Episode 180
What Really Happens When You Take a Break from LinkedIn
Feeling guilty about taking time off LinkedIn? LinkedIn expert Michelle J Raymond shares what really happens when you step away and why consistency doesn’t mean posting daily. A must listen for B2B marketers balancing business and burnout.
Key moments in this episode -
00:00 The guilt of going quiet on LinkedIn
03:40 Fear vs reality: Will the LinkedIn algorithm punish you?
06:15 What happened to reach and engagement after the break
08:22 LinkedIn relationships matter more than the algorithm
10:10 Advice for LinkedIn creators worried about stepping back
11:35 Reframing LinkedIn consistency: quality over quantity
13:20 Permission to pause
CONNECT WITH MICHELLE J RAYMOND
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Transcript
What happens if you stop posting on LinkedIn?
Speaker:Does the algorithm punish you?
Speaker:I needed to take a break and here's what really happened.
Speaker:G'Day everyone, it is Coach Michelle J Raymond, your trusted partner for building
Speaker:your brand and your business on LinkedIn.
Speaker:And I wanna talk about something that often causes people a lot of stress.
Speaker:What happens if you need to take a break and step away from LinkedIn,
Speaker:and that can be for any reason.
Speaker:It could be workload, it could be you go on some leave and want to travel.
Speaker:It could be you're just are burned out and need to step away.
Speaker:There are so many different reasons for it, and all of them are perfectly
Speaker:valid and necessary and a part of life.
Speaker:And I know that for many people, they start to worry about,
Speaker:will the algorithm punish me?
Speaker:What will happen to my LinkedIn account if I step away?
Speaker:I know many people wonder about it and I recently needed to take a short break
Speaker:from LinkedIn and I wanted to come back to you and let you know exactly what
Speaker:happened, what I do about it, and what was the outcome from taking that time away.
Speaker:I often think about why are people so worried about taking a break on LinkedIn,
Speaker:and I think there's fears around becoming irrelevant, not being top of mind.
Speaker:Maybe it's getting out of the habit, you're afraid that
Speaker:you can't get back into it.
Speaker:That one's totally real.
Speaker:I understand that one especially.
Speaker:Gurus on the platform that you have to keep feeding the beast
Speaker:and it's this never ending cycle of, there's never enough content.
Speaker:And that can be super overwhelming for a lot of people because they're driven
Speaker:to not disappoint even the algorithm.
Speaker:And so they keep going and they keep pushing themselves, and that
Speaker:leads to content creator burnout, and that is very, very real.
Speaker:I've been there, I've done that.
Speaker:There are some days when I would look at my keyboard.
Speaker:I would have 50 billion ideas and I wouldn't wanna write any of them.
Speaker:I couldn't think straight.
Speaker:I knew I'd pushed myself too far and I needed to take a break.
Speaker:Now, in this particular case, I needed to take a break for some other reasons,
Speaker:and so I took, you know, best part of a week and a half, two weeks off.
Speaker:I know it's not very much in the big scheme of things, but in my brain,
Speaker:obviously, me being on LinkedIn and being a LinkedIn trainer, it is the
Speaker:source of leads for my business.
Speaker:So there is an element of fear that goes through my mind of,
Speaker:what if I don't keep doing this?
Speaker:What if I step away?
Speaker:What if, what if?
Speaker:What if?
Speaker:And sometimes your brain just goes into some crazy places and you
Speaker:think I'm gonna miss out on so much.
Speaker:FOMO is very much real because social media has been built on that.
Speaker:Like our time on LinkedIn is no different, and it was really interesting
Speaker:for me to go through this and actually just step away from the platform.
Speaker:What actually happens when you step away from the platform?
Speaker:There's probably a couple of different things that I wanna have a look at.
Speaker:The first thing is, to be honest, not a lot happens.
Speaker:I don't even think anybody noticed that I wasn't there.
Speaker:Which, you know, breaks my heart a little bit because I think, oh my God,
Speaker:I spend so much time making sure I'm always there and was anybody gonna send
Speaker:out a search party and come and find me?
Speaker:Now, of course there would be some people in the background that would reach out
Speaker:and say, Hey Michelle, where are you?
Speaker:Uh, because I've built up a lot of, you know, close connections around the
Speaker:world who would come and check on me.
Speaker:But for the most part, I would say the majority of my
Speaker:audience has not even noticed.
Speaker:Probably still thinks that I'm active on there because my personal brand has
Speaker:been built so strong from consistency that people still think that I'm around.
Speaker:When you think about the amount of content that I put out, we've got content
Speaker:that goes out via the company page.
Speaker:We've got content that goes out via the podcast company page.
Speaker:We've got Michelle J Raymond, LinkedIn profiles' got content coming out,
Speaker:not to mention the podcast, books, YouTube, you know, I've got content that
Speaker:resonates and reaches people, not just on the platform but elsewhere as well.
Speaker:I've got newsletters, like you name it.
Speaker:There's so much out there.
Speaker:And so for me, taking that little amount of time off, people still had so much
Speaker:content if they really wanted it, it would find them or they could go and find it.
Speaker:So from that perspective, I've got the advantage that I built up a great
Speaker:portfolio that people could refer back to, and I've created a space for myself
Speaker:in people's LinkedIn brain so that they know to look out for me and keep an
Speaker:eye out if the algorithm serves up my content and I create content that people
Speaker:enjoy, that they find useful and helpful.
Speaker:So when they come on, LinkedIn will serve my content to them because
Speaker:they know that they like it.
Speaker:So in a kind of weird way, LinkedIn looks after me.
Speaker:It says, you know what?
Speaker:We know you're not here, but we know your content keeps other people
Speaker:coming back, so we're gonna help you while you're not on the platform.
Speaker:And I kind of like that idea.
Speaker:But ultimately if I'm looking at my numbers and my notifications
Speaker:and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker:I've still got notifications coming through from content that I've created
Speaker:weeks ago that people are still viewing, that they're possibly catching up.
Speaker:Maybe they took a break.
Speaker:Maybe LinkedIn's now serving it up to them because they're back on the platform.
Speaker:You know, it is perfectly human, normal and necessary for us to take a break
Speaker:from the platform for time to time.
Speaker:Now, from that side of things.
Speaker:I didn't notice any big shift in any of my numbers.
Speaker:Besides, of course, I would expect my reach and impressions to go
Speaker:down while I haven't been on here.
Speaker:But ultimately when I get back on, it'll be just like when you learn to ride a
Speaker:bike, you just get back on and off you go.
Speaker:So I'm not worried about that in any way, shape or form.
Speaker:So consistency, creating content before is helping me now.
Speaker:So, you know, I've got content that covers me while I'm gone.
Speaker:What are the advantages to taking a break on LinkedIn and how do I think
Speaker:that that can actually help you more after this quick word about our podcast
Speaker:sponsors Metricool I'm gonna go into that.
Speaker:I really think that scheduling breaks is something that you should
Speaker:factor into your LinkedIn schedule.
Speaker:As somebody that has been creating content on LinkedIn for around
Speaker:10 years now, I am absolutely certain that you do need breaks.
Speaker:They are so important.
Speaker:When you step away, and I'm talking about planned breaks, not when life
Speaker:throws you curve balls, but when you take these planned breaks, it
Speaker:gives you a moment to assess things.
Speaker:Some of my best ideas and my creativity always comes no surprise when I'm
Speaker:on holidays, when I'm not like running around, trying to keep up
Speaker:with Sydney life, trying to keep up with client life, trying to balance
Speaker:family and business and all the other things that life throws at you.
Speaker:But when I actually slow down, all the good stuff comes.
Speaker:So from that perspective, I think that alone should be a reason
Speaker:that people should never be scared about taking a break on LinkedIn.
Speaker:And I think that you get a fresh perspective.
Speaker:You get clarity around the goals that you have.
Speaker:You assess the things that are working and not working, and this is only
Speaker:gonna bring upside long term and allow you to keep going as a creator.
Speaker:My break, is something that has allowed me to almost take a breath and go, huh?
Speaker:Okay, let's assess this and see what we're gonna do for the second half of
Speaker:this year, because we're one half down.
Speaker:We've got one half to go.
Speaker:I'm curious.
Speaker:Let me know, are you doing the same thing?
Speaker:Is it a time of reflection and assessment for you right now?
Speaker:Like it is for me?
Speaker:How can you step away without losing momentum?
Speaker:Well, that's, you know, something else that's really easy to manage.
Speaker:We've got scheduling tools that we can use, so you can
Speaker:schedule posts within LinkedIn.
Speaker:But another great reason that I love Metricool is that if you
Speaker:have a planned break coming up.
Speaker:You can schedule your posts and plan them out into the future to cover you
Speaker:for the whole period that you're away.
Speaker:And that's exactly what Lill and I do in our business.
Speaker:When we are going on our Page Advocacy tours and doing the travel around
Speaker:the world, she gets so much of our content scheduled out in advance.
Speaker:We can do the same thing for our clients.
Speaker:We never have to skip a beat, which is amazing.
Speaker:And something that, again, for my personal content, I'm always.
Speaker:Saying that I'm gonna get better at it.
Speaker:I haven't quite nailed that yet.
Speaker:But ultimately that's one way.
Speaker:So you can do it on LinkedIn or you can do it within tools like Metricool
Speaker:which is the one that I recommend.
Speaker:And you can also repurpose some of the old content that you've got.
Speaker:You don't need to create all new content.
Speaker:And again, Metricool's really amazing for this.
Speaker:We can take our old posts, which are still relevant today and reshare them.
Speaker:In the future because we are always getting new followers, people joining
Speaker:us, not everyone sees our content, so there's no worries at all in repurposing
Speaker:your content to save you time.
Speaker:Now, if you're someone that you can't get to creating content, you haven't
Speaker:scheduled anything, you might wanna jump on and comment from time to time.
Speaker:But from that perspective, I still think having a clean
Speaker:break is a good thing to do.
Speaker:The world doesn't end like it.
Speaker:Honestly, it's LinkedIn at the end of the day people.
Speaker:We're not doing heart transplants.
Speaker:It's kind of how I try and keep it in perspective about
Speaker:what we're actually doing.
Speaker:So there are a couple of ways that you can get around it.
Speaker:You could also just let your audience know that you're going away and
Speaker:not to expect your content, and they might wish you all the best.
Speaker:I would be surprised if it's not one of your most highest performing posts.
Speaker:Those of you who are paying for LinkedIn premium, guess what you can do?
Speaker:You can go in and set an away message in your DMs, so that if anybody
Speaker:sends you a message into your inbox on LinkedIn, they will automatically
Speaker:receive feedback to say when you're away and when you'll be back, just like an
Speaker:out of office that you would have on Outlook or any of your email services.
Speaker:So that's a super cool feature for those of you who are paying for
Speaker:premium, you may as well use it if you want to take some time off.
Speaker:And honestly, no one in your community will care, and it's the reality and maybe
Speaker:a harsh reality but at the end of the day, people expect you to take breaks.
Speaker:They want you to take breaks.
Speaker:They know you'll be back, and that is totally okay.
Speaker:So if you're someone that has been putting it off that you are scared that if you
Speaker:step away that your whole LinkedIn world will crumble down and everything you've
Speaker:been working on will be a waste or you won't be able to get it back, or the
Speaker:algorithm will hate you, or anything else that your brain is telling you.
Speaker:I'm here to tell you listeners.
Speaker:Take the break, nothing happens.
Speaker:There is nothing that you can't just get back on and start again.
Speaker:But I promise you, if you take the break, you're gonna come back stronger
Speaker:than ever with better content, more clarity, and your community's gonna feel
Speaker:that and that's gonna generate results.
Speaker:So if you are someone that needs to take a break, enjoy.
Speaker:Cheers.
