by Caroline Leach | Apr 22, 2018 | Learning, Social Media
What did you share in social media in the last week? How did your network respond? What did your analytics look like?
In part 3 of this series of posts on social media research I did in March 2018, I’ll share the data relevant to those questions.
Part 1 in this series covered the survey goals, methodology, respondents, and professional and personal social media use.
Part 2 looked at the reasons why people are active in social media to boost their careers.
Part 3 in this series covers:
- What types of LinkedIn content get the most engagement
- What topics on LinkedIn get the most engagement, and
- Strategies to increase engagement with your social media content, regardless of the platform.
How is engagement defined? It’s likes, comments and shares of your content.
LinkedIn content types that get the most engagement
By far, Sharing an article was the type of LinkedIn content that gets the most engagement, with 68% of respondents choosing it.
In second place, half of that at 34% said Sharing a photo.
Tied for third place was Sharing an idea and Resharing content of others at 22%.
In last place was Sharing a video at 19%. This surprised me the most, given how popular video content has become. However, the addition of video has only come to LinkedIn in the last year, so it’s still relatively early days. I expect to see this percentage grow over time, as more people experiment with video content.
Some of the comments added great ideas to the mix:
“On the job photos, specifically of participation at a company event, with a company leader, or an interesting ‘behind the scenes’ moment.”
“Articles on industry thought leadership topics get read/liked/shared by my peers.”
“Content that congratulates or promotes and tags others in exemplary work.”
LinkedIn topics that get the most engagement
The topics in LinkedIn content that attract the most engagement are:
- Industry trends (48%)
- Leadership (34%)
- News about your employer (30%)
This confirms two of the top three reasons people are active in social media to boost their careers – accessing news about your industry and profession (81%) and learning continually about your industry and profession (77%).
Strategies to increase engagement with your content
Lastly, what are effective ways to increase engagement with your social media content, regardless of the platform?
Two strategies rose to the top:
- Tag people in the post, if they’re in an accompanying photo or video (75%)
- Mention relevant people in the post (65%)
Some of the comments offered up more ideas:
“Hashtags generate interest, especially from young professionals.”
“When people are authentic with their voice and message and thank (tag) the people who helped contribute to the project or idea get a lot of organic engagement.”
“Provide my point of view when sharing an article – not a headline, but instead an insightful suggest that might entice someone to read it. Ask a question.”
Two strategies that were only selected by 20% of respondents are actions that I have found valuable in increasing engagement.
First is to tag people in the post, even if they’re not in the accompanying photo or video. Why? This alerts them to content that may be of interest to them or their network.
The caveat here is not to overuse this strategy to the point that it becomes annoying to others. A way to decide? When someone you’ve tagged multiple times does not engage with your content.
A group of people who do a great job tagging people in posts are colleagues at my employer. (Note: opinions expressed in this blog are my own). Sarita Rao, John Starkweather, Sarah Groves, John Stancliffe, Eisaiah Engel, and Knox Keith are a few good examples. By tagging relevant people in their LinkedIn and Twitter content, they make sure that their content is seen by a wider audience.
Second is to sent separate, tailored messages to relevant people, alerting them of the post. This strategy I learned from others who sent me brief direct messages in LinkedIn to tell me about an article and why I might be interested in it. They did not specifically ask me to like, comment on, or share their content. But if I found value in the article, I engaged with it.
Many people commented that they don’t post frequently as a career-building strategy. One respondent said, “I have not built the confidence yet to post my own ideas in LinkedIn. I’m trying to figure out my voice before posting my ideas and also what I want to represent with my personal brand.”
An easy way to get started with content updates is by tapping into an employee advocacy program, if your employer offers one. These programs serve up ready-make, on-brand content that you can share as is in your social networks, or add your point of view.
The next post in this series will share how survey respondents are taking advantage of employee advocacy. How are you using it?
by Caroline Leach | May 6, 2017 | Social Media
Do you want to attract more views, likes, comments and shares of your LinkedIn posts? Do you want to increase your engagement with your network and beyond?
Of course you do. And to do that, you need to know what’s working and what’s not. Then you can create a hypothesis about why, and test it.
You can check out the analytics for your posts, also known as sharing an update, to see what content is resonating with your network.
There you’ll see the number of views, along with your viewers’ main employers, predominant titles and geographic locations.
Being a week into my month-long experiment of posting to LinkedIn every weekday, I turned to the analytics to see what I could learn.
Defining engagement broadly as a combination of views, likes, comments and shares, three types of posts rise to the top.
A view of a post is defined as someone seeing your post in their LinkedIn homepage feed. (Views are defined differently for articles, which will be a future blog post topic.)
Career strategies. My most-viewed posts were links to articles with career advice – including the biggest predictor of career success and LinkedIn profile updates for every career stage.
Given this blog’s focus on social media savvy for corporate professionals, I’ll keep an eye out for articles with career strategies that make use of social media.
Big news about the company. My fellow colleagues were understandably as proud as I was to see our company named to Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For in 2017, as well as being named the #1 telecom globally in Fortune’s most admired companies.
(This is where I remind readers that opinions expressed here are my own.)
For upcoming posts, I’ll keep my eye out for milestone news and events to share about my employer. This is where an employee advocacy program is incredibly valuable.
Leadership quotes and eye-catching photos for major holidays. This one surprised me. On Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, New Year’s Day and Thanksgiving, I posted a beautiful picture from iStockPhoto along with a related leadership quote.
These turned out to be some of my most engaging posts. I’ll definitely add more of these to my editorial calendar. If I hadn’t looked at the analytics, this would have been a missed opportunity.
One thing I haven’t yet found in LinkedIn or through my research is an aggregated set of analytics. I’m creating an Excel spreadsheet to consolidate the analytics for this month’s posts.
It will include:
- Post title
- Post or article
- Content type
- Date
- Day of the week
- Time of day
- Views
- Likes
- Comments
- Shares
- Employers
- Titles
- Geographic locations
- First- or second-degree networks
- Hypothesis about performance
- Action indicated by the hypothesis
Then I’ll have greater insight at the end of the month to see how to develop and execute an editorial calendar going forward.
What posts get the greatest engagement with your network?
And how do you use analytics to amp up engagement with your posts?
by Caroline Leach | Apr 30, 2017 | Social Media
If a LinkedIn status update every weekday is ideal, how do you come up with enough engaging content?
Here are 11 simple content ideas. They can be tailored to reflect your goals for LinkedIn and your professional interests, as well as be easy to integrate into your day.
When you share content using these ideas, you can add your point of view. And you can engage your network by asking questions about their perspectives.
Here goes . . .
Your company’s employee advocacy program. More companies are enabling and empowering employees to share company news in their own personal social media through an employee advocacy program. If your company offers this, it’s an easy way to provide valuable content and be a brand ambassador for your employer.
Your professional associations. What organizations do you belong to? Where do you look for training and development? You’ll often find the latest thinking in your field that you can share with your network. A few of my favorites in corporate communications are the International Association of Business Communicators, the Public Relations Society of America and the Forum-Group for communications leaders.
Your favorite industry and career news sources. What are your go-to sources for news about your field or the world of work? On the top of my list are Harvard Business Review and Fast Company.
Your alma mater. Colleges and universities are helping their alums be lifelong learners. Have you checked out yours lately? As an alumni ambassador for the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, I’ve shared information about event content and information such as the Relevance Report.
Your colleagues’ content. What are people in company and your network posting? Keep an eye out for articles posted to LinkedIn that align with your goals and share those. A few of my favorites are by Carlos Botero, Rachel Ybarra and Jennifer Van Buskirk.
Books you’re reading. What’s on your Kindle or your nightstand that has a business and professional focus? Share what you’re reading and what you’re learning. For me it’s Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant. It has two daily practices that would probably benefit everyone – note 3 things you did well and 3 moments that brought joy.
Conferences and events you’re attending. What virtual or in-person development activities are you involved in? What are you learning? Share your key takeaways in a status update. Include photos of the event and people you’re meeting.
What you’re learning. What’s your development plan to learn new skills this year? Are you taking online courses, pursuing a nanodegree or listening to podcasts and TED talks? Share status updates about what you’re learning and how you’re preparing for the future. Include your perspective on why these skills will be critical to the future of work, your industry and your employer.
Speaking engagements you’re doing. Anytime you’re speaking, whether it’s a conference or a webinar, it’s a great opportunity to post an update. Share your big idea or interesting questions people asked after your talk.
Key holidays. Look at the calendar each month and identify key events. May and June, for example, are big graduation months. You could share the best career advice you got at graduation or the most important thing you’ve learned since graduation. One of my posts that got great engagement was a leadership quote and a beautiful photo from iStockPhoto on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Keep an eye out for hashtag holidays – like #NationalMentoringMonth in January #GetToKnowYourCustomers day in July – and create posts about them.
Your blog. Do you have a blog about your profession and your industry? LinkedIn is a perfect place for a status update each time you post new content. If you’ve been blogging for a while, look through the archives to see what’s still timely. Your status update could include fresh information or a new take on the original post.
For the month of May, I’m going to conduct an experiment. I’ll further test these content ideas by posting a status update to LinkedIn on every workday of the month. That’s 22 status updates.
In future posts, I’ll share what I learn in the process about creating an editorial calendar, responding to comments, evaluating analytics, increasing engagement and more.
In the meantime, what would you add to this list of content ideas?
by Caroline Leach | Feb 5, 2017 | Social Media
Looking for a simple way to share great professional content in your social networks?
If your company offers an employee advocacy program, download the app and start sharing content that matches your professional goals for social media.
This can be a key part of your social media savvy strategy to personally brand and market yourself successfully in social media.
But first, what is employee advocacy?
It’s “brands empowering employees to support the goals of the brand, through employee-owned social media,” says Chris Boudreaux in Social Media Governance.
My employer makes it easy to share company-provided content with Social Circle, powered by Social Chorus. Nolan Carleton pioneered the approach, with much success.
(This is where I remind readers that opinions in this blog are my own.)
Here are 11 ways to make the most of your employee advocacy program, promoting your company while you build your own professional brand.
- Download the app. Make it easy to share content by putting the app on your mobile devices. You can use snippets of time during the week to review and share content.
- Choose content categories that support your professional goals. Align your own social media strategy with the available content categories. For example, you could focus on your company’s business strategy, the customer experience, the employee experience, career strategies or community engagement, just to name a few.
- Customize your feed for your content categories. Once you know what types of content you want to share, see if you can customize the content you see. This will make the process more efficient as you choose what to share.
- Select the social media platforms you want to post on. Assess how the available content lines up with the platforms where you’re most active for professional purposes. In my case, it’s LinkedIn and Twitter.
- Keep looking before you link. Just as you shouldn’t link to other social media content without reading it first, you should do the same with a company-provided message. Make sure it reflects well on your professional brand before sharing it.
- Tailor company-provided messages to your voice. You can use the company-provided messaging to share links, or you can edit it to be closer to your own voice. Just be sure that the edits you make reflect positively on your company.
- Share your pride in your company. Let your enthusiasm for your company shine through. Whether you love the employee experience, the products and services, or everything about your organization, share that sentiment.
- Follow your company’s social media guidelines. Make sure to follow the spirit and the letter of social media guidelines at your company. When in doubt, err on the conservative side. While you’re acting as a brand ambassador of your company, that holds you to a higher standard.
- Target 3 or more posts each week. Sprinkle your company’s posts among a broad variety of content you’re sharing. Don’t go overboard with excessive sharing. Since it’s company-related content, post it on weekdays. Your platform may enable you to schedule sharing in advance to post at a specific time.
- Share social content from colleagues. Keep an eye on content from colleagues who also engage in the advocacy program. Share their content if it fits with your overall goals. This promotes your colleagues, your company and you – a triple win.
- Experiment and refine your approach. Check the analytics for each of your social platforms to see how your community is engaging with content from your company. Make adjustments based on that, and keep fine-tuning as you go.
What if your employer doesn’t offer an employee advocacy program? Make a pitch to your Corporate Communications team.
Here’s a key data point. Consumers see recommendations from friends as the most credible form of advertising – as much as 83%, according to a Nielsen study.
And IABC Fellow Shel Holtz shares for corporate communicators that “employees are now your most credible spokespeople.” This is based on the 2017 Edelman Trust Barometer.
Also, check out the 2016 State of Employee Advocacy report from JEM Consulting and Advisory Services.
The study’s leader Jen McClure notes that, “Most employee and brand advocacy programs are still fairly new, and companies are still developing best practices.”
How are you using an employee advocacy program to promote your company’s brand along with your own?
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