Mastering LinkedIn Engagement: The Ultimate BAMF Guide

LinkedIn engagement is key to a lot of things.

It helps establish the principal as a thought leader on the platform, it allows you to drive conversations, and it’s still one of the barometers for LinkedIn virality.

To this date, the LinkedIn algorithm works the same.

If you want your post to go viral, it needs to show that it has initial engagement to make it deserving of more views.

Here’s the thing.

LinkedIn engagement isn’t something you can get good at in one sitting, it’s still an art form.

In today’s guide, we’ll give you the fundamentals of LinkedIn engagement so that you have what you need to maximize content views and supercharge your growth on the platform.

Why LinkedIn Engagement is Important

LinkedIn engagement is one of the signals that the platform looks at to take a post viral.

But it does more than that.

It shows people that you are someone they should be following because your content gets people talking.

This in turn increases your reach and allows you to maximize the awareness part of your LinkedIn business strategy.

We also like engagement because it allows you to disarm people that you want to nurture in your funnel, the more they engage with you on the side, the more familiar they become with what you do and what your products are, thus giving you a foot through the door.

The TL;DR is that it makes you look popular, and truth be told, people like dealing with people who are charismatic.

Before Engaging on LinkedIn, Let’s Revisit Profile Optimization

Your LinkedIn profile is your landing page on the platform.

It serves as your base of operations.

Whenever a prospect, viewer, or member of your audience is interested in you, they refer back to your profile.

Here’s the thing.

Your post adds credibility to your profile and your profile adds credibility to your posts.

People who like good content will want to know where the content is coming from.

This makes it the single most critical component of engagement because even if you’re able to drive engagement by the droves to all of your posts, it still won’t amount to anything if you don’t have an optimized LinkedIn profile that can do something about the potential leads.

Imagine having a post go viral about your product, if an interested party checks out the poster’s link and sees a profile that isn’t optimized or looks like it isn’t trustworthy, all the effort will have gone to waste.

So, what do we advise?

Start by optimizing the basic components of your profile.

Profile photo

• Does your profile photo stand out?
• Do you have a distracting background?
• Do you look like you’re inviting, professional, or happy?

Cover photo

• Is it generic or custom?
• Do you have a CTA and branding elements on your cover photo?
• Do you have logos of your previous clients to create trust by association?

Read more: LinkedIn Profile Picture and Header Image Optimization Guide (Plus, Photo Examples)

Headline

• Is it concise?
• Does it tell people about what you can do for them instead of what you can do?
• Have you included a CTA in it?
• Can you say that it’s relatable?

Read more: What is a Good Headline for LinkedIn? The Ones That Drive Conversion

About me summary

• Have you optimized it for mobile? (More on this later)
• Does the first part “hook” your audience in?
• Is there an actionable portion in it?
• Is the text engaging or a bore?

Once you have gotten these parts hammered down, only then can you start considering the other steps toward LinkedIn engagement.

Some Types of Content Get Better LinkedIn Engagement

Not all types of content get that much engagement.

And some types will outperform others much more easily.

If you want people to engage with you, you need to post content that is engaging, that’s the way it naturally works.

We advise that you stick with repurposed videos, content giveaways, images with striking captions, and plain text founder stories if you’re looking to maximize the amount of engagement that you are getting.

However, just because one type of content works, doesn’t mean you should abuse it.

People like variety and once they notice you’re causing one type of content, they might lose interest. So, the goal is to switch it up whenever you can.

What’s our favorite type of content that always has a lot of engagement?

Giveaway posts!

And, they’re pretty easy to do.

Beyond that, you should work to…

Increase The Quality of Your Content

This goes without saying that don’t expect people to engage with content that’s terrible.

But beyond that, even if you’re already putting out good content, you should still strive to make each piece stand out and add value.

Don’t settle for the benchmark.

Here are a couple of reminders:

• If your content is something you’ve covered before, are you attacking it from a new angle?
• Is it providing your viewership with value that will either inspire them or make them better at what they do?
• Are you providing a fresh take?
• Is your content actionable?
• Are there takeaways that will stay with them after they have read it?
• Will your intended audience find it easy to digest?
• Is it written in a clear way integrated with good storytelling?

Prioritize Mobile First

A majority of your audience will be seeing your content from their mobile devices, and you want to optimize your content for the largest group of viewers.

This increases the accessibility of your content making it easier for people who are interested to digest it.

We advise breaking down your content into three-liners and smaller paragraphs to make it easier for people to read on their mobile devices.

The easier it is for people to consume your content, the more likely it is for them to engage with it.

Hashtags Help

Hashtags help organize topics and niches into different categories online, and LinkedIn utilizes the same feature to help get creators’ content to relevant audiences.

Using hashtags allows you to get your content in front of relevant audiences and literally tells the algorithm how to categorize and organize your work.

Getting your content to the right people is the first step in aiming for engagement.

Engage First

One of the proven ways to drive up engagement is to be the first to engage.

Notice someone you know commenting on your post? Make sure you speak with them and comment back.

Think someone on your connections list can benefit from the post? Tag them in a comment, you never know, they might tag other people in their connections who might like it as well and that can drive engagement.

You don’t always have to wait for people to engage, sometimes it pays off to be the first one to move.

Critical Step: Create Avenues for Engagement

If you want people to do something for you, you have to engineer it in a way that will make it easy for them to do so.

This is where a LinkedIn post’s CTA comes in.

A lot of people often forget to encourage people to engage with their posts, you could have a really cool post, but sometimes what people need is a little push to get them to engage.

Now there are a lot of ways for you to engineer this push.

• You can tell them to engage with you directly. e.g. “Tell us your thoughts!
• Questions can be used to do the same effect e.g. “What do you think about this?”
• You can provide a link to a different part of the internet e.g. “Don’t forget to check out our website!”

How about if you’re doing a giveaway?

This is where it gets interesting.

Do you know how you can get more engagement in a giveaway? Get them to do something for you.

Instead of relying on say, LinkedIn Forms, you can tell them to react to the post, tag their friend or comment their name below the resource. This way, you don’t only show them that you’re a thought leader who gives knowledge out for free, but you boost the odds of your post going viral on the platform.

We’ve done this plenty of times and we have reaped rewards out of the people who get to connect with.

This is the reason why engineering your post to bring in engagement is really important.

We see this often on platforms such as Facebook where OPs even try to get you to interact with the graphics they have posted.

If you can apply this to LinkedIn, you’re golden.

Engaging With Engagers

It might seem simple to just answer people who comment on your post.

Don’t just answer people who comment on your posts, it’s better to drive the conversation.

Why do this?

Well, first of all, you establish yourself as someone who is open to the public, a provider of free information, and at the same time, you’re friendly enough to interact with people.

Now as you grow your following, and continue to drive conversations, you come off as a person of the people, someone an ordinary Joe can reach out to for advice and people love that.

From an engagement standpoint, the more you converse with people, the easier it is for other people to join in and continue the conversation, this leads to more engagements and gives your post a runway to go viral, which is always a good thing if you ask us.

However, it is not only about commenting, you can also react to their comments, and start a new chain of thought in the comment section.

Don’t dominate, but facilitate.

Get Your Team to Engage

Looking for a quick way to get reactions and comments, get your team to be the first ones to engage with your posts.

However, here’s the thing.

You don’t want to abuse this feature, but reserve it for posts that you really want to see take off.

Our advice is also to get multiple groups of people to engage with different posts, this way you don’t show the LinkedIn algorithm a pattern.

Also, it’s a great way to get your team working together.

LinkedIn Groups

LinkedIn groups might not be the best source of engagement, but in a way, they can complement your efforts on the platform. We suggest that you join a couple and share your posts there from time to time.

However, don’t just use a LinkedIn group for self-serving publicity, make sure you are a bonafide member in the sense that you also join for the sake of the community.

Analyzing Engagement

What do we always say?

“You can’t growth hack if you don’t track”, so here’s what.

You need to make sure that you’re tracking your posts.

Try to make it a habit to pull up your stats every two weeks or so and see which posts have been driving the most engagement. This will tell you where to focus on and which post types you should do less of.

Also, don’t be afraid of a little A/B testing.

It can come in helpful if you want to see which of your posts will perform well.

LinkedIn Advertising

If you really want your posts in front of people, then you should dabble in a little LinkedIn advertising.

Now, be sure to apply the same rules that we’ve set out here.

You’ll find that your efforts will be much more effective and you’ll be more efficient with your resources.

Takeaways

As you can see from this guide, there are plenty of ways to bring about LinkedIn engagement.

However, the most critical step is doing the groundwork.

Your LinkedIn engagement will mean nothing if you can’t do anything about it. Make sure your profile is ready to take advantage of all the leads coming in through your posts and that you are following up and nurturing potential leads through your pipeline.

That’s the proper way of using LinkedIn engagement.

Stay golden folks.