Anyone who has followed my articles over the years knows I’m a big fan of LinkedIn—like, HUGE!
LinkedIn is the place to be if you want to be viewed as a professional. It’s where opportunities, leads, and sales are born and where you curate your personal brand.
Here’s a brief snapshot of the benefits you can expect from committing to LinkedIn:
- Networking opportunities – Connect with like-minded people in your industry.
- Career development – Get noticed by recruiters and connect with hiring managers through the DMs.
- Personal brand – Get endorsements and recommendations from your peers to elevate your professional position.
- Industry insights – Connect with industry influencers and stay in the loop of the latest happenings in your industry.
- Speaking opportunities – Through your network, you may be invited to speak at a local business association event.
- Company research – Use the simple search tools to research companies you are interested in working with.
- Group participation – Join groups that relate to your profession and exchange ideas and seek insights.
- Business growth – Get noticed and sell you offer to your ideal clients.
But here comes the caveat…
Don’t expect any of the above if you don’t truly commit to the platform.
You see, LinkedIn wants you to be active on it daily, and it will reward you by sharing your content with more of your network and help you to generate more engagement and new eyes on what you’ve got to say or sell.
And this might sound like a reasonable pay off if you’re gonna get all of these goodies, but still some of you are hesitating. Sitting on the sidelines, too afraid to fully immerse yourself in the wonders of LinkedIn.
So, in today’s article, I wanted to call out the five things that might be stopping you from posting on LinkedIn and the steps you can take to avoid them.
Reason One: Fear of Judgment or Criticism
This one is probably the most popular reasons why people hesitate posting on LinkedIn. Is that you? You’re often worried about what other people might think about you or your post. You worry about how it will be perceived.
Now LinkedIn is a professional platform, that point is true, but it is far friendlier than it once was.
You’ll see people posting about all sorts of things, including their fears, failures and disappointments as well as stuff that they are particularly proud of, and that can even include their pets or children. You may second guess yourself, thinking what you are about to post isn’t formal enough and that it might harm your personal reputation.
Response to Reason One: Nobody really cares
I hate to break it to you, but no one actually cares as much as you do. Really! It’s you that cares more than they do, and that is commendable, but what you post today, will be forgotten tomorrow. So stop holding back for fear of judgement and just post it!
Reason Two: You worry you won’t get enough engagement, or your engagement has been poor so far.
Why is it that we get so het up about engagement scores? If your posts only get a like from your Mum or your colleagues, you start to question your abilities. If your posts get very few likes or comments it can discourage you from wanting to come back and post more.
Response to Reason Two: Have you ever heard of lurkers?
There’s a group of people that hang out on LinkedIn, and you might even belong to the group, too. They’re called lurkers…
They’re the people that doom scroll their news feed, reading, but never engaging. They are sometimes fearful of liking or commenting, for fear of others perceptions of their actions. But they are digesting what you’re saying.
What if I told you that nearly all of my clients came from this group? They would drop me a DM out of the blue and ask for help. I’d often scratch my head and think: “Huh, I didn’t see that coming! I never thought they’d even seen my content.” But they had, and they responded by reaching out to me. So next time you get yourself in a pickle over low or no likes or comments, remember, eyes are still on your content, and people are taking notice.
Reason Three: Worried about what you want to say, or how you intend to say it
Yes, LinkedIn is a professional platform, but as I mentioned earlier, it has certainly softened over the years. But for many of you, you worry about what to post in case it gets perceived wrongly.
You’re fearful of oversharing or saying something that could damage your reputation.
Response to Reason Three: Authenticity will always win the race
As per response to reason one, nobody really cares that much. We’ve all said things we’ve regretted. But remember it’s how you handle the comments that matters the most. Did anyone see how I handled my post that went viral?
Reputations can be made or broken very quickly, so I would encourage you to avoid discussing politics or anything that could be perceived as discriminatory. Oversharing is a funny thing. As some of my highest performing posts have been ones where I’ve openly shared something personal (like when I told my network I’d put sperm on my face – that one got me over 300 comments!). So if you feel comfortable, don’t be afraid to show you true, authentic self.
Reason Four: You don’t have the time to commit
I’m not going to sugar coat it. LinkedIn is a commitment. But those who fully embrace the effort are the ones that will enjoy the biggest benefits and opportunities. I often hear people tell me they don’t have the time to dedicate to the platform. But they are the ones that don’t truly appreciate the impact it could have on their professional life and business.
Response to Reason Four: Batch it
Writing a few posts each week, doesn’t really take that long to do. And once you start doing it, it becomes easier, and you write them much more quickly.
I publish posts five times a week. I appreciate this frequency might be too much of an ask if you want to stick to it. But surely you could manage twice a week?
I like to batch my post writing. Every Sunday, I block out an hour to write my 5 posts and schedule them using the LinkedIn in-built scheduler. It takes me less than 10 minutes to write a post, so that’s 50 minutes post creation, and 10 minutes to source images and schedule them. Yes, committing to publishing posts consistently, takes time and effort, but I can tell you first hand that it is worth it.
Reason Five: They don’t understand the LinkedIn algorithm
The LinkedIn algorithm is more mysterious than The Bermuda Triangle! You’re not supposed to know what it is or how to navigate it. Yes there are some things that we do know that have leaked out like, don’t add an external link to your post, don’t be the first person to comment on your post. When you DM someone and they reply, your next post shows up in their news feed.
Response to Reason Five: You’re not supposed to understand it!
LinkedIn’s algorithm is supposed to remain a mystery! If you knew it all would it be as much fun? Like if you knew all the tips and tricks to generate 1,000 likes and comments, would LinkedIn remain enjoyable? That’s half the fun.
You have no idea how well your post will do. I mean, actually, that’s a lie. If you research your past posts and look to see if there are any trends with your high performing posts you can get an idea. If you post content that resonates with your network and they engage with it, LinkedIn will share it with more people and out of your network.
So, how many of these reasons apply to you? I really hope this blog has encouraged you to stop taking LinkedIn so seriously and just get involved. If we’re not yet connected, drop me a request on LinkedIn so I can get to learn more about you from your content.
