Is Anyone Out There?
I started posting content on LinkedIn®/Twitter® as a way to learn more about social media methods in general.
During the past nine months, my postings and updates were consistent, and learned a few things that may not be obvious to the casual user. Did you know the items that are “published” on LinkedIn® are discoverable during a Google/Yahoo search and the “updates” are not? Neither did I until last week.
Here’s how I spent some morning coffee time “sharpening my saw” and sharing a few thought-provoking ideas.
* 4 Items “published” and 33 Quotes posted as updates.
In many cases, the postings were put on Twitter once I learned how to do both simultaneously. For those of you who are only interested in the bottom line, here are the results based on the analytics in the free version of LinkedIn®:
* 120 Total Page Views
* 4 Likes
* 2 comments
In a nutshell, a pathetic set of results despite the fact I had zero expectations anyway.
I’m quite certain that my low number of connections (there is a reason for that), and the lack of keywords and tags caused a lack of visibility on the social media scene. A tutorial on the use of tags and keywords might just be in order. Maybe it’s something worth striving to improve on, maybe not. I’m quite certain that the Premium version of Linkedin® offers more advanced KPIs and analytics.
The background, details, and commentary:
What triggered my interest in LinkedIn® postings is a switch to a New Format to save 20+ years of “motivational” quotes, sayings, and observations that I had collected in my circa 1999 Palm Pilot T3. It fails to hold a charge after all of these years and these quotes were the very last thing to be transferred over to modern devices/software. What good is storing these “priceless” nuggets of information and knowledge in a vacuum, I decided to start posting them on a semi-regular basis once I got them out of the Palm Pilot.
The order and rhythm of the postings, most mornings unintentionally became encoded messages to a group of people who seemed to be nourished by the thoughtful timing and content. Some quotes create a moment of thought to focus on a solution to a hurdle, while others are short and uninspiring unless, of course, one could identify with it somehow. This became one of my first learning points that content/information becomes relevant only when it connects with the reader who finds it and can identify or relate to it. The second thing I learned is that even if they did connect with it, the half-life or decay of the quote/content was very short-lived. These two learning points seem obvious, but as an author of content, one would like to have a bestseller or experience a piece going Viral……just once.
For my content, I assume my decay is just a minute or two. Once someone read it and stepped off the page, it went into the ether. Even though it is a permanent record and fingerprint in the digital world, it quickly slips into the space between the dead volume of content and digital noise. Like in marketing, the broadcast must be clear, consistent, and constant to capture one’s attention and create interest.
I can only assume that people on LinkedIn® are using it for many different reasons and without doing any research whatsoever, have arrived at a segmentation model for (visitors, readers, blog readers, etc.).
Here’s what I have learned/concluded during this little experiment listed below.
1. Use LinkedIn® for “Networking” which I’ll define as:
a. Job seeker.
b. Help a job seeker.
c. Connect with colleagues at work.
d. Make connections from previous jobs.
e. Help college students prepare for their upcoming job hunt.
f. Check out a profile
g. See Who’s Who and where they’ve been.
h. Find out “Where are they now”.
i. “Looking” for someone from their past. (I’m being professionally polite here. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that”. We’ve all done it).
2. LinkedIn® is not Facebook®. This was posted on numerous occasions. Enough Said!
3. Join industry groups to learn about trends.
a. Contribute content- pass along relative information.
b. Personal Branding
c. Dig your well before you’re thirsty. A term coined by Harvey MacKay and the title of a very good book. (Check it out).
d. Pro-active career management.
e. Learn about best practices
f. Research a solution to a people problem or challenge.
g. Improve Leadership skills by reading the Influencer articles. (Jeff Haden writes some incredible and noteworthy articles).
h. Corporate Branding.
a. New technology promotion.
b. Product Advancements.
c. Channel Management.
d. Social Listening.
4. Traffic/Updates seem lower on weekends, yet another obvious observation.
For the most part, I think most of us are passive users who on occasion will increase the visit for different reasons.
For me, I’ll stick to the motivational quotes and continue offering to help anyone who needs some support no matter stage they are in their career cycle.
