A major part of growing your audience on any social media channel is forming relationships through content interaction. It's nearly as important to your growth as creating your own content.
Most platforms, like Twitter, make this interaction a central part of their user experience.
For example, if I want to interact with Jack Butcher on Twitter, I simply set up notifications to prompt me when he posts new content. Simple.
Whenever he posts, I can interact with his content. His audience can discover me in the comments section, and my audience can discover him. Outside of that, we can build a consistent relationship online, which is what "social" media is all about.
For example, this weekend I replied to a Tweet of his with a GIF (below).
This simple response led to the following numbers:
- Impressions: 7,513
- Media plays: 2,225
- Engagements: 282
- Profile clicks: 24
Pretty massive numbers for a GIF. This is just one reason why Twitter is such a valuable platform.
How LinkedIn Failed
LinkedIn failed because they have a social interaction problem.
Our feeds are made up of thousands of pieces of content from people we are "connected" with, regardless of whether we truly choose to follow them or not.
After some time (especially once you have a large audience) the feed is muddied and it becomes hard to find and interact with your favorite content creators.
I've found a simple 5 step workaround that helps me interact with my favorite creators and continue building my audience at a rapid pace.
I call it "Creating A Social Ecosystem".
How to Create Your LinkedIn Social Ecosystem in 5 easy steps
Step 1: Identify 3-5 creators that you want to interact with regularly.
I recommend people who create content for a similar consumer from a different angle or value proposition. For example, I like to interact regularly with Austin Belcak and Kevin "KD" Dorsey.
They both create content for motivated people, and I believe that these are the types of people that will eventually care about growing their LinkedIn audience or starting their own business online (the things I write about)
Step 2: Simply reach out to each of these creators and ask them what time they create content.
Most regular LinkedIn creators keep a schedule because they know how hard it is for their audience to find their content. By producing at a regular time each morning, their audience knows when to log on and find it.
For example, Kevin posts each morning around 7:05a CT, and Austin posts each morning at about 8:10a CT.
Step 3: Copy the URL that leads directly to their posts.
Step 4: Save each URL to a bookmark with the creator's name and posting time.
Step 5: Leave a thoughtful, articulate comment to add to the conversation.
By creating this "social ecosystem" hack, I'm consistently interacting with high-impact LinkedIn creators and becoming a regular fixture to their audience. I'm generally the first person to comment, which is huge. It means I'll likely be the most relevant comment at the end of the day.
When you run this play each morning, you accelerate your own audience growth greatly.
How to get started
If you want to get to my post each morning and be exposed to 130k+ daily impressions, here is the link to my recent content.
I post each morning at 8:15a EST/5:15a PST. Feel free to bookmark this and be my first comment each morning to grow your visibility.
If you found this interesting, feel free to share it with a friend or someone you know that's looking to grow on LinkedIn. Thanks for taking the time to read it.
