The Real Reason Your B2B LinkedIn Posts Are Getting Ignored (With Fixes)

Speaker: 00:00:00

Are you playing things too safe on LinkedIn?

Speaker: 00:00:02

You know, all of your content is designed to make sure it stays within the rules.

Speaker: 00:00:07

Doesn't upset anybody, but ultimately what's happening is your

Speaker: 00:00:12

content's getting passed on by.

Speaker: 00:00:14

Why is that and what can we do about it?

Speaker: 00:00:17

Let's take a look.

Speaker: 00:00:36

G' Day everyone it is Coach Michelle J Raymond, your trusted guide to building

Speaker: 00:00:40

your brand and your business on LinkedIn.

Speaker: 00:00:43

And I know that the most popular episodes that I ever do on this podcast are always

Speaker: 00:00:49

related to how can you get your content seen by more people, whether you wanna

Speaker: 00:00:54

find out for yourself, for your team, or for your company page, everybody wants

Speaker: 00:01:00

more reach, more engagement, and lots of those cool metrics going up and up and up.

Speaker: 00:01:06

And right now on LinkedIn, as I've said in multiple episodes recently,

Speaker: 00:01:10

it's certainly not the state of the game that LinkedIn are playing.

Speaker: 00:01:14

So they would tell you that it's all about your content now is

Speaker: 00:01:18

more relevant to your audience.

Speaker: 00:01:20

IE that's code for, we're not going to show it to as many people.

Speaker: 00:01:24

That's called impressions.

Speaker: 00:01:26

But yet at the same time, your engagement should still be the same.

Speaker: 00:01:30

Hopefully that's right, and their aim to make sure that we get our

Speaker: 00:01:34

content seen by the right sets of eyes actually helps us grow the business.

Speaker: 00:01:38

The only way that you'll be able to tell is are you getting inbound leads from your

Speaker: 00:01:43

content, from your efforts on LinkedIn?

Speaker: 00:01:45

The answer is no.

Speaker: 00:01:47

The problem is your content is probably just getting scrolled

Speaker: 00:01:51

by, and I see this regularly because people play things so safe.

Speaker: 00:01:58

They don't wanna upset anyone.

Speaker: 00:02:00

They use lots of corporate jargon.

Speaker: 00:02:03

They stay within the company branding guidelines.

Speaker: 00:02:06

There's lots of different ways that we can do this.

Speaker: 00:02:10

And one of the major ways that most people play it far too safe is by not having

Speaker: 00:02:15

an opinion on anything at all, ever.

Speaker: 00:02:20

They're completely neutral, and from that perspective, no one

Speaker: 00:02:24

knows exactly where you stand.

Speaker: 00:02:26

When we're playing it safe with our content, I understand that safe feels

Speaker: 00:02:31

comfortable, but comfortable gets ignored.

Speaker: 00:02:35

So after this quick word from our podcast sponsors Metricool, I am going to talk

Speaker: 00:02:40

about your invisible posts and more importantly, stick around to the end

Speaker: 00:02:44

'cause I'm gonna give you the solutions in how you can fix this problem and make

Speaker: 00:02:49

sure your post gets seen on LinkedIn.

Speaker: 00:03:50

Let's talk about your safe but invisible posts and what the actual problem is.

Speaker: 00:03:56

The actual problem is if people don't stop for your post, neither

Speaker: 00:04:01

does the LinkedIn algorithm.

Speaker: 00:04:02

So ultimately, our job is to make sure that our audience slows down

Speaker: 00:04:08

long enough, consumes our content and hopefully they like, they comment,

Speaker: 00:04:13

maybe they save or repost your content.

Speaker: 00:04:16

That's the ultimate goal.

Speaker: 00:04:17

But if your content is so safe and so boring that ultimately nobody

Speaker: 00:04:23

stops, then the algorithm doesn't reward that, and that is why your

Speaker: 00:04:28

post isn't being seen by people.

Speaker: 00:04:31

What does the LinkedIn algorithm reward?

Speaker: 00:04:33

Well, I'm glad you asked.

Speaker: 00:04:35

One of the things that the algorithm loves is you generating conversations,

Speaker: 00:04:41

and conversations normally start from having a point of view on a particular

Speaker: 00:04:44

topic that's within your industry, and from that you can then lead conversations.

Speaker: 00:04:52

Sometimes they turn into arguments on social.

Speaker: 00:04:54

I get it.

Speaker: 00:04:55

But ultimately, I like to think that LinkedIn is a safe place with not too

Speaker: 00:04:59

many trolls, and it's a professional environment, which is great for getting

Speaker: 00:05:03

some of the best minds in your industry together to have a conversation

Speaker: 00:05:08

around the topics that matter.

Speaker: 00:05:10

So having a strong point of view and an opinion in your content is a really great

Speaker: 00:05:18

place to start to get people to actually stop for a moment and pay attention.

Speaker: 00:05:22

The way that we do this, the actual mechanism is by putting that

Speaker: 00:05:26

opinion or a strong question in the opening two lines of your posts.

Speaker: 00:05:30

We call that the hook, right?

Speaker: 00:05:33

So think about what can you use as a hook line that will stop people in their

Speaker: 00:05:39

tracks and want them to get involved in your conversation that you're leading.

Speaker: 00:05:43

Now, if you are not sure what a hook is.

Speaker: 00:05:44

That's what our friend ChatGPT is there for, or any of the other AI tools.

Speaker: 00:05:50

Ask it, How can I improve the hook on my post?

Speaker: 00:05:53

This is a magic way that AI can help you and start to get people

Speaker: 00:05:59

to slow down and make sure that your posts are no longer invisible.

Speaker: 00:06:03

So if you don't put it in that hook line, maybe it's your image

Speaker: 00:06:07

that captures people's attention.

Speaker: 00:06:10

It might be a gif, it might be something that makes people laugh.

Speaker: 00:06:13

It might be a photo of something that you saw, a news article

Speaker: 00:06:18

that will spark a conversation.

Speaker: 00:06:19

There are so many creative ways that you can hook people in so that

Speaker: 00:06:24

they start to pay attention to your posts and they don't scroll past it.

Speaker: 00:06:29

So that's one of the ways that you can do this.

Speaker: 00:06:38

What else do I think will make the biggest difference to your content

Speaker: 00:06:40

to make sure that it's not invisible?

Speaker: 00:06:43

Uh, show up as you, talk like you, create your digital twin.

Speaker: 00:06:48

IE be the same as if I met you face to face.

Speaker: 00:06:53

Write your posts exactly the same.

Speaker: 00:06:56

I think that's what actually stops a lot of people from creating content at all

Speaker: 00:07:00

on LinkedIn, is that they think they have to be a LinkedIn version of themself,

Speaker: 00:07:04

you know, professional buttoned up.

Speaker: 00:07:06

But I find that the people that I stop for their content on LinkedIn the most,

Speaker: 00:07:10

are the ones that just sound like someone I would love to connect with if we met

Speaker: 00:07:16

face to face, the ones that call it how it is, the ones that used everyday

Speaker: 00:07:20

language, the ones that are passionate about their topic, whatever that may be.

Speaker: 00:07:26

What it really is, they use their own words, and that's what I love.

Speaker: 00:07:31

I love that it may not be the most professional, although it can be,

Speaker: 00:07:36

or it can be using humour, sarcasm.

Speaker: 00:07:40

It could make people angry.

Speaker: 00:07:41

It could make people sad, but at the end of the day, I just know it's

Speaker: 00:07:45

in exactly the same words as if I would meet that person face to face.

Speaker: 00:07:49

So if you're not doing that, that's probably the most simple fix to make

Speaker: 00:07:54

sure that your content is being seen.

Speaker: 00:07:56

Why does this work so much?

Speaker: 00:07:58

Well, because right now LinkedIn is flooded with so much AI content.

Speaker: 00:08:03

I don't need to tell you this, listeners.

Speaker: 00:08:04

You already know.

Speaker: 00:08:06

and I don't know about you, but for me, the more polished and perfection

Speaker: 00:08:10

that comes through on this content now, the less I'm interested.

Speaker: 00:08:14

Honestly, I am so bored by these perfect posts that I just keep scrolling by.

Speaker: 00:08:22

That they become invisible to me.

Speaker: 00:08:24

They don't catch me or my attention long enough for me to wanna find

Speaker: 00:08:30

out more, even though it might be something that's a really great idea.

Speaker: 00:08:35

When it sounds like ChatGPT wrote it then I'm not on board for that.

Speaker: 00:08:40

I wanna know what you think and the chances are, so does your audience.

Speaker: 00:09:10

Let's talk about some of the practical ways that you can fix this.

Speaker: 00:09:14

Now, I mentioned one earlier, we are going to need to rewrite the hook, like the

Speaker: 00:09:18

opening sentence on your post needs to be the strongest sentence in the whole post.

Speaker: 00:09:24

Why is that?

Speaker: 00:09:25

We want people to stop and we want them to click on see more

Speaker: 00:09:29

to discover the rest of the post.

Speaker: 00:09:31

If they don't do that, then all that effort that you put into the other

Speaker: 00:09:35

probably thousand characters goes nowhere.

Speaker: 00:09:38

So from that perspective, that opening line has to be your best.

Speaker: 00:09:43

I also want you to think about moving away from statements that are so

Speaker: 00:09:51

beige and so bland and so boring that everybody just goes, eh, and shrugs their

Speaker: 00:09:58

shoulders and just keeps on scrolling.

Speaker: 00:10:01

It is okay to have an opinion.

Speaker: 00:10:03

I know that you're all super smart people that listen to this podcast.

Speaker: 00:10:06

I've connected with so many of you over on LinkedIn, so I know this to be true.

Speaker: 00:10:11

I want to hear more from you.

Speaker: 00:10:14

I want you to call out things in your industry.

Speaker: 00:10:17

Be strong enough to back yourself and your positions and your ideas and

Speaker: 00:10:22

invite people into the conversation.

Speaker: 00:10:24

This isn't about having big arguments, but this is standing for something

Speaker: 00:10:29

and having the, I guess inner strength and courage, 'cause it does take

Speaker: 00:10:35

courage to back yourself, as I said, and be that leader in your industry.

Speaker: 00:10:40

This is where those people that say, I want to be a thought leader on LinkedIn,

Speaker: 00:10:46

or they want members of their team to be thought leaders and yet they put up so

Speaker: 00:10:51

many guardrails and so many restrictions on the types of things that people can

Speaker: 00:10:55

say then that is not thought leadership.

Speaker: 00:10:58

Thought leadership is not regurgitating things that ChatGPT could do.

Speaker: 00:11:01

It is about sharing your opinions and leading conversations.

Speaker: 00:11:05

So that is another way.

Speaker: 00:11:12

Think about if you were to look at the post.

Speaker: 00:11:15

Is there a way that I can tell that it's your post and not just somebody

Speaker: 00:11:20

else's if I took your name off it, and that's a pretty good check, would I be

Speaker: 00:11:24

able to tell by the words that you use, the language, the emojis that you have?

Speaker: 00:11:30

Like I know emojis and em dashes and things have copped and

Speaker: 00:11:34

absolute hiding since ChatGPT came on and everybody's onto it.

Speaker: 00:11:38

Like I know you are using ChatGPT if you've got the rocket emoji,

Speaker: 00:11:41

or you know, whichever one is the current flavour of the month.

Speaker: 00:11:45

But ultimately, you know, you probably recognize my post because

Speaker: 00:11:50

I'm probably the person that overuses the smiley face emoji everywhere.

Speaker: 00:11:54

Why?

Speaker: 00:11:54

Because that's just who I am.

Speaker: 00:11:56

I smile a lot.

Speaker: 00:11:58

If you meet me.

Speaker: 00:11:59

I smile a lot.

Speaker: 00:12:00

There is no difference and I want people to feel happier for

Speaker: 00:12:04

having had an interaction with me, so that's why I use it.

Speaker: 00:12:08

So emojis are great.

Speaker: 00:12:09

They can help you, really reinforce your message without having to use

Speaker: 00:12:14

thousands of words, and they're totally acceptable on LinkedIn.

Speaker: 00:12:17

These are some of the other ways you can be controversial, but

Speaker: 00:12:22

don't be controversial for the sake of it, like to be antagonistic,

Speaker: 00:12:26

unless that's part of your personal brand, in that case, go for it.

Speaker: 00:12:30

But it's all about being, I think like LinkedIn's research would say contrarian.

Speaker: 00:12:37

If everybody goes one way and you go the other way, then it's easier to stand out.

Speaker: 00:12:43

So my perfect example of this is when I first started setting up my business.

Speaker: 00:12:49

I backed LinkedIn Company Pages.

Speaker: 00:12:53

Everybody else was anti LinkedIn Company Pages, so it was easy for me.

Speaker: 00:12:58

I went one way.

Speaker: 00:12:59

They all went the other.

Speaker: 00:13:00

I get to stand out and this is what you need to discover to help make

Speaker: 00:13:04

sure that you stand out and that your content isn't invisible on LinkedIn.

Speaker: 00:13:15

As we wrap this one up, listeners, at the end of the day, you don't

Speaker: 00:13:19

need to be over the top outrageous.

Speaker: 00:13:22

You do need to find a way to stand out in the feed.

Speaker: 00:13:26

Get people to understand that your content is helpful, and make sure

Speaker: 00:13:31

that your content is memorable so they know to look out for it in the future

Speaker: 00:13:37

when they see your posts in the feed.

Speaker: 00:13:40

Remember, we have so many people creating content.

Speaker: 00:13:43

The platform's getting busier.

Speaker: 00:13:45

Find an angle that works for you to make sure that no one

Speaker: 00:13:50

ever wants to miss your content.

Speaker: 00:13:53

At the end of the day, I want you to say something real.

Speaker: 00:13:56

Say it in your own way.

Speaker: 00:13:58

Say something that matters and lead conversations.

Speaker: 00:14:01

And when you try this, I guarantee you that your LinkedIn

Speaker: 00:14:05

content, your numbers will go up.

Speaker: 00:14:08

You are going to be leading the conversations.

Speaker: 00:14:11

And when this works, do me a favour, reach out to me on LinkedIn, let

Speaker: 00:14:16

me know that you gave it a try.

Speaker: 00:14:17

And more importantly, how did that turn out for you?

Speaker: 00:14:21

Cheers.