LinkedIn is an interesting place.
Of the 875 million members worldwide, and the 10 million members in Australia, roughly half log in at least monthly. Breaking that down further, of the half that are logging in at least once a month, roughly on third (so one sixth overall) are logging in daily, while on the flip side, around half are logging in less than monthly.
So, what does this mean?
Well, for starters, if you had the idea that you only had to post something once to reach your target audience, think again. To reach those in your audience who are logging in only once a month or less, you are going to have to up your frequency.
As marketers we sometimes fall into a trap re frequency, assuming that once we post something, it has been seen, and get worried that any repeat postings will annoy the audience. We imagine that our audience is sitting there seeing every one of our posts and feeling bombarded, whereas in truth they probably have only seen a fraction of them. Of course, even if we hit the bullseye with our first shot, that’s unlikely to do the job. As any advertising expert will tell you, frequency is needed to ensure your message not only gets through, but actually has impact.
Arguably a more important take out from these stats is just how hard it is to reach your audience, meaning you really have to do everything you can to make sure your audience is seeing your content, no matter how frequently they log in.
Recently, this task got much harder when LinkedIn unveiled a major algorithm change, arguably one of the most significant in recent years.
This change, rolled out a few months ago, seeks to reward posts that share advice and knowledge.
In a way it’s a response to the way LinkedIn had morphed during Covid, into a more personal platform, where some users were applying the same strategies and methods as they did on the true social platforms such as Facebook and Insta. The people at LinkedIn realised that this was getting away from the original mission of LinkedIn as a platform for professionals.
Under the algorithm change, LinkedIn now evaluates whether a post contains knowledge and advice, then shows it to other users who are likely to find the information relevant and useful.
Their ‘sniff test’ is to essentially ask “is this content helping LinkedIn members be and feel more productive and more successful?”.
So how does the LinkedIn system do this?
Simplistically, they apply 4 key tests:
- Does the post speak to a distinct audience?
Is it clear who the content is aimed at? (the use of keywords and hashtags obviously helps here). That content will in turn only get served to an audience interested in that subject. - Is the post author writing about their core subject area?
LinkedIn is smart enough to judge whether the subject you are posting about matches your expertise and ‘authority’. - Does the post attract meaningful comments?
This is a BIG change for LinkedIn. Previously they would amplify content purely on the basis of the quantity of comments. That led to engagement groups where people quickly liked and commented on each other’s posts, as a way of boosting them.
LinkedIn wanted to stop that, and now it rewards posts that get meaningful comments, rather than superficial responses like ‘love this!’, or ‘I agree’. (LinkedIn also considers WHO is making the comments – are they also subject matter experts?).
- Does the post offer a perspective?
I’ve always said that to be a thought leader you need to have a thought. And LinkedIn agrees, using artificial intelligence to classify posts into different categories, including, for example, whether a post contains opinions and/or advice. In short, LinkedIn rewards perspectives and insights more than ‘generic information.
As a long-term advocate for the value of thought leadership, all this resonates with me, and I can see many parallels with the Ensombl approach.
We know the nearly 8,000 members of our advice community – are time poor and under pressure.
They don’t have time to waste, only time to invest, a point especially true of their content consumption preferences.
You could say that like LinkedIn, our members prioritise content that provides knowledge and advice, especially if that involves research, best practice insights, case studies and the opinions of their respected peers.
Just like LinkedIn, we use artificial intelligence to get to the heart of matters, studying the thousands of conversations taking place across the Ensombl platform, and gaining insights into advisors most pressing issues and challenges.
We then work with corporate partners on content designed to solve these issues and challenges.
But here’s the kicker.
Because that content is based on insights from the community, and because it’s solving the problems advisors themselves, it is in essence ‘co-created’ with advisors.
An unsurprisingly, that content resonates more strongly than content which is just sent out in a one-way broadcast.
We call it the co-creation dividend, and according to our research that dividend is about 45%. That’s right, co-created content is roughly 45% more responsive. That holds across different channels, including articles, whitepapers, and podcasts.
So the lesson is, if you want to reach your audience and build authority, trust, and credibility, be like LinkedIn, deprioritise the corporate equivalent of a ‘selfie’ and share knowledge and insights that makes the lives of your audience better.
If you think you have a solution to advisor problem, get in touch and find out how your brand and offering might benefit from the co-creation dividend.
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