Looking at the wrong LinkedIn metrics? Are you guilty of looking and focusing on inefficient LinkedIn metrics? There are some an old sayings,
Just because you can measure something,
does not mean you should.
And
What gets measured gets done.
Looking at the wrong LinkedIn metrics?
Why do we focus on some metrics and not others? Dowe look at the right or wrong LinkedIn metrics?
I was at a networking event recently and the talk was about LinkedIn Posts/ articles and how to increase the view count. Indeed some people are using POD groups to lift their posts. Good for them, but is this vanity or sanity? It may ad views, but does it create more enquiries?
It helps to start with the premise much like finance –
Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity and cash is reality (king)
When it comes to LinkedIn, over the years they have removed most of the useful viewable metrics. Then a few years ago they launched “LinkedIn Pulse”, their publishing platform, and with it came the count of views. Recently “Pulse” has been retired but articles are still there along with the metrics of views. Many in the social media world are attempting the ‘game’ the views, with the aim of increasing connections and visibility. But is this helpful?
Back to basics first to avoid Looking at the wrong LinkedIn metrics.
Assuming we have a blog of our own, the aim of any and all social media is to get people to our site. It is about raising our profile. All the best marketers will say have one point of focus (your blog or web) and do lots of supporting activity to get people to it.
This means any post on LinkedIn should drive people back to your blog.
There is an argument that says if your LinkedIn article has a link away from LinkedIn, they won’t show the article to many people. I get that. But to me, it is stilling missing the point.
The main aim of LinkedIn is to “show you know” and build credibility…. AND drive traffic to your blog or site.
What does this mean?
The VANITY of article views is useful IF it drives traffic to your blog. For me, there are much more important metrics that drive LinkedIn and having a few hundred people read your post.
Back in 2015 I wrote this post – https://rapidbi.com/purpose-of-linkedin-ninja-tips-for-raising-your-profile-to-increase-job-or-consulting-prospects/ This was in conjunction with some research I had been carrying out – https://rapidbi.com/follow-the-leader-how-to-raise-your-linkedin-profile/
At this time we could see a lot more metrics… but why do this?
- The number 1 reason to have LinkedIn is to get seen
- The number 2 reason is to increase your LinkedIn ‘SEO’. Yes people search within LinkedIn, so make sure you are seen
Having content is not good enough. When people look for what we can do we need to be found. We need to be in the TOP search results. This is the most important use of LinkedIn to me. It’s vital to ‘rank high’ if you are a job seeker OR a consultant / professional.
THERE IS NO POINT BEING THERE IF YOU APPEAR ON PAGE 5!
In recent years LinkedIn has removed the statistics that help us see how this works. But the reality is the SEO criteria appears to be broadly the same.
Our goal needs to be seen on LinkedIn, not just ON LinkedIn
Ignore the vanity metrics
Yes, we need to “show we know”. Yes, we need to keep active. But there are activities that can really drive this. Having 200, 2000 views of an article is VANITY if they do not lead to phone calls or sales. It is better to focus on things that take traffic to our websites and blogs.
Gaming LinkedIn
You cannot just buy this ranking. You have to earn it. There are 2 ways to earn it:
- Game the system a little to give yourself a boost
- Take action to increase your profile and credibility
The first should be “quick and dirty”, the second is where we need to invest some time.
The approach outlined in https://rapidbi.com/follow-the-leader-how-to-raise-your-linkedin-profile/ – still works. Unfortunately, the direct metrics are now hidden from us. Here are some comment s from recent team members
If using LinkedIn for business, or any other social media platform for that matter, we need to remember its purpose in our strategy. Is the goal to “sell” through LinkedIn, or is the goal to sell through your site?
If selling through your own site, then your ONLY goal for LinkedIn should be to get more traffic to your site. There is a secondary goal of increasing your credibility. If so where are your “calls to action”?
There are more effective ways of getting people to look at your profile
If getting more connections and raising your LinkedIn profile is your goal, there are faster and easier ways of getting this than writing articles and sharing articles of others. Sharing other peoples content is ok, but it should be secondary.
The 2 things you need to do are:
- In the First and last line of your LinkedIn summary add a call to action with either your phone number or link to your website
- Search for people that MIGHT buy your stuff and view their profiles. Many people will then view back. If they can EASILY find your contact details, or a low-risk call to action “View my site at…” they will!
Keep stuff simple I say!
One quote from the community I am involved in that uses this system:
and
If you want to be a part of this group, join up – there is no cost. We operate on a “Pay it Forward” mentality.
Footnote,
Unfortunately, LinkedIn now hide the metrics we used to be able to see, however they still use them for ranking, so to some extent this is a leap of faith, but do it consistantly and people do see the impact!
The Insanity of looking at the “wrong” metrics LinkedIn articles
Useful links to read – https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8447484/8447484-6247503934106189825
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8447484/8447484-6243408331680153602
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