Let's talk about how content on platforms like LinkedIn should be driving you towards commercial outcomes.
When I did a poll of my LinkedIn connections recently, 51% of respondents said that content was the key driver of their business growth on LinkedIn.
Now I want to show you how you can amplify that and maximise the content that you are publishing because it is a popular topic in my LinkedIn workshops and also the coaching conversations I have had with clients recently.
Content publishing is absolutely fantastic because it keeps you top of mind. It keeps you visible and it helps build up the know, like, and trust factor.
But content on its own won't contribute to the commercial outcomes as quickly and reliably if you just do it on its own. So let me share with you what I suggest doing in tandem with your content.
So there's two things to consider here.
The first is content which is above the surface. So a lot of people in your network will see it. You might have hundreds or thousands of impressions or views on a piece of content, and that's great.
But also you've got to consider what happens under the radar that no one else sees, and that's your private messages.
We want to be doing both, content and DMs
Keep in mind that I think the reason why content is so popular, and why content is something that people want to learn more about, is because 99% of people on LinkedIn in particular are lurkers.
They're actively paying attention, they're logging in frequently. They're viewing it on their phone or their computer. They're observing and consuming the content, but they themselves aren't actually actively publishing any content.
The recent studies that I saw, there was over 800 million users on LinkedIn, and yet only 3 million people actively published content.
So what this means is it's a huge opportunity to rise above everybody else and be visible. Less than 1% of people are publishing content, which means it's a huge opportunity for you.
Content is above the surface. DMs, private messages, direct messages, whatever you want to call them, are under the surface, under the radar.
So content is great, lots of people are going to see it, and the opportunity lies with engaging with people that like your content, that vote in a poll or that leave a comment, and starting a private conversation with them, because that brings you under the radar into the private or direct messages where the commercial outcomes typically stem from.
5 Step Nurture System
If you are familiar with my 5 Step Nurture System, you will know there's 5 stages:
- Connect
- Start a conversation
- Gauge whether they're interested
- Have a hand-raiser type question (aka 'Shake the tree'), and then when they respond favourably to that
- Book in a sales call.
So these are the five stages we want to be nurturing people through.
And the best way to see who is the most interested is to be publishing content. And then those people that engage with that content, we move them down under the surface, under the radar, into a private message or a conversation.
When you do the two in tandem, content plus the private messages, that's when we can really start to not only build trust at scale, but also fill the pipeline with qualified, interested people that actually know, like, and trust you.
My name's Adam Franklin and if that was useful, here's how to subscribe to my LinkedIn newsletter.
