How Often Should You Post On LinkedIn for Business Growth?

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If posting on LinkedIn every day was the secret to success, then pretty much every

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LinkedIn creator would be a gazillionaire.

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And given that's not the case, the question remains, listeners, how

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often should you post on LinkedIn?

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G'day everyone.

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It is coach Michelle J Raymond, and welcome back again for another episode

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of the podcast where we are looking into all the different ways you can

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use LinkedIn to grow your B2B business.

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Now, probably one of the most popular questions when I'm working with

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new clients is Michelle, how often should we be posting on LinkedIn?

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In today's episode, listeners, we are going to take a look at it from

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a number of different perspectives.

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So how often should you post on LinkedIn to keep the LinkedIn algorithm happy?

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Number one.

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Number two, we're going to have a look at how often should you post on

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LinkedIn when it comes to keeping your community happy and engaged and number

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three, to schedule or not to schedule.

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That is the question.

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And while we're talking about scheduling LinkedIn posts, here's a quick word

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from our podcast sponsors, Metricool which is what I use in my business

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to schedule all of our content.

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Let's start with how often does the LinkedIn algorithm want you to post?

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Now, this is something that I'm going to start with.

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I'm going to answer the question because it's the one that comes

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up in training every single time.

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And that's the first point where I'm like, no, that's not what we're here for.

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We're not here to keep the algorithm happy, but I know

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it's important to understand it.

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So I'm going to cover it from that perspective.

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So here's your answer.

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Quite frankly, the LinkedIn algorithm is not concerned with the volume

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of posts that you're putting out as much as what you might think.

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It wants you to put out content that creates conversations for your community.

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So I've done podcast episodes on the LinkedIn algorithm.

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LinkedIn told us it's about sharing knowledge and advice to one community, on

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the area of expertise that you have and driving conversations, i. e. comments.

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So it's looking at that.

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So the word that LinkedIn uses more often is relevancy.

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Are you posting content that's relevant to your audience?

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So it's not going, Hey, go hard and keep feeding the beast.

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That's not what it's trying to do.

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It loves consistent content and it does love that you're there, but ultimately

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they're going, for quality more than quantity, which hallelujah LinkedIn, that

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makes sense to the rest of us as well.

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From that perspective, I want you to just think about it

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as far as the algorithm goes.

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The one other little thing that I would say, there are people that

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are posting every single day.

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There are people that are posting once a week, or there are people that,

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are posting multiple times a day.

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In my personal experience with the clients that I've been working with and the

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experiments that I try with my content, if you post multiple times per day, you

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can expect that your first post will be the probably best performing one.

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The second post almost cannibalises the reach doesn't quite go as far.

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In general, there is no real advantage for all the additional

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effort that it's going to take to be posting multiple times per day.

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Now, I think I've seen this also play out when people are hitting the repost button.

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So you write your own posts at the beginning of the day, and then you

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go and repost other people's content.

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My working theory at this point in time is that by doing that LinkedIn treats

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that as a new post and then your original work isn't being seen by as many.

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So I love the idea of reposting.

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I'm not anti that, and it can be a great place for people to be starting, but

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if you're getting pretty happy go lucky and reposting lots of content, then

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just keep an eye on and see if that's reducing the number of impressions that

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you're getting on your original posts.

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If the answer is yes, do an experiment and just drop back to that one

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post per day and see how things go.

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There you go, that is all I'm going to be speaking on when it comes to the LinkedIn

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algorithm and answering the question of how often should you post on LinkedIn.

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There is something far more important than worrying about the LinkedIn algorithm

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and we're going to talk about that next.

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How dare I say that the LinkedIn algorithm isn't the solution to all

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of our answers that we're looking for when it comes to LinkedIn.

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What should we be looking at more importantly would be the

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follow up question to that.

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And I'm glad that you asked.

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And here's what I would say.

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Before we even talk about how often you should post on LinkedIn, we have to stop.

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What's your game plan?

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When I'm doing training in my G.R.O.W.T.H framework, G is for Game Plan.

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So the question is, what are you trying to do on LinkedIn?

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What are you trying to achieve?

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Have you set goals?

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What are the timeframes that you have?

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What are the resources that you have available?

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There is no point in me telling somebody that is brand new to

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LinkedIn to go and post every single day, if they're actually,

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struggling to even build a community.

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If you have a small community, there is no point in putting all of your

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energy into creating content day after day for pretty much nobody to see.

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Think about this.

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If you do a post and it goes out to roughly 10 percent of your connections

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and followers, and you only have 200 connections, that's 20 people.

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And if you think about the amount of effort that you're putting in,

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honestly, it's just not worth it.

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You should be spending more time building community.

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There are people, however, that have really good consistent workflows,

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have been on LinkedIn for a long time, have got other resources,

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maybe doing research, creating graphics, and they can get more done.

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So that perspective means that you could be posting three times

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a week, up to five times per week.

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And that might be something that is comfortable, that is going

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to allow you to be consistent.

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And most importantly, my favourite word persistent over the long term.

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So on LinkedIn, when it comes to your content strategy and how often

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you should be posting, really have a look at what can you commit to

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consistently over the long term.

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That is far more important than the actual number.

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And so I want you to have a think about this.

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So if you have a big goal that you are trying to make sure you achieve in a

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short timeframe, then more activity is required that makes logical sense.

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If you have time on your hands, cause business is slow and you

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can get more done, you might up things to try and increase those

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leads and opportunities coming in.

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Conversely, the situation I find myself in right now is business is

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booming, things are going crazy, and I can't always keep up with posting

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every single day like I typically have been over the last 10 years.

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I like to post most days during the week.

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Sometimes I do them on the weekends.

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And so, you know, I've dropped things off.

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Now the world kept spinning.

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My business kept growing and that's okay.

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Now that's very different to the days when I go down that slippery

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slope, just like everybody else.

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And I stare at the screen and I can't write a post.

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Yep.

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Even me, after 10 years of creating content for myself, for businesses

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around the world, training everybody else how to do it.

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There are times when I just can't get over that writer's block, which is crazy

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when I know I've got so many ideas.

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So if you are new to creating content, just know this is a lot harder than

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you probably think, to get started.

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And so start off with one post per week, that is more than enough

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while you're taking other actions.

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And the other actions could be you're commenting on other people's posts.

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You could be sending connection requests and responding to those messages that

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you receive after somebody connects.

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All those kinds of activities in building your community are equally as important

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as the number of posts, if not more important when you're starting out.

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So again, we have to start with your goals, where you're at and what

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you're trying to achieve first up.

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Will your audience notice if you are not posting every day?

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No, you know, with how much is going on the platform, with how

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much we scroll, quite often people don't even realise you're not there

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and they just blame the algorithm.

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So that kind of brings up the question, if you aren't posting enough, it means

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that you could be out of sight, out of mind, and then that makes it difficult

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for people to recall you when they have a problem that they know someone

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in their LinkedIn network can solve.

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There's a business out there.

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There's a person out there that I can work with, but I

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just can't remember their name.

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I haven't seen their content for a while.

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And so this is where that consistency does come up.

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So I think the happy medium place, if you want me to put a number on it for most

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people to aim for is three times a week.

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And that for me, if it's every second day or every, Tuesday, Wednesday,

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Thursday, or maybe it's a day over the weekend, it's fine, but it's a good

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spread over the week so that you're mostly covered most posts will last in

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the feed 48 hours, 72 hours, things like this before they disappear completely.

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So from that perspective, there's always some fresh content that's coming through,

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but I certainly would never recommend that for people that are just getting started.

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So you need to start off slow.

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Build up that momentum and then as you build up that momentum and those systems

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and processes and confidence, you can keep going and it's no different to

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me, I'm currently on a mission to learn how to go for a run at the gym and

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I've got to tell you, my brain wants to go fast and it wants to go hard.

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My body on the other hand, hasn't quite got that memo and every piece of

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research that I've read about how you can go from none to run or couch to

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5k, all of these kinds of programs, the advice is always slow down to speed up.

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So when it comes to LinkedIn, it is exactly the same.

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So slow down, get that cadence and then build on it over time.

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One of the fastest ways that I believe that you can improve the cadence and

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your capabilities of doing more posts per week is to schedule your content.

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And I think it's important that we have a quick conversation

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to schedule or not to schedule.

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I know that there's noise out on the platform that says, no

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way, don't schedule your posts.

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You won't get as much reach as if you were to post them live on LinkedIn.

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And after this quick break, I'm going to tell you exactly why I

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think that's a load of rubbish.

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I get that it was a pretty big call by me before the break to say

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that those people out there who tell you that it's a bad idea to

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schedule posts are full of rubbish.

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So I better back this up, right?

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So if you don't know what a scheduled post is on LinkedIn,

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here's pretty much the summary.

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You have the opportunity either to go directly in LinkedIn when you

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create a post, you can write it all at a time that works for you.

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And then before you hit post, there's a little clock next to it on the left

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hand side, and you can click on that and it opens up a window where you can

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schedule a time for the post to go live.

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So think about it like this, create the post when works for

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you, the post goes live at a time that works best for your audience.

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And so for me, I quite often find myself writing my content on the weekends.

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I don't know what it is.

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It just always seems to be that way.

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But that's not when most of my audience is around.

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It's, you know, normally during the middle of the week.

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And because I work globally, I find that my posts work better

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if I post them in the afternoon.

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Now, if you ask me to write a LinkedIn post in the afternoon it's not

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where my brain's working the best.

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I'm much better at afternoon naps is the joys of working globally.

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I have early morning appointments with the U S later ones with Europe.

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So afternoons aren't necessarily my best time.

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So scheduling content can be a great way around this.

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So not only can you do it directly in LinkedIn now, so

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they've updated that feature.

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You can also use tools like Metricool is the tool that you hear me talk about.

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That's what we use at B2B Growth Co. You can schedule posts for

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Company Pages or personal profiles.

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Now, I think this is a great idea for a number of reasons.

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It is far easier, especially if you are new to creating content,

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to sit down and write one to three posts in one sitting, than come back

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and do that three different times.

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By getting your brain into that writing mode to having those ideas

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and getting in that flow is much easier than waking up and thinking,

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what will I write about today?

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When you stare at a blank screen your brain will go

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into lots of different places.

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And quite often we end up paralysed by having so many things that we could

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write about or the opposite happens and you can't think of anything at all.

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So scheduling tools, you can always write those ideas when works for you.

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Like I said, so if an idea comes to me right now, I can put it in the scheduling

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tool and have it pre planned out.

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This way life doesn't get in the way I'm guilty of this one.

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I am still struggling with, posting my content and scheduling it and making

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sure that it's done in advance so that business growth doesn't get in the way.

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Life doesn't get in the way.

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Being tired, doesn't get in the way.

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All the other things that will creep up and give you the world's

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best excuse to not do your posts for that day or that week.

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So scheduling tools work.

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Why do people say that LinkedIn posts don't work as well when you schedule them?

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Ultimately it comes back to LinkedIn's algorithm rewards engagement.

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And what is engagement?

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Comments and conversations.

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And so if you do a post that goes live at a time that you're not on

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LinkedIn to either have been engaging with other people's posts beforehand.

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Or during your post going live, you're not there to respond to comments that

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you're getting, then the algorithm's going well, if you're not here to see

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it and you're not going to respond, then why should we show other people?

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And I get that some of that theory where people are like babysit your post, you

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should sit around for an hour after it goes live and make sure you're responding.

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And I'm like thinking, I don't have an hour to sit there and babysit things.

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I've got a business to run.

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I've got client work to do, and that's far more important than worrying about

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getting an extra 20 percent impressions.

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Now, if you do have the time and you hang around and engage, that's

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great, but the world does not end.

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If you use tools like Metricool, one of the cool parts is you can go in and

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basically take that post and if it's what we call evergreen, so IE content

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that never goes out of style or out of date, you can automatically reschedule

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that to go in three months time or six months time or, down the track.

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And that means you're not creating as much content.

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And that's especially great if the content works really well.

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To wrap this one up, listeners, you are creating content based on your goals,

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based on your resources, based on your timeframes, what is going to keep you top

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of mind and relevant for your audience?

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That is your number one priority.

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Then we're going to look at, can you commit to this over the longterm?

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Is what you're committing to sustainable, like really, is it sustainable?

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None of this hot and cold.

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So I hope you've enjoyed today's episode.

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I know it's getting closer to the time when I'm heading off on my World

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Page Advocacy Tour, where I get to talk about all things Company Pages at

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Uplift Live in the UK and Social Media Marketing World over in San Diego.

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If you haven't got your tickets for that, please make sure you go and grab them.

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I would love to meet with as many listeners as possible.

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So until next week, cheers.