I first got involved in the blogging world in 2008.
At the time, I was starting to read a lot of blogs. Business, marketing, golf, hunting and more. Even some personal blogs where people would write about the things they were doing in life.
Obviously the blogging world has changed over the years. It’s more mature. It’s not the wild, wild west. There is a lot of great content.
The biggest change, though, is that people aren’t commenting on blogs like they used to. Social media might be the biggest reason for that. It seems strange, but in 2008-2009, Facebook wasn’t even the most popular social network. It was getting close, but a lot of people still used MySpace. And Twitter was in its infancy.
Once Twitter gained critical mass and once Facebook gained huge traction, commenting seemed to move from the blogosphere to social.. And that seemed to make sense.
But recently, LinkedIn seems to have been taking on engagement similar to those early days of the blogging world. There is a lot of commenting and engagement. People will post something natively on LinkedIn. Maybe a 200-word tip on something work-related. People will comment. The author will then often reply to comments. It’s pretty neat.
If you’re keen to get involved and build your brand recognition you can take a few lessons from those early days of blogging and use them on LinkedIn.
Here are a few of the key takeaways.
1. Leave The Best Comment
Lots of people are looking at content on LinkedIn right now. Lots of people are also looking at the comment sections. The opportunity is strong in a couple ways if you’re looking to grow your network.
First, there are plenty of great people posting things and not getting engagement. You can be the one to engage and possibly grow some kind of relationship.
Second, people are posting content and getting a lot of eyeballs and a medium amount of engagement. You can engage and get your comment in front of a lot of people.
In both instances you want to leave the best comment. Now, you don’t necessarily need to do it on all posts. You can leave basic comments like “Really liked this video”, but realize that you won’t stand out. In order to stand out you might look to write something like “Loved your point about why it’s important to spot employees that don’t fit with your culture and why it’s important to let them go. I had that exact situation happen, but I didn’t let the employee go for two years. It cost our company a lot of money and also led to a lot of stress in the workplace.”
You could also leave a tip for how to spot employees that are poor cultural fits.
When you do this you’re adding value to the conversation. The author and their followers will notice. They’ll visit your profile. They connect with you. If you are selling something they need they may contact you.
2. Commit To Regular Commenting
If you do the first tip here once in awhile you’ll see some results. If you want to see consistent results then you need to commit to regular commenting. Every day isn’t out of the question. Most of us could take 20-30 minutes every business day to do commenting on LinkedIn.
You can look at what your network is posting and engaging with on the main feed. You can look at hashtags and find content that way.
Set a calendar reminder to do this every day. It’s a quantity game. The more you do and the longer you do it the more your network will grow and the more results you’ll see in terms of new business. Not directly, but indirectly as a result of more people knowing that you exist.
3. Don’t Spam
One of the issues back in the early days of blogging was spam. People would leave comments on blogs and their comments would often includes links back to their own blogs or websites. Sometimes these comments would be veiled a little with the person leaving a little tip or actual comment along with their link.
You don’t see this as much on LinkedIn right now. And that’s great. I hope it stays that way. But some people will be tempted to include links to their own content and things like that.
The best practice is to avoid doing this. You’re looking to add value and expect nothing in return. If you do that in good faith you’ll see some engagement over time as people click on your name and look through your profile.
But that’s a long-term game and some people don’t have the patience for it. When you lose patience…you lose.
4. Engage With All Replies
If you’re looking to get more engagement on any channel, you need to reply when people engage. The whole thing with social media is that people are looking for engagement. Every like, reply and whatever provides us with a little dopamine. A little validation.
So give it to people.
When people comment on one of your posts, reply. When you leave a comment on someone else’s post and they ask a question in response, reply.
5. Make Others Look Good
One final rule for engaging on LinkedIn is to make others look good. You don’t want to be a troll.
Think about LinkedIn as a community. It’s not a zero sum game. Multiple people can rise to success at the same time and not at the cost of anyone else. You don’t have to bring someone down in order to feel more successful.
Spread the good around. Leave positive comments. Encourage people to share and engage more. Bring a general positivity to the platform and good things will happen.
Conclusion
There is an opportunity on LinkedIn right now. It may change in the coming years and that’s fine. Then we’ll talk about how to take advantage of that opportunity. But right now you can use the tips here to build your profile and brand reach on LinkedIn.