LinkedIn Post Analysis

I asked listeners to the podcast if they would be prepared to have me critically appraise their LinkedIn posts... Funnily enough, I didn't get many volunteers! But all credit to Patrick Twitchett for being brave enough to give it a go....

In this episode, I look at four of Patricks’ recent posts and provide feedback on why they have succeeded or bombed!

This article has also been recorded as a podcast;

Linkedinformed on Google podcasts / LinkedInformed on Apple podcasts

But first…

Interesting Stuff I Saw This Week

LinkedIn recently confirmed that they are working on an audio Clubhouse type feature and now Alessandro has found some evidence by reverse-engineering the Android app;

What I find interested and somewhat concerning is that LinkedIn seem to have decided to include Audio as a type of Event. Whilst this makes perfect sense, we all know that LinkedIn Events is a very poorly designed feature, especially when it comes to searching for events.

• You can’t filter an events search by ‘LinkedIn Live’ at the moment and this will likely be the same for Audio
• You can’t sort by the date of event currently
• You can’t filter an event search by ‘Live now’ or ‘Live today’
• This is very worrying but not surprising. How do LinkedIn always manage to copy a feature and somehow make it worse?!

LinkedIn have published a B2B Thought Leadership Flywheel in conjunction with Edelman

That is a seriously cheesy and somewhat ridiculous name but the report is actually worth a read. There are six key points listed to becoming a thought leader.

1. White Space: Carve Your Niche

One of the most critical qualities of indispensable thought leadership content is that it can’t be found elsewhere. You want to address topics and points of view that aren’t well covered by others. To facilitate this, you should reach for the intersection between:

• Timely industry trends
• Customer pain points
• Your company’s growth priorities

Consider differentiating your point of view from existing content by taking a contrarian or unexpected angle. Use bold and imaginative storytelling techniques to stand out from the crowd.

2. Relevance: Map to Customer Needs

Aim to be more specific than general. The most impactful thought leadership is laser-focused and speaks directly to a narrowly defined industry, buying committee function, or set of companies. Engage with the sales team and customer relationship managers early in the content development process so that your content is shaped by first-hand insights drawn from real experiences. 

3. Vision: Chart a Path for the Industry

Don’t settle for explaining what’s happening; take the next step by explaining why it’s happening. Tie business challenges to underlying causes and help your audience make sense of trends in the bigger picture. By doing so, you can paint a realistic picture of what’s to come, helping business leaders anticipate their own customers’ expectations and stay ahead of the competition. 

This is a true signature of thought leadership that is valued by senior decision-makers and executives, who think about their businesses more holistically. Visionary ideas can inspire and stimulate demand.

4. Trust: Become a Go-to Source

The recently-released Edelman Trust Barometer 2021 reveals a unique opportunity: respondents cited businesses as being more trusted than NGOs, government, or media entities. Brands can capitalize on this trend by reinforcing trust at a time where other institutions are losing it. 

A few tips for building trust with your thought leadership

• Put relatable and authentic human faces on the content by featuring your own employees, executives, and subject matter experts.
• Invest in creating journalistic-quality content that goes beyond product promotion and delivers meaningful value for your audience.
• Demonstrate consistency and longevity to establish yourself as a reliable go-to source.
• Align with trusted third-party voices who are recognized and respected by your audience.

5. Brevity: Keep It Concise

Business decision-makers, especially those in the C-suite, are pressed for time. An hour-long video or 2,000-word writeup is likely to be pushed aside at a glance. Keep it brief and rapidly digestible. Enough said.

6. Attribution: Measure Accurately

Thought leadership is by nature a quality-over-quantity approach, so gauging success based on vanity metrics like impressions and clicks can be counterproductive. The goal for high-level thought leadership is not to be seen by the most people possible, it’s to be seen by the most influential people possible. 

Build a reflective attribution model by identifying what success ultimately looks like and working backward. Align sales and marketing to pinpoint prioritized KPIs, whether account lift, MQLs, SQLs, or otherwise. Measure impact on customer behavior, not a number of eyeballs. Adopt tools that allow you to track customer actions across channels after they’ve engaged with your thought leadership. (For example, LinkedIn’s Conversion Tracking.)

You can download the full pocket guide here



Invitation restrictions seemed to be having some impact now as I’ve seen several people complaining that they can no longer send stacks of invites to a ‘targeted’ audience without getting into trouble. Whilst I’m sure a few innocent users will get caught in the net, I largely applaud this move as the majority of guilty parties are just abusing LinkedIn and ruining the experience for many others.

I came across yet another Jobs posting scandal this week when a Recruitment business informed me that a bad actor had been posting jobs on their page with a dodgy application link asking candidates (often people who are quite vulnerable at the moment) to provide information that could be used in bad faith or/and clicking on a phishing link.

This was reported to LinkedIn and all they have done is remove the jobs. The process could be repeated again tomorrow!

It is a complete disgrace that LinkedIn have still not sorted this issue. It’s not that they haven’t been aware of it or can’t find a solution…they know what the problem is and could easily fix it but refuse because it will negatively impact their job ad revenue.

Another example of the contradiction in their mantra ‘Members first’!!!

Do comment replies count?

Richard Van Der Blom posted last week that ‘comments on comments’ no longer impact the algorithm.

To my knowledge, replies to comments never have!

But it does depend on what he means. You will never see a post in your feed because someone you follow replied to a comment. That has always been the case. It is possible that the number of comments (inc replies) did trigger a further distribution of a post by the algorithm and it would make sense that they have stopped this from happening.

After all, the algorithm’s job is to judge whether a post is popular and replies are not really an indication of that.

LinkedIn Post Analysis

A big thank you to Patrick for volunteering to have his posts scrutinised in this way. I do believe that this is one of the best ways to learn how to post successfully.

The biggest factor in the success of a post is ALWAYS going to be the content subject. If you get this right, then other techniques matter much less but you can enhance the impact of a less impressive topic by getting the structure right.

I have added a brief summary under each post but I go into much more detail in the podcast.

So here are the four posts I discuss in this episode;

The structure is fine but the link between the grandchildren and the serious message about reflecting before judging doesn’t really work. Do the first 5 lines find the balance of being comment-worthy and providing an incentive to click on the 'see more'? Is there enough in the first 5 lines to stop the scroll? Finally, it feels a bit 'preachy' - a better approach would be to recount a personal experience where you have been too quick to judge - the lesson is so much easier to learn when we understand it from this perspective rather than being told what to do.

An excellent image post from Patrick. The image leads you to read the text which is a positive, encouraging, and personal story of triumph over adversity. Patrick shows authenticity and real vulnerability here and the LinkedIn community always loves a story like that!

The first 3 lines are not effective, the post is largely promotional and there are no captions on the video. For most casual viewers this is simply a Star Wars clip with a few lines promoting an event! Patrick actually narrates over this video and I would imagine he spent a fair amount of time putting it together. This is a classic example of 'Effort does not always equal reward'!

A rare example of a re-share doing well. The video is a powerful message and has a brief caption as an explanation. Video can work as a re-share if it’s a great piece of video content, especially when you add a short, clear question as Patrick did here. All that said, Patrick would have got even better results had he posted the video directly himself (that is all Shubhangi did, the video is not hers!).

Post Of The Week

What a fantastic text post from Donnie!

It’s highly topical but also full of hope and positivity. The structure is great and tagging his wife and giving her such public praise is the kind of content the LinkedIn community absolutely loves!

This article has also been recorded as a podcast;

Linkedinformed on Google podcasts / LinkedInformed on Apple podcasts