Dear readers, this is my last column. After five years, 256 columns and 150,000 words on sales and social media, I am hanging up the keyboard. Why? Well, when I first started this column, I had a lot of relationships in the PCB industry, and this figured to be where work would come from for me. And it did—for a while.
But then I started to build a following on LinkedIn, based on my weekly posts there. And business started coming my way from that following. I started a program of introducing my LinkedIn connections to possible business partners and they started sending prospective customers to me.
Before writing this, I looked through my books and found that 100% of my new clients in the past year were people I did not know one year ago. They either found me on LinkedIn or were referred to me by one of my LinkedIn connections.
So I am proof that this social media stuff works. And I still firmly believe that social media—in particular LinkedIn, but also YouTube and Twitter—can work for manufacturers out there. It allows you to show, very inexpensively, that you are a company—or a person—to be taken seriously. Guy Kawasaki said it best a few years ago, “Social media is for people with brains, but no money.”
To everyone who has read my columns over the past five years, thank you. And now to the column.
I have been publishing on LinkedIn for eighteen months now, and have written a hundred or so posts. I was looking at some of my posts and the engagement they had generated and wondered if any of the obvious factors really had any bearing. So I compared how my posts had done with other people who publish on LinkedIn and I compared their statistics with mine to see if there were clues that were precursors to success.
I concluded that the following have little or no bearing on how much engagement a post gets.
1. The total number of posts published on LinkedIn do not matter.
Your total number of posts published seems to have no bearing on the success of future posts, that is, people who have many more posts than I do don’t seem to average more views and engagement with their posts than me. Of course, their aggregate views may be higher. If I have 20 posts at 200 views and they have 40 posts at 200 views, they have more total views.
Lesson learned: Don’t be deterred from publishing your own posts on LinkedIn because you can never catch up to someone who has posted every week for the last two years. You are starting with a fresh page, but so is that prolific person who posts each week.
2. Engaging with other people’s posts and updates has no discernible effect.
I looked through the activity for 10 people who publish their own posts on LinkedIn. More engagement with other people’s posts and status updates does not necessarily appear to lead those people to your posts. Several people I looked at have three and four times the number of status updates and comments on other people’s posts as I did in the last month, yet seemed to average the same post statistics as I did.
Lesson learned: You don’t need to strive to be visible on LinkedIn for your posts to be successful.
3. Monster posts don’t have much, if any, spillover effect on future posts.
Having a monster post with tons of views and engagement doesn’t necessarily help with the next post’s reception. I have even seen this with the influencer posts:
Lesson learned: Don’t think that a monster post is necessary to be successful. And if you have a monster post, don’t think you can cruise from now on based on that post. You are guaranteed no views or comments on your next post—just ask Jeff.
4. Post frequency has no impact.
Publishing more often doesn’t seem to change the results on a per-post basis, even if you post once a month, twice a month, every week, or multiple times a day! I reviewed several people who post a lot less often than I do and much more often than I do and our statistics were very close.
Lesson learned: Post on your own schedule, not someone else’s.
5. People with larger numbers of followers do not get more views per follower.
I have 5500 followers. Jeff Haden has 890,000 (between the time I wrote this and published it he may have picked up another 5500). I did some calculations based on the last nine posts we have each published (Jeff has only published nine times in the past year). Some interesting results:
Jeff’s number of followers is more than 160x mine. Here are three observations:
Grand Conclusion: You can’t “game” (or trick or deceive) the LinkedIn algorithm with any of these things.
However, based on my own experience, here are five factors that do seem to affect overall engagement:
And one last point on your number of followers. Regular readers who like, comment and share your posts should help. I have a pretty good following (thank you), but ironically, due to the nature of LinkedIn’s lousy notifications algorithm, only a very few of them actually do get notified when I post.
Hmm...looks like I won’t be notifying LinkedIn about this post either.
Bruce Johnston is an authority on using LinkedIn to increase B2B sales. He has more than 30 years’ experience in high-tech sales and management and more than 10 years working in the PCB industry. To read past columns or to contact Bruce, click here.
01-31-2017
Dear readers, this is my last column. After five years, 256 columns and 150,000 words on sales and social media, I am hanging up the keyboard. Why? Well, when I first started this column, I had a lot of relationships in the PCB industry, and this figured to be where work would come from for me. And it did—for a while.
View Story01-24-2017
Last spring, I wrote about a hoary old (for social media) statistic and showed how people liked to take it completely out of context to use as proof of whatever it was they were flogging. Well, it hasn’t stopped. I found more. Here are four of them.
View Story01-17-2017
LinkedIn announced Q3 2016 results on October 27. There are now 467 million LinkedIn members. They also announced 106 million unique monthly logins, which means that 106 million people now log in once a month or more.
View Story01-10-2017
The purpose of your LinkedIn Profile’s headline is to get people to read your Profile. And the profile headline has the distinction of being the most under-utilized part of most people’s profiles. Why? Because most people just list their title.
View Story01-03-2017
In the announcement accompanying the LinkedIn acquisition, Microsoft made it clear that one of their goals was the “acceleration” of premium membership sales. A few weeks ago, I suggested that the big opportunity was in Sales Navigator subscriptions. Now it appears LinkedIn has begun setting the stage to start herding members currently using free accounts for business purposes towards Sales Navigator or Business Premium accounts.
View Story12-30-2016
If you can answer “true” to the following statements, you are in good shape. Otherwise, you should be using LinkedIn—effectively.
View Story12-27-2016
One day, Goldilocks was out for a walk in the forest, and she came upon a cottage. Going inside she found three tables with three laptop computers, all with LinkedIn accounts open on their screens. Each screen had an InMail message on it.
View Story12-20-2016
In many cases, the “wrong” is an inordinately high expectation level as to what that InMail is going to accomplish. For example, you are going to need some pretty extraordinary justification to get a CEO to agree to a sales call based on your InMail message.
View Story12-13-2016
This is the third of five columns on how to write more effective LinkedIn InMails and messages that will get responses from your prospects.
View Story12-06-2016
Simple message today: Try basing your messages and InMails on the person, not just the person’s title. That means, do your research. Before you send a message to someone you have never spoken to before, read their LinkedIn profile.
View Story11-29-2016
Prior to January 2015, if no one answered an InMail within a specified period, LinkedIn would give the sender a credit and they could try again. When some LinkedIn members realized that LinkedIn had installed what was effectively a reward system for failure, those members proceeded to carpet bomb LinkedIn members with all kinds of rotten sales pitches.
View Story11-22-2016
Last week someone liked one of my posts and I thought it was someone I knew from an old employer so I went looking at their profile. Wrong person. Oh, well. But then I went to their recent activity page. This person had liked my post—and 94 other posts in the space of one hour. Zero interaction with any of them other than likes. It was like this LinkedIn member had posted their whole home page feed to the recent activity page. I had discovered a serial liker.
View Story11-15-2016
There are two types of notifications on LinkedIn: the ones at the top right of your screen with a little red number superimposed on the flag—ones that I imaginatively refer to as “red flag” notifications—and “feed” notifications, which consist of notifications dumped in your homepage feed. I don’t know about you, but I receive something on the order of 400 items in my homepage feed every hour, which renders the odds of seeing any one notification as extremely small.
View Story11-08-2016
There are a lot of different ways to engage with posts and articles on LinkedIn. Here is my guide to the relative merits of different types of engagements from least valuable to most valuable.
View Story11-01-2016
I got to thinking about this the other day while talking about content marketing and how content marketing has been around for a long time. Advances have just changed the way that content is delivered.
View Story12-29-2015
Columnist Bruce Johnston reviews the benefits of social media: what it can and can't do for you. Social media and its offshoots, social media marketing and social selling, are tools— no more, no less. They take advantage of your prospects’ habits, who are using social media themselves. Understand the limitations, but use the tools to your advantage.
View Story12-22-2015
Let me start by asking you which is better: Cold calling and pitching someone, or having a friend tell one of their colleagues that they should be talking with you and arranging an introduction?
View Story12-15-2015
A couple of months back LinkedIn completely overhauled their LinkedIn Groups offering. Much was made of the new look and feel and how the groups feature has become more user friendly, but LinkedIn also took the opportunity to remove some functionality that was very salesperson friendly.
View Story12-08-2015
There are two parts to a LinkedIn company page: the reference or factual section and the updates section. The reference section is where a company can list the nuts and bolts—industry, location, specialties and company size—plus a free form area for a summary of what the company does. This is an opportunity to state clearly what the benefits to a customer. That part of the company page is findable via LinkedIn search, so it is similar to a free yellow pages ad.
View Story12-01-2015
I have written a column for the I-Connect007 folks every week for just shy of four years now. It amounts to about 100,000 words, more or less. Doing all this writing has taught me a lot about the process, and a lot about myself. Here are seven lessons I have learned which may help anyone who is thinking about writing content for their company.
View Story11-24-2015
In early October, LinkedIn announced major changes to LinkedIn Groups. While there will be more work for people who own and manage their own groups, users will be able to join twice as many groups—100— and it appears LinkedIn has a workable strategy to cut down on spam in groups. I run several groups, both my own and on behalf of clients, and I see these changes as very positive.
View Story11-17-2015
Last time, we talked about some of the sales oriented activities that you can do using social media, specifically to find prospective customers and then approach them. Today we will talk about the third way to use social media to increase your sales, which focuses on trust. How do you convince potential customers they should give you their business?
View Story11-10-2015
In this first part of a two-part article on increasing sales, I’m going to explain some of the alternative sales-oriented activities that you can engage in using social media to boost your sales. Always bear in mind that social networks are just tools, but the more tools you have at your disposal, the more flexible your approach can be as the situation dictates.
View Story11-03-2015
The sales tool I am referring to in the title of this column is the free messaging for LinkedIn group members. It’s a system where members can contact anyone in a LinkedIn group who is also a member—for free.
View Story10-27-2015
LinkedIn’s social selling index (SSI), previously offered to Sales Navigator users, is now available to everyone. There have been a bunch of posts and columns on it, most of them of the breathless “Have you got your social selling index score yet?” variety, where the author uses his own exemplary (surprise!) score in the illustration, and the content of the post consists of a show up and throw up regurgitation of the LinkedIn press release.
View Story12-29-2014
Everyone wants more sales and more sales leads, but in an eagerness to generate those leads many companies make the same mistakes over and over again--and then wonder what went wrong. How many of these traits are you guilty of?
View Story12-22-2014
When you're perceived as being the guy with the answers, you win. Your website is the place to demonstrate your knowledge. Don't be that guy with the equipment list. Be the guy with the answers.
View Story12-22-2014
When you're perceived as being the guy with the answers, you win. Your website is the place to demonstrate your knowledge. Don't be that guy with the equipment list. Be the guy with the answers.
View Story12-15-2014
Columnist Bruce Johnston writes, "What if I told you that having a huge number of LinkedIn connections almost guarantees a sales rep will achieve his sales quota? Today, this and 14 other mind-boggling social media statistics from around the web."
View Story12-15-2014
Columnist Bruce Johnston writes, "What if I told you that having a huge number of LinkedIn connections almost guarantees a sales rep will achieve his sales quota? Today, this and 14 other mind-boggling social media statistics from around the web."
View Story12-08-2014
You have a choice between the "big four" social media platforms--Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn--plus any number of smaller, new, and emerging social networks trying to gain traction. What should you do? Easy. Just ask your customers.
View Story12-01-2014
Why is content marketing such a big deal? One word: Credibility. Content marketing allows a company to showcase its knowledge in its area of expertise. It's one thing to say you're the best at something, but content marketing allows you to back up your claim.
View Story12-01-2014
Why is content marketing such a big deal? One word: Credibility. Content marketing allows a company to showcase its knowledge in its area of expertise. It's one thing to say you're the best at something, but content marketing allows you to back up your claim.
View Story12-01-2014
Why is content marketing such a big deal? One word: Credibility. Content marketing allows a company to showcase its knowledge in its area of expertise. It's one thing to say you're the best at something, but content marketing allows you to back up your claim.
View Story11-24-2014
With 80% of professionals using LinkedIn on at least a weekly basis, the site is a tool that should be part of a company’s marketing kit. Companies and staff can use LinkedIn in many ways to both raise their visibility and establish credibility with prospective customers. Bruce Johnston offers 10 examples that don't cost a cent.
View Story12-30-2013
Resolve to be a little bit better. But don't try to run a marathon by April if you are out of breath just getting to the fridge for another beer. Be realistic, but do resolve to up your social media game in 2014.
View Story12-16-2013
Starting off slowly in social media is a good idea. Trying to do too much, too quickly, is a sure ticket to frustration and pain. In his latest column, Bruce Johnston recommends five social media starting points.
View Story11-25-2013
Content is one of the most important aspects of social media marketing: Content shows you are a leader, it shows you have something to say, it shows that you are credible, it is information your customers can use, and it shows that you are a supplier that's worth considering.
View Story11-11-2013
There are a wealth of ways and opportunities to use LinkedIn that will improve your professional life. What benefits are there, what returns on your investment from the time and effort you put in to LinkedIn can you expect?
View Story09-23-2013
There are numerous schools of thought on how often and how hard you should be able to pitch your product or services in your social networks. There is general agreement that for every 10 to 20 pieces of helpful, informative, and entertaining content, you earn the right to make a pitch.
View Story09-16-2013
Are you wondering why you aren't getting value from your LinkedIn Groups? You're probably exhibiting one or more these bad habits.
View Story09-02-2013
So why did LinkedIn get rid of Signal? Who knows? Aside from the usual vague "we're always improving LinkedIn" explanation, the company had nothing to say. It was probably due to a combination of being little used, little understood, and replaceable with other features.
View Story08-19-2013
Last summer Bruce Johnston wrote a column about Judy Warner, sales and marketing manager at Transline Technology Inc. The column revolved around her unique approach of using social media, and in particular LinkedIn, as the central part of her sales efforts. One year later, Johnston catches up with Warner to see how business continues to change and improve.
View Story08-12-2013
The role of a website has evolved and if you still have a boring, static site, you're missing a huge opportunity. It used to be that prospective customers would go to a website to check specs and capabilities. For all intents and purposes, it was an online brochure. Brochures can only last a year or two before they become outdated--a static website served this purpose well. Websites are now becoming newsmagazines
View Story07-22-2013
LinkedIn is the prospect database that updates itself. If you have a prospect in your e-mail database and he changes companies, bye-bye, he's gone. If that prospect is a LinkedIn connection, he's still a connection, just one at a different company.
View Story12-31-2012
There are three things that you give in return for the right to use a social network. Each may have a small cost and, in aggregate, they are usually well worth the benefits you receive, but you should probably be more aware of them than you are now.
View Story12-24-2012
So, you think you know all there is to know about using social media to boost your company's image and sales? Think again. Bruce Johnston does a bit of digging to debunk several myths related to Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and more.
View Story12-17-2012
Social media requires a different mindset, but it's not rocket science. Bruce Johnston tells you what you must do to get sales leads and turn them into sales using social media.
View Story12-10-2012
How can companies use social media to earn higher prices? By building trust and credibility--traits that customers will pay more for.
View Story12-03-2012
Social media can help companies stop competing on price by increasing a company's reach; that is, the number of people that know about the company. The more people that know about a company, the larger the number of people where price is not their prime consideration in selecting a vendor.
View Story11-19-2012
Everyone asks me where to put their content. With so many platforms to choose from, which is best for your purposes? Easy. Go where your customers are.
View Story11-12-2012
Salespeople often take different approaches to LinkedIn, and Bruce Johnston sees the same types over and over again. Follow along and see how many of these people you've come across.
View Story11-05-2012
Social media allows you the opportunity to be perceived as a leader. Presidents and CEOs who are active and speak out on social media are seen as industry leaders. They aren’t just worried about what’s going on in their plant; they have something to say about things affecting their industry.
View Story10-29-2012
Social media: It's about business, money, finding more prospects, making more sales, and having better, deeper relationships with your customers. Social media can help you become more profitable and put dollars in your pocket.
View Story10-22-2012
What can you tell about a company from its presence on LinkedIn? A lot. There are tools and tricks found on LinkedIn that can help you figure out quite a bit about a company.
View Story
