Every time you post a piece of content that no one engages with (e.g. product content usually gets very low engagement), the social media platform’s algorithm learns that users don’t like your content.

As a result, the algorithm will show your next post to less people, so your opportunities for engagement have now decreased.
Thus, your 2nd post will most likely get less engagement than your 1st post.

The algorithm will now show your 3rd post to even LESS people, which will further decrease your opportunities for engagement.
And this keeps going and going in vicious downward spiral, so that posts that used to get 1,000s of views, now get 100s of views (or less)!

Unfortunately, I’ve seen many companies go down this path by consistently posting product-based content. You can see their engagement dramatically decrease quickly and then you just don’t see their posts at all anymore because the algorithm has learned not to show it to you.


So, how do you avoid this? Post content that will add value to your target audience!


Solve their pain points, give free tips and content and information they can’t get elsewhere. When you do talk about your company, talk about DEI initiatives or things you are doing to help local communities.

The focus your content should be about THEM, your target audience, and what will add value to their lives.

If you do that, you will get more views and engagement, and generate more awareness and more business opportunities as a result.

Words matter. For example, “financial advisor” is searched for 10x more than “financial professional.”) When your team writes LinkedIn profiles, websites and sales materials, use words your prospects typically use. This will allow you to get found and be more easily understood.

Other surprising results:

• “Sales” 70x more than “business development” – no one wants to say they do sales, but you are much more likely to be found if you do
• “Innovation” 2x more than “innovative” – craft your content to use that tense instead
• “Strategy” 50% more than “strategies”
• “Online” 10x more searches than “digital” – an oldie, but a goodie
• “Digital marketing” 10x more searches than “online marketing” – but not when it comes to marketing
• “SEM” 20x more than “search engine marketing” – abbreviate this one
• “SEO” 15% more than “search engine optimization” – this one doesn’t matter at much
• “Social media” 80x more than “social networks” – it may not be grammatically correct at times, but using “social media” will get you found more
• “Facebook” 80x more than “social media” – if you are talking about Facebook, say “Facebook”

Want to run some searches on your own? Check our Google Trends (https://trends.google.com) to do comparisons between 2 or more words or phrases.

Since LinkedIn introduced articles, more and more LinkedIn users are writing them. They are a great way to provide value to your connections, and help establish yourself as a thought leader. Many LinkedIn users are still sitting on the sidelines, though.

I’ve suggested posting LinkedIn articles to many of my connections. However, some are reluctant because they are afraid of putting themselves out there (or afraid of compliance). I gave a friend of mine some tips last week, and I thought I would share them with you as well to make it easier for you.

Step 1: Have an objective in mind.

We are not writing for writing’s sake. Your 10-page X-Files fan faction is great, but it’s not necessarily right for LinkedIn. Think about who your target audience is, and what you want your personal brand to be. What do you want to be to that audience? A trusted partner? A disruptor?

Answering your objective will help you determine what you want to write, as well as how you want to write it (e.g. challenging vs. helping).

Step 2: Write your article.

This is 95% of the work. Pick a topic you that you know a good deal about, and will accomplish your objective. Then, write a few paragraphs about it. Remember to keep your target audience in mind – what do they know about this topic already? What information would be helpful? Where do you need to push the envelope?

Nothing is more challenging to read on your phone than
20-line paragraphs.

Step 3: Make it easy to read.

Your article doesn’t have to be War and Peace, and in fact, should probably be less than 1,000 words. A majority of LinkedIn articles are read on mobile devices, so keep that in mind when you are writing – keep it short and get to the point quickly.

Nothing is more challenging to read on your phone than 20-line paragraphs. Keep paragraphs to 3-4 sentences maximum.

Break up your copy with bulletpoints, callouts, or in a list format, so it’s easier for users to read. Many readers will scan the text and look for signals to stop like bolded text, bulletpoints, callouts (e.g. the “Nothing is more challenging…” callout above) or numbers.

Step 4: Make it compelling.

This is a blog piece, not a dissertation, so find ways to keep your readers interested like quotes, embedded video that tells your story, or an image that illustrates a point you’ve made such as this one from ComScore about mobile device usage:

Step 5: Summarize what you have said

Even if the user reads nothing else, give them 2-3 key takeaways at the bottom of the article. If the reader is simply scanning the article, this may be the only thing he/she reads, and that’s okay. They will have gotten the gist of the article, and you will have accomplished your objective.

Step 6: Have a call to action

You don’t have to have a giant, toll-free number inserted 10 times into your article. However, you do want to give the reader the ability to easily follow-up with you. I usually add this to the end of the piece.

Don’t go too far, though, and have a link every third word about great pieces you have written before (see how annoying that is). I find it frustrating to read an article that is 50% promotions about previous articles.

Step 7: Don’t overthink it

I wrote this article in 20 minutes. Again, it’s not War and Peace.

• Make sure it makes sense
• Make sure it sounds professional
• Correct grammatical issues
• Find and image
• Post it

(Note: If you are financial services, add “run it by compliance first” to that list).

Don’t ask 15 people to edit it before you post. Remember, if worse comes to worse, LinkedIn has an “edit article” button, which allows you can make changes to the piece after you post it.

Step 8: Find a key image

Each article has an image at the top of the page. Yours should represent your article, and also be eye-grabbing. Images of people usually tend to grab people’s attention.

Another, more risky route is to use something that people don’t normally see. I once used two apples for a post because I was talking about the need for an apples-to-apples comparison when measuring data. Nobody clicked on it. I don’t recommend using an apple image!

You don’t have to have a giant, toll-free number inserted 10 times into your article. However, you do want to give the reader the ability to easily follow-up with you.

Step 9: Think of a lead-in

When you post a LinkedIn article, you have the option to write a lead-in just like you do when you share someone’s else’s post. Use this to write something that will entice people to read the article (but stop short of sounding like click-bait).

Step 10: Tell people about it

Everyone has strong advocates in their networks, energize those advocates by letting them know you posted a new article, and ask them what they think. Your frequent engagers will be happy to share your piece. Offer to share feedback on their work as well.

Remember, if worse comes to worse, LinkedIn has an “edit article” button with which you can edit the piece after you have posted it.

Key takeaways:

• Have an objective
• Write about something you know
• Make it easy to read on mobile
• Don’t overthink it
• Tell people about it

About the author

Robert Knop is Founder and CEO of Assist You Today, a company dedicated to helping organizations GAIN + RETAIN clients using digital strategy and social media. He’s a proud member of the Wave3 network of consultants, and always happy to talk strategy, digital and social selling. To learn more about how to evolve your marketing and sales approaches for the digital age, reach out anytime at 323.972.3566.

Photo: jseliger2

Early in my career, my boss called me into his office first thing on Monday morning. As anyone who has worked in a corporate role before knows, that’s not a good sign. As soon as I sat down, he blurted out “I looked at the numbers, and you’re messing up the online advertising campaigns, you need to fix it.”

I knew I had optimized the heck out of the display advertising campaigns, and every month, performance was increasing, so I asked to see which report he was viewing.

He showed me a report that tracked campaign results for two similar products (we’ll call them Product A and Product B).

The report tracked results down to the lead level. He said, “The Product A campaign received a lot more clicks and leads, but you are giving 5x the impressions to the Product B campaign. We need to shut the Product B campaign down, and move all our impressions to the Product A campaign immediately.”

So, I told him I’d be right back. I went to my desk to get the report that tracked results all the way down to profitability.

That report showed that at the end of the customer journey, even though the Product A campaign received far more clicks and leads, the company closed about the same number of sales from both the Product A and Product B campaigns. Furthermore, the company’s profit margin on Product B was 5x higher than Product A.

My boss looked at the report, thought for a second, and proclaimed “WE NEED TO SHUT DOWN THE PRODUCT A CAMPAIGN, AND ONLY RUN THE PRODUCT B CAMPAIGN!!”

I smiled and said, “just let me handle it.” And to his credit, he did.

So, how could this hour-long, semi-tense back and forth on a Monday morning have been prevented? To solve the problem, you have to diagnose the problem.

There were 2 problems here:

Problem #1:

My boss wasn’t looking at the full data picture. I’ve always told clients that I can get you a high click-through rate, for example, if that’s all you care about. I can get my team to design a “funny cat video” meets “shoot the zombie ad” that will get boat loads of clicks. But are those clicks going to convert to leads and ultimately to sales? Absolutely not.

Which is why having that end-to-end data picture was so incredibly important.

Now, let’s apply this thinking to social media. How do you measure the success of your social media efforts?

If you answered awareness or engagement, that’s not necessarily bad (it’s better than nothing!). However, at some point, senior management is going to ask “what is the value of our social media efforts?” If you only track to the awareness or engagement level, then how do you effectively answer that question? How do you know if social media is somewhere your marketing and sales teams should spend their time?

Well, let’s look at your non-social media sales and marketing efforts. How do you measure the success of those efforts? Leads? Revenue? Net income? WHICHEVER OF THOSE METRICS YOU USE ARE THE SAME METRICS YOU NEED TO USE TO TRACK YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA EFFORTS!

And the closer you get to the end of the journey, the better idea you’ll have as to the true success of your efforts (and the value to the organization).

Now, I know what some of you are thinking – that’s great for advertising and email, but it’s much harder to do for social, and besides we SHOULDN’T do that right? Social is different. It’s not a sales and marketing channel.

Most of us treat social like this magical purple pegasus that flies around spreading candy and rainbows everywhere – it doesn’t live by the rules of our other marketing and sales channels.

But we need to change that. We need to treat social like any other channel because:

Senior management measures social media success the same way as any other sales and marketing channel

Senior management wants to know how many sales our LinkedIn efforts are generating, or how many leads our Facebook campaign creates. That’s their job. They are running a business. A business needs to smartly spend money on things that generate profitable business.

Thus, you HAVE to measure your social media efforts in the same way you measure your other sales and marketing efforts.

This apples-to-apples measurement approach will help the two biggest problems that most social media teams face:

1. Lack of budget
2. Lack of resources

Apples-to-apples measurement solves these problems because it levels the playing field.

If you can compare display advertising campaigns to Twitter campaigns using the same metrics, you can show which is providing more value to the organization. If you can compare LinkedIn messaging to cold calls using the same metrics, you’ll know exactly with which of the two your sales team should spend their time (hint: it’s LinkedIn).

If you can prove social media is providing more value using the same metrics, then suddenly, the skies part, the sun comes out, cherubs start singing, and you will get the budget and resources you need. It may not be super-easy to track social like other channels, but it’s 100% worth it!

Problem #2:

My boss didn’t know the end-to-end results that we had. That was my fault. I wasn’t doing a good enough job socializing the data. Sure, I sent a report out every week via email, and you could argue that he should have been reading it, but VPs/SVPs are very busy people.

Sometimes, that extra step to open the document is too daunting of a task. It’s easy to say “I’ll look at it later,” and close the email.

So, proactive communication is key. If you have great numbers – tell EVERYONE, and ESPECIALLY your boss. In your 1/1s, talk about the numbers, how they are increasing, and what a great job the team is doing. How else will he/she know?

When you send out reports, include an executive summary (2-3 bulletpoints maximum) at the top of the email, so if they don’t have time to look at your incredibly detailed report, they get the high-level story. Senior leadership has zero time in the day. Make it easy for them.

This is also an effective way to influence change at an organization (it’s hard to argue with numbers). If you go to your sales managers, and say they need to spend as much time on LinkedIn as they do on the phone, you will be kindly escorted out of their office. If you show that you get 5x the meeting rate, for example, using social selling as compared to cold calling, NOW you’ve got those sales managers’ ears.

Summary

End-to-end measurement and apples-to-apples comparisons take the guesswork out of your social media efforts. They will tell you EXACTLY which channels, campaigns and content are most valuable to the business and the client alike, and it is imperative that you measure your social media efforts as close to the end of the purchase journey as possible to determine the bottom-line value.

About the author

Robert Knop is Founder and CEO of Assist You Today, helping companies GAIN + RETAIN clients using digital strategy and social media. He’s a proud member of the Wave3 network of consultants, and always happy to talk strategy, digital and social selling. To learn more about how to evolve your marketing and sales approaches for the digital age, reach out to Robert.

Photo: Kirinohana

I’ve been working in, with and around social media for over five years now, and the question I get asked the most is “what kind of content should I use for our social sites?” Actually, the conversation typically starts with “No one is engaging with our content – can you take a look?” After I ask a few questions, and view their content, it almost always comes out that the company is posting content about their brand, products and services….and no one cares.

Why don’t social media users want to know about my products?

To answer that, ask yourself – why did you open Facebook today? Why did you visit LinkedIn? Did you do it to hear about a company’s new product? Of course not! You opened Facebook to see your sister’s new baby pictures, or hear what your semi-crazy, anti-establishment friend is ranting about today.

Why did you visit LinkedIn? You wanted your mind to be stimulated by something interesting that your network posted about how to improve your business, or a great piece about EQ by Travis Bradberry.

So, it’s no wonder that your new product post didn’t generate any likes, clicks or shares. You’re giving your audience what YOU want to give them, not what THEY want to read. So, how do you fix this? How do you create a successful social media content strategy that helps both you AND your audience?

First, you must realize that it’s not about you. It’s about your audience. It’s about what they want. They want to read something to stimulate their mind, improve their business, catch-up with their friends, or escape from their daily grind. So, to be successful:

You need to add value.

But how do you that? It’s simple: distribute content that your target audience would like. You can do this by following a 4-step process to create PURE content, which stands for Powerful, Useful, Relevant and Engaging content:

1) Powerful

In social media, you are competing with everyone. EV-ERY-ONE. Your company’s social media content is jostling for views with photos of your brother’s new puppies on Facebook, Kanye West’s thoughts on Twitter and the latest Marvel movie end-of-credits scene on YouTube.

So, before your next post, ask yourself – “would I want to look at this instead of photos of my brother’s new puppies?”

2) Useful

Your content is jockeying for views with how-to videos on YouTube and LinkedIn. As a result, your content needs to be informative and helpful to your audience.

The right useful content depends on who your target audience is, and your target audience in social media should be the same target audience as your other channels. If you are a high-end law firm offline, you shouldn’t be posting legal basics on social media – that is not your target audience.

Once you provide enough value, then over time, you will earn your audience’s trust. At that point, you are a business partner, not a sales person. Then, if you talk about your products and services, it’s okay. You have established yourself as a company that adds value, so your products will be viewed as adding value as well. And in many cases, your audience will ask you about your products before you tell them.

3) Relevant

In today’s highly data-driven world, you know more about your customers than ever before, so use that data to make your content as customized and personalized as possible.

This is easy on LinkedIn where you have pages of free information on each LinkedIn user’s profile, which you then can pair with other interactions you have had with your client or prospect, and data from your content management system.

Based on all of this information you can send your client highly-targeted content, which is extremely personalized down to a 1-to-1 level. Will that communication outperform a generic email blast from your company’s latest campaign? Absolutely!

4) Engaging

How do you get your audience to do take the next step with your content (comment, share, retweet)?

Here again, it goes back to adding value. If you give your audience something helpful for free (e.g. a “how-to” video on YouTube – Lindsey Boggs does a great job of this), that’s great. Then, add some pizzazz! Add your own personal flare to it to make it your own, and in your own voice. Gary Vanderchuk is fantastic at this.

The more genuine you are, paired with helpful content, then the greater chance of your audience engaging and eventually transacting. The more you give, the more you receive!

Key Takeaways

• Social media content is not about you. It’s about adding value to your audience.
• Your competitors on social media are everyone.
• Success in social media hinges on distributing PURE (Powerful, Useful, Relevant and Engaging) content

About the author

Robert Knop is a passionate helper of people, and Founder of Assist You Today, a company dedicated to helping companies get closer to their customers, build trust and drive sales by harnessing the power of social media. He’s always happy to talk strategy, digital and social media.

If you’d like to learn how to get closer to your customers, build trust and drive sales using social media and social selling, feel free to contact to Robert.