How to Increase Your LinkedIn Readership Without Looking Desperate

Many B2B professionals have noticed a decrease in the quality of posts on LinkedIn over the past year, and unsurprisingly this has led to a decrease in views as well as engagement for many of those posts. In order to avoid falling into that same trap, there are some things you can do which will help your posts get more notice and greater engagement, without making the same desperate attempts evident in many of last year's posts.In order to avoid the pitfalls of vanity metrics, it would be to your advantage to adopt a LinkedIn content strategy that will not only increase your viewership on LinkedIn, but will also cause you to be considered a trusted authority in your particular niche. Below are identified some of the most common pitfalls and traps which you should avoid, in order to consistently create worthwhile content for LinkedIn, and to increase your standing with your followers.

Avoid posting too frequently

Keep in mind that LinkedIn is not the same kind of platform as Twitter, and you don't need to post a whole barrage of content to get noticed. All that does is create a whole bunch of background noise which will probably smother any content of value that you might've posted. It will probably also annoy most of your followers, even to the point that they might be tempted to Unfollow you. Instead, what you should do is post content only when you have something of value to share with your followers, even if that amounts to no more than twice a week.

Post appropriate LinkedIn content

LinkedIn is not like any of the other social media platforms currently operating, because it has a definite inclination toward the business side of online interactions. That means that goofy memes and mindless, off-the-wall posts have no real value on LinkedIn, and will probably garner little or no attention. You may already have noticed a whole slew of images on LinkedIn which depict silly scenes of dogs chasing their tails or other personal moments like people on vacation – these are simply not valuable on LinkedIn.If you consider LinkedIn to be an online version of your workplace, you'll have a good guideline for the type of images and other content you should be posting. To make sure your content is appropriate for LinkedIn, consider whether or not it's something you would say while you are actually in the workplace. In other words, keep it professional, and avoid posting personal information or any kinds of goofy images on the platform.

Fishing to generate engagement

When you post comments on LinkedIn about recent or popular events and solicit user feedback, your post might be timely or even controversial, but it doesn't have much to do with business at all. When you create posts like this, it's obvious to most readers that your fishing for comments and likes, and it could very well end up working against you and killing your brand.People that do respond to such posts are not likely to be potential customers, nor will they add any value to your business. Also when you create such posts, it sends the message that you're not really serious about conducting business on the platform, and that you're all about posting click-bait. It's okay to pose questions on the platform, but make sure those are questions related to business and that they have relevance to your audience.

Avoid vanity metrics

While it may be nice to receive a lot of likes and comments on a post that you've made, you shouldn't be fooled by such vanity metrics. Instead, you should consider whether your post is relevant and whether it has provided value to your clients. Has it solved a problem that your client has, or has it somehow helped them overcome a challenge in their daily lives?Perhaps most important of all, has your post caused your clients and potential clients to trust you and appreciate your brand more than they did prior to the post? Posts which feature relevant and quality content are much more valuable and effective than high numbers of likes or comments. You should pay attention to those posts which have the most visibility amongst your followers, because those are the ones which probably are solving a problem, and are truly helping users in their daily lives.

Don't get caught up in excess of tagging

When you become involved with too much tagging in your posts, your more educated readers will immediately identify this as you begging for engagement and for additional visibility. Keep in mind that LinkedIn's algorithm has evolved to the point where it now minimizes newsfeed posts when people who are tagged in those posts fail to engage with it.You're much better off only tagging someone when a specific post is relevant to them, because inappropriate or excessive tagging just declares to everyone how desperate you are for attention. What you should be doing is tagging people when you are sharing a quote they've made, some kind of image of them, or some content which they have created. You can also alert readers to a post that you've made in the comments section, so that you can avoid indiscriminate tagging and spamming.

Avoid attention-seeking videos

You may have noticed a number of videos on LinkedIn lately which look so over-the-top that they're actually laughable. The numbers of these kinds of videos are actually on the increase, presumably because many users think they are effective and don't want to get left behind. The thing is, it's very easy to be engaging and enthusiastic without looking desperate, and trying too hard to get attention.More and more people are beginning to ignore these outlandish videos, simply because they have no relevance to them, and because they're better suited to other platforms. If you engage in creating these kinds of attention-getting videos, you're pretty much identifying yourself as someone desperate for engagement and attention, but someone who is not serious about conducting business. There's no question you can create exciting and enthusiastic videos, but make sure to keep them appropriate for the platform, so they will retain their inherent value.