3 Popular Pieces of LinkedIn Advice I Don’t Agree With
An alternative no-BS strategy that help me average at 15,000+ views per post.
LinkedIn is one of the most interesting platforms currently in my life.
It’s the only platform where my average views per post are more than 2x the number of my followers. On all others, my views/followers ratio is less than 20%, but on LinkedIn, it’s 200%, which is amazing.
The organic reach is just mind-blowing. The wonders this is doing to my personal brand and credibility is beyond anything I can express. Some other stats:
- In just one month, I tripled my followers from 3k to 9k.
- I’ve had more inbound leads than I can handle (which has opened up the possibilities for outsourcing).
- I’ve built a steady stream of income just through LinkedIn leads.
I’m writing this article because I’ve spent eight months on the platform before I finally tasted success.
I know what works on LinkedIn, but more importantly, I know what doesn’t.
I’ve seen (and tried) a lot of popular LinkedIn advice that I didn’t agree with at all, and so, I decided to debunk them.
This post is for every writer who’s been struggling to get leads on LinkedIn. I’m sure my alternative, no-BS approach will help you build your personal brand and get high-paying clients by establishing a presence on LinkedIn.
If you’re serious about building a brand on LinkedIn, don't do the following:
1. Only write about work
Seriously, don’t.
You must have heard popular bloggers telling you that to succeed on LinkedIn, you need to replace the words “friend” with “colleague,” and “home” with “office” in your posts.
If you do that, you’ll not portray the image that you love your job.
Rather, you’ll come across as boring.
No matter how much a person is passionate about their work, they don’t think, write, or read about work all the time.
No matter how often a person comes to LinkedIn looking for job opportunities, they don’t want to read about work all the time.
So yes, don’t be one voice in a million always talking about work. Instead, show the other sides of your personality as well.
Talk about the qualities you’ve cultivated since childhood that help you in your life now. Talk about the time when everyone made fun of your dreams and told you that you can never achieve them. Talk about your favorite book, podcast, movie, or television series.
Be genuine and show the audience a glimpse into what it means to be you.
Readers are drawn to authenticity, and they’ll love it if your posts can provide a breath of fresh air on a platform already saturated with posts about work.
I know what works on LinkedIn, but more importantly, I know what doesn’t.
2. Post every day
Yes, consistency matters, and you should definitely look at LinkedIn as a long-term game. But consistency doesn’t equal daily posting.
HubSpot recently pulled together data and evidence from a wide variety of different sources to build a comprehensive guide to the best times to post on LinkedIn. According to their findings, the best days to post content on LinkedIn are between Tuesday and Thursday, either early in the morning, lunchtime, or early evening, with an additional, bonus sweet spot between 10 am and 11 am on Tuesday.
If you want to look at the psychology behind these stats, most people are busy with the week’s planning and strategizing on Mondays, so they might not have the time to check LinkedIn. Similarly, on Friday, people are probably too excited about the weekend to check a “work-related” social media much, and hence the views drop.
Either way, it doesn’t matter whether you follow strategies or not. If you post three stories a week and stick to your posting schedule for a few months, you’ll do great. As Nicolas Cole says, every time you post content is like buying a lottery ticket. The more you post, the better your chances are of winning the online writing game.
But if you’re tired, occupied, or can’t post for whatever reason, it’s okay to take a break as long as you commit to a 3x a week posting schedule.
3. Ask a question in the headline
As counter-intuitive as it might sound, posts that start with a question in the headline don’t perform well.
This was a mistake I made in the first few months of trying out LinkedIn, and no wonder all my posts did terribly.
Instead, I’ve found that adding a personal element and making a promise in the first line of your stories makes your post perform like magic.
Let’s dissect the first lines of my highest performing posts to see what the first lines have in common:
3.1 Make a promise
This can be the promise of a spicy story, a piece of insightful advice, or something contrary to what they believed. Since LinkedIn only shows the first few lines of a post, make sure the promise is juicy.
3.2 Share a win
Starting with a positive piece of news always hooks the reader. Plus points if you can make it apparent within the first 100 characters that you’re going to share the behind-the-scenes of your success story, you’re guaranteed to get thousands of views.
For example, I’m not technically sharing a win in this post, but since my bio says “Top Writer on Quora,” the readers would know this is the story of the events that led me to this milestone.
3.3 State a fear your readers might have
If you address a pain point of your target audience in the first sentence, you’ve already got them invested in your story. They’ll relate to the post better because they know they feel the same way, and they’ll want to read more to see how you overcame that problem.
Closing thoughts
Growing on LinkedIn is not easy, but if you can stand out from the millions of people posting every day, you can make a name for yourself on the platform. Here are my strategies that helped me triple my follower count in about a month and average at 15,000+ views per post:
- Don’t only talk about work. Show your personality and share glimpses into what it means to be you.
- You don’t have to post every single day and burn out over time. You can pick a posting schedule that works for you and stick religiously to it.
- Don’t start your posts with a question. Instead, raise curiosity in the readers’ minds with your first line by making a promise, sharing behind-the-scenes of a success story, or addressing a pain point you know your target audience has.
Hopefully, these tips will help you on your LinkedIn journey. If there are other strategies that have worked for you, please feel free to share them in the comments.
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