. So for reminder advertising to work on LinkedIn, you want to be posting or commenting, ideally, three to five times per week. So you’re at a level that people get used to seeing in their feed. And finally, regarding your last question about being regularly active to address comments, you’re probably going to see all the activity within the first 24 to 48 hours, except for the very rare post, usually most of the activity dies off after that. And you don’t have to be monitoring LinkedIn all the time, you can set your LinkedIn notifications such that you get an email, anytime someone comments on your post. And I’ve included a link in the show notes to adjust those email settings. From that link, click on activity that involves you and then ensure that you’ve selected comments on your updates. So those are my thoughts on posting. I love your stuff. Jennifer on corporate hearts comm links to that is in the show notes and encourage everyone to think about putting together a email newsletter. Whether you send out six times a year, or once a week, it definitely helps remind people that you exist, you don’t have to create all the content yourself. You can also be a curator, and include links to what you’ve been reading books, articles, just kind of let people know that you exist, remind them and bring them something of value. And so that is it. For this episode, I’d love to hear your thoughts on what I’ve missed or your suggestions or additions. You can email me at Umbrex I’m sorry, sorry, at unleashed@umbrex.com. And if you visit, ask unleashed.com. You can sign up for the weekly Unleashed email. And you’ll get an email from me every week with a list of the most recent episodes and some book recommendations and consulting tips and occasionally some bonus content. So sign up there. You can also record and submit a question on that site and I’d love to have a recorded question I will work to answer it on a future episode. Thanks for listening