So, You Want to "do Linkedin" better?

"I really want to start doing more on Linkedin these days .... but ..."

If you have said, or thought this at any point, then this article is for you, I'm going to get you started with some basic but important tips, help you get clear on "why" and show you some easy ways to stand out from all the noise.

I tend to hear people make this statement this a lot. The "but" is usually one of:

1. I don't know where to start
2. I'm just not good at that stuff
3. I can never find time

In this blog I'm going to talk about what you need to know to build your professional online profile, and I'm going to leave you with a simple 5-step "how-to" challenge that will set you well on your way to some of the right habits. Firstly though, the right question to start with is - why do anything at all on Linkedin? Answering this question well allows us to get clarity on our intention, and doing so enables us to better align our impact with our intention, and - like so many things in life - this helps remove a common barrier to success.

 But before we cover that, let's debunk those oft-heard myths I mentioned at the start that get in the way of people even starting to make the small daily/weekly investments that would otherwise make the difference over time

• “I don’t know how to do it”

=>Self-fulfilling prophecy: you learn by trying, if you don't try you'll never learn

• “ I don’t have enough expert knowledge for my contributions to be worthwhile”

=>It’s not about what you know, but how you use it - getting to the crux of an issue or bringing clarity is often a lot more helpful than having the deepest knowledge

• “It doesn’t come naturally, I’m not that type of person”

=>Fixed mindset fallacy, everyone can learn & develop, small gains compound

• “I don’t have time”

=>Making it a habit/reflexive reduces time cost to very little. Also this often boils down to a more practical challenge of not having the right content easily to hand at the exact moment when you do have time available. This can be solved with content strategies so you easily have some ideas of what to post.

And finally, another one that missed inclusion initially in this blog but has come to my attention more recently:

• I'm just a bit scared of putting myself out there ...

This one probably needs a bit more unpacking. Scared of what? Looking stupid perhaps. Saying something wrong. My experience is that (i) everyone suffers from this to some extent and (ii) these are usually vastly overblown fears. Linkedin is a pretty "safe" space where people are very respectful and very very rarely openly critical or confrontational .. in contrast with say, twitter. In my experience the worst that can happen is that no-one sees your post, which while frustrating is not actually that bad.

 Right, now we've got those out of the way, let's turn to the first big question ...

Why do it?

 Now lets be honest no-one reading this is likely to be working off getting paid by clicks/likes (probably, yet! I did put the idea out there when I joined LCP, but they didn't go for it …). But it is important to be clear on why you doing this rather than question each time you are trying to make a post, as not being clear on why will prove a barrier - it'll always be easier to not do it on any given day or week and we easily fall into that trap if intent is not clearly visible to us.

The first thing you need to understand is it is not about sales in a transactional sense. You will almost never be able to tie "sales" and individual opportunities back to individual posts or linkedin activity - don't try that, don't expect it, you'll just end up disappointed if you expect it to work like that.

There are actually quite a lot of different valid objectives you might take though, a lot of these are related but slightly different. It is worth the time to think carefully through which apply to you. Deciding on your aims here is one decision that can make a thousand others.

So do you want to....

Raise your individual profile (increase awareness among key groups, promote specialist knowledge, be seen as industry thought leader) - if you are in a role where you are selling your professional services then this will drive opportunities and success through time in the role that you are in, but is different to a transactional sales mindset

Perhaps you want to establish your individual credibility (among a certain group, in certain area). You might have very specialised skills and experience in a particualar area that you want your wider industry to know about.

 Maybe you want to position as industry expert / thought leader / influencer as a goal in its own right as distinct from business development, it all depends your goals and what motivates you (status, social, prestige, credibility)

Who wouldn't like to be better known by decision makers before you get in the pitch room? A good social profile can really help with this.

Perhaps you want to have a greater reach for potential opportunities: more potential clients to be aware of you, what you offer, and why you are different (in a competitive world)

 Perhaps you are looking to be a positive force in your immediate sphere of influence, improve or drive change in your industry or area - in this case a social profile presence would be a vital part of that sort of campaign.

 Also don't forget the secondary objectives that a strong Linkedin profile can be a stepping stone to:

• More likely to be asked to speak at conferences if have good online profile, write articles, participate in industry groups, bodies. Represent to government and overseas etc.
• Next role. It is hard to know what the future holds, a change of industry, break into entrepreneurship, independent contracting, a particular passion project. All of these are situations where a strong professional network clearly holds a lot of value. And the right time to build it is not when you have already made the move (although even then it is not too late and a lot of the advice in this blog will still help).

While we're on the subject it is worth noting a couple of bonus multiplier and side-effects:

Multiplier effects: more connections increases likes , engagement. Network effect.

Multiplier effect around conferences and events - easier to get a lot of engagement.

 Bonus side-effect: more engagement with social media means easier to stay on the pulse of industry news, research pieces, interesting content etc.

You may well hav identified a number of objectives from those above that interest you. Even if you have said yes to just one of the above points, well, we may as well make our efforts most effective. The difference between well-performing and low performing posts in my experience can be 100x number of views, so if we are doing this we may as well aim to get the most out of our efforts.

Get clear on what your own objective are to align impact with intent, and be thoughtful on what you want your footprint to be

If you are going to do it, you may as well do it well, so our second question is ..

What do you need to know?

 Linkedin I think is by far most important social network for professional stuff particularly in UK pensions and institutional investing. Twitter might be useful a bit, depending on your target audience and who/how wide you want to reach but it is much more noisy and open. Look it has to be said at this point that yes, Linkedin can be awfully noisy, and has plenty of "look-at-me" shallow cringe inducing type content (on that note this twitter account is well worth a follow for a good laugh at the worst of Linkedin) but don't let that put you off! I believe there is room for genuine content and that people actually look at and respond well to genuine stuff.

The first thing you'll need is a decent size network, as without that the best content in the world isn't going to stand a chance of getting seen. The big benchmark to aim for here is 500 connections (so your profile shows the "500+" mark) you should think of this as pretty standard for anyone taking linkedin seriously and to be honest anyone with a decent amount of experience in our industry ought to have a network that size in theory (think colleagues, ex-colleagues, clients, prosepcts, contacts, lawyers, competitors, actuaries, asset managers, recruiters etc). From there you can look to build it be say 1-200 per year as you meet people in day to day business, conferences, events etc. For those starting out in the industry the 500 number is a good target to build towards as you meet people and systematically connect with them.

The single biggest Linkedin tip is ...

The Linkedin feed is now algorithmic (like all social media since around 2015/6). That is the first thing you need to understand as you think about posting content. What you see in your feed is not a timeline of what your contacts have posted but an algorithmically curated list based on various factors. This has HUGE implications for how to create content that sticks and goes wide. It's not that hard though and there are some quick wins. Not every post that follows these rules will go viral of course, but consistently doing some or all of these things will help maximise your impact. This blog provides great info on what the algorithm does.

 So posting time is less relevant, more important is understand what the linkedin algo "likes". Again, we are not trying to optimise like clickbait, but helps to know so we get maximum impact. Here's a helpful reference piece on how some of these algorithms work, here's another good piece. And here’s Linkedin’s Pete Davies giving us some more insight into what goes into our feed.

 The first rule is - never just hit the share button on Linkedin - don't ask me why but the algo HATES content that originates from hitting share on something else. Don't bother, its just not worth the effort for the small number of people that will see it.

 Much better to create simple content which the algorithm likes (eg just photo plus text, not links, not shares). Clipping image from research report, with short comment works well in my experience.

For those complete Linkedin beginners out there, this is where you click to create a post (having opened Linkedin on a web browser):

The Linkedin mobile app is actually also very good and I'd recommend using that as a first port of call for creating posts easily. The mobile app also lets you save draft messages which you can't do on desktop. This is really helpful as often I'll have an idea for a message, compose a rough draft and leave it there for later.

 Including links in your posts are not generally favured by the algorithm but there is a balance to be struck there as sometimes necessary to promote further content, I find that posts with links generally won't go quite as wide. Personally I look to mix linked and non-linked content. Some other thoughts:

• Real people real stuff: just say it like you’d say it with real opinions and views, less stilted, hedged, caveated corporate-speak (I think that clearer, more compelling communications are the easiest way to stand out from almost everyone, that's the topic of a whole separate post that I wrote up here ). I can't emphasise this enough, being natural, authentic is the best way to stand out from all the corporate noise and rubbish. I would not be at all surprised if the Linkedin algo ran some natural language processing to assess the tone of voice when determining where to place content.
• People follow real people: even the best run corporate account will find it much harder to get the reach of an influential individual, don't just leave it to your corporate account.
• Reciprocity: the more engagement you give the more it gives back, comments are king!! ALWAYS reply to comments on your posts.
• So Like, comment, @-mention people. A common rule of thumb is that you should comment on 3-5 posts for every one that you post.
• Early likes and comments propel posts much higher into the algo, as the current thinking is that the algo "road tests" your posts with a control group to test engagement before sending it wider. Engagement in the first hour of a post going up can make a real difference to how wide it goes. So get a group of colleagues together to help each other generate early engagement on posts. Your aim should always to be to propel your content into your second-degree network, this is much more likely with a few early likes from a diverse range of people.
• There is a LOT of content flying around in our space, too much in many ways. The algo now prefers short form not long form content. So there's value in curation, summarisation & things that stand out by being written in an authentic voice, by not conforming, or going against the grain. Something that surprised you, or an alternative viewpoint that goes against consensus.
• Conferences and events are an excellent trigger for engagement on social media, as lots of attendees looking to engage in real time, and easy to find a bite-size chunk of insight from a presentation or panel session, plus quick smartphone photo and get it out there. If you are running an event or conference you can easily 10x the reach you get by sharing key content on Linkedin (and I think this is often under-appreciated) - have a think about key charts or exhibits that are worth sharing in advance and get these made up professionally, and have someone putting them out during or immediately after the event.
• Timing still matters to some extent - there are simply far more eyeballs on Linkedin feeds later in the week (Thursday and Friday) so your goal should be to get something in a good place in the algo by Friday morning in your time zone of choice. when I've had most success with stuff its posts I've generally launched on a Wednesday or Thursday. Posting stuff on Monday or Tuesday it is just that much harder to get good reach.
• Don't wait for perfect. Yes, posts and content can always be improved, wording tweaked, changed etc. But just get it out there would be my advice. you'll learn far more that way about what works and how to do things rather than trying to make every post perfect.
• Pro-tip, videos can work really well, but always download and originate a new post with it in rather than hit share.
• Linkedin guru Mark Williams talks about 5 types of post that work (check out his podcast for more Linkedin chat than you can imagine!)

How to do it

 One common issue is too much choice, what to say, what to comment on, where to start.

 I find it easier to think about themes (for example, see here), that helps me know what to pick out to post. Running with just one or two themes at any point in time, makes it much easier to spot stuff to post (recent themes have included endgame for DB pensions, Universal Owners and ESG investing, and behavioral investing).

 When creating a post, think about the "real people, real stuff" mantra. Just say something or make an observation about something. What did you find interesting? What did you find unexpected? What surprised you?

Say something a bit unexpected, eg post something from a competitor along with a positive comment on what you took away from it. I am surprised how few people do this and I think it quite effective for a few reasons - it helps position you above the day-to-day battle for eyeballs, and shows you rising above the obvious competitive dynamics. And lets face it most of what your competitors put out probably is really quite good, so it shouldn't be hard to find something.

Sometimes simple ideas are the best here. I'm the first to admit that I often over-complicate posts, including too much text, more links, more explanation etc. Less is often more. The key thing is that as you start posting, and see what gets traction, you'll get a feel pretty quick. There is no perfect formula though, some of my posts will get tens of thousands of views (as reported by Linkedin), others fewer than 100. I have some idea why this might be the case but things can surprise in both directions. So you just have to be out there trying stuff.

 Posting content is a first stage, writing blogs is a potential second step (it allows you to plant flags for credibility, expand on your own ideas, create something more enduring that you and others can refer back to). Personal view, but don't do this on paywalled sites, as it is much less shareable and reach will be several orders of magnitude less people. Linkedin is a decent blogging platform in itself and will drive good engagement. I actually think blogging is a really useful skill in general - you learn how to express an idea simply and compactly, and things like storytelling and analogies, keeping peoples' attention, sparking curiosity and landing an idea in a compact way. But it isn't for everyone and for many people is too far from their core day job to be considered valuable. I'd recommend you consider it, even if just once every few months (new year or the end of the year are often good catalysts, plus summing up or previewing conferences and events). Three tips here: Learn how to make your messages stick, tell better stories, and adopt Steven Pressfield's mindset of "Nobody wants to read your sh*t ".

 So to wrap up, here's a challenge in five parts to get you going on Linkedin and on a path to a better profile reach:

 1. Spend 10 mins browsing linkedin next Friday and drop a handful of likes onto worthwhile posts.

2. Next week, find a thought piece you think is good and post an update with a graphic or chart clipped out of it, and a comment on what you took away from it or why it was interesting.

 3. Week after find a particularly interesting chart or data viz and share, with a comment on what surprised you about it.

4. Next month - use Linkedin at a conference or event (photo + quick comment on an interesting or thought provoking talk: what were the key questions, top 3 takeaways?)

 5. Pick the best thing you read last month (book or blog or paper) and share with a recommendation + hat tip and thanks to the author.

 If you follow these 5 steps you'll be well on your way to understanding what works and forming the habits that will help you make this become almost reflexive.

I put it to you that in 2019 a professional social profile is an asset. An asset with a potentially significant value (either in a concrete sense or in softer social sense). Like any asset it requires some ongoing investment, which needs to be made well in advance of when you desire the payoff. It is subject to helpful compounding effects over time, but as any (good) investment consultant will tell you - you need to start with a clear idea of your objectives to get anywhere.

You could also think of it as a personal career "moat" - an ongoing compounding advantage, or as Naval Ravikant would argue, a modern form of leverage (capital and labour being old leverage, product, code and media being new leverage).

 Love to hear your thoughts and experiences on all of this and how you got on if you took the 5-step challenge!

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Subsequent edits & additional thoughts in response to the many comments received! Grateful for all the comments and questions - do keep them coming ...

A number of people commented on the remark around not hitting “share”. I’d love to know how the LinkedIn algorithm really behaves around this, and to hear what others’ experiences are - perhaps mine are an outlier. But my own experience is simply that shared posts receive a lot less views than user originated posts (by a factor of around 100x). That’s not to say they can’t get views (none of my observations should be taken as “absolute”, and like many things you can still succeed by breaking the guidelines I'm giving) but shared posts just start off from a much lower base. If you want to support someone else's article, that's a slightly different question, but I would say commenting on it is a better way than sharing it. I think this keeps promoting the original post, helping it gather momentum, rather than splintering off a new instance of it. For what it's worth, Mark Williams agrees.

Some people have commented on the potential vagaries of navigating strict compliance requirements around this. I agree this can be a challenge (I’ve been fortunate to work in firms that have not imposed tough guidelines). What I would say is that it is probably much easier than you think to generate content that isn’t remotely close to raising eyebrows in your compliance department, and most compliance regimes when you look at the details, are probably less onerous than you think. At this same time this sort of thing is one of those easy excuses that I think many people make for not making the efforts - so don't fall into that trap!

Hashtags are starting to get bigger on Linkedin - not a gamechanger (yet) but some have millions of followers. Main tip is don't over-proliferate your hashtags (4 max, please) and it's worth putting some thought into using the most-followed (you can see the top 100 on this list) #investing #markets #money are all up there.

Another challenge was “what if I post something ridiculous or wrong and destroy all my credibility in 2 minutes?”. This is another myth we can probably debunk pretty quickly. Yes, "cancel culture" is a thing, and putting your thoughts out there for all to see online has occasionally had bad conseqences for a few people (check out this post by Eugene Wei for some examples). However, this is Linkedin, not twitter. I think most people will self-censor way before you get close to that point. So it’s a fear rather than an actual risk. Usually the worst thing that’ll happen is someone comes with a thoughtful correction and opens up a good discussion, or a few people think the post is a bit dumb and forget about it by the next day. Like the investor who stays in cash through fear of losing money the bigger risk in my view is never getting started posting anything because you are afraid of failure or wait for perfect.

But this brings up a really important point that I should have mentioned before. If you are evolving and learning, then you SHOULD look back on your old posts and cringe a bit - I know I do! A lot of stuff I said a few years ago looks ill-informed and naive to me now. I think that is just part and parcel of learning and growing and something to be embraced rather than a cause for concern.