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Optimum LinkedIn posting frequency
February 18, 2016
Finding good content and posting it wisely
Launching your personal online career on LinkedIn requires neither special technical skills nor a paid account. Successful LinkedIn publishers combine two main ingredients: relevant, remarkable content and time. The latter determines the limit of your maximum posting frequency. Posting frequency varies from casual users who post a status update once every couple of weeks to social media experts visiting their favorite groups on a daily basis.
The daily amount of time you are going to spend on LinkedIn depends on your current goals. If you are on the look-out for a new job or if you are planning to market a new product or service, reaching out to as many relevant contacts as possible is vital.
Choose between status updates and blog postings
LinkedIn offers 2 basic publication options. While status updates (text, links or photos – see column #4) are perfect for those short real-time postings, blog postings (see column #2) qualify as a great way to build an audience in the long run, as they are searchable by Google and generally get more exposure.
While Facebook sticks to the “anything goes!” principle that seamlessly mixes industry news, fried eggs, cat content, game updates and political statements into a general interest timeline, the LinkedIn community restricts their postings almost exclusively to business topics.
Why publish updates regularly? For 5 reasons:
1.) Promoting new services/products:
Classic, straight advertising isn’t too popular with social media users. A lot of brands keep increasing their budgets to focus on content marketing and publish whitepapers, case studies and infographics. Why not embrace this strategy on a self-marketing level?
2.) Self-promotion:
Today’s recruiters believe in Google and LinkedIn rather than in CVs – publishing activities generally increase your profile's visibility.
3.) Show your skills:
Experts are opinion leaders. Current studies clearly show that potential customers get in touch with a product/service up to seven times before they make their actual buying decision. Touch points include pull and push media. If you regularly provide valuable insights to your community, you will become a topical authority to your connections.
4.) SEO reasons:
LinkedIn postings are a great add-on to any search engine optimization / content marketing strategy.
5.) Ask questions / get feedback:
Smart questions do not only provide valuable market research insights, but also foster interactions, which in turn increase visibility.
Where do I find adequate content?
A large percentage of all status updates is “curated content;” instead of publishing their own articles, users point their connections to interesting resources published by third parties. Is keeping up to date with industry news part of your daily job? Great – you’re almost finished! Your peers and potential customers/employers are probably interested in the very news you find remarkable.
In a hurry? Let Google alerts do all the work: Just add a couple of keyword-based alerts that are relevant to your industry. Google will send a daily or weekly e-mail containing plenty of raw material for your LinkedIn status updates.
Do not forget about your own newsfeed either: You are bound to find a lot of interesting updates – some of which might be worthy to share!
Maintaining a personal editorial schedule pays off even for casual publishers. Continuity and consistency are vital to long-term social media success. Unfortunately, at this time, LinkedIn status updates cannot be scheduled. While professional workarounds like Hootsuite are a good choice for heavy users, a simple spreadsheet file can be a powerful tool, too. Set up such a file on your local desktop or in a cloud (I use Google docs) and form a habit of instantly copying interesting article links to your document. That way you will build up a handy inventory for future postings. Overly talkative Facebook friends are a constant cause of annoyance. On LinkedIn though, the dangers of over-sharing are virtually non-existent: The platform’s algorithm filters updates according to activity. Most LinkedIn users stick to an update frequency ranging between one a week and up to three times a day. Opinion leaders tend to be talkative but keep in mind: quality trumps quantity. Conclusion: Judging from my own experience I assure you: Integrating your personal “social media posting schedule” into your daily work life does pay off in the long run. And there is only one way to identify perfect content: If something makes you go “Wow!” it will probably have the same effect on your community. Do not expect overnight fame though – despite all the fuzz about real-time, success takes its time.How often is too much?
