The other day I had to tell someone a secret, and I wasn’t sure how they’d take it.
For context, I’ve struggled to work out what I could contribute to a platform like LinkedIn™.
With loads of content landing in my feed, I ended up thinking things like, “No point in me talking about that, so and so has already done it,” or “There’s no way I could do it as well as they’ve done it, so I won’t bother.”
Classic imposter syndrome.
But I realised a big part of this was because I wasn’t clear who I wanted to create for. And without that, how on earth can you know what kind of things you need to cover?
The lightbulb moment was realising that I’m not actually trying to reach the people who often regularly appear in my LinkedIn™ feed. I’m actually trying to help people the passive users who THINK they don’t know how to use LinkedIn™. These people are the majority, but they are also the people most likely to consume content without engaging with I overtly.
Stick with me because this understanding is as important for you as it was for me!
If you look at the way post performance stats break down – test this theory on your own content – they typically receive way more impressions than reactions (‘likes’, etc.), and they will almost always receive more likes than comments. That means most people who see it, won’t interact with it.
Their lack of interaction isn’t necessarily born out of disinterest, though. Once you are contributing useful content regularly, you start to find people message you directly, or tell you they share your posts with people in their team via email, or maybe mention things you’ve talked about on a call with you, or when they meet you in person. All stuff you can’t measure through regular post performance stats.
My personal experience shows me this, and it happens a lot for people I work with.
Once I’d realised who my actual audience is, I started to think about their needs. This turned the question I had been struggling to answer – What should I talk about on here? – into one I could really get my teeth into: What could I create that might be useful to my audience?
Because of this I’ve gone from posting in fits and starts and deliberating for hours over ideas that often came to nothing, to establishing a drumbeat of activity for the past nine months. I’m publishing what I believe to be useful stuff, at a cadence that works for me, and I’m growing my reach and impact in a sustainable, organic manner as a result.
Oh, and the secret I mentioned at the outset? It turns out that the precise persona of my target audience is someone I already knew and had in my network. A couple of weeks ago, I got them on a call so that I could break cover, and tell them how helpful they’d unwittingly been. They were totally cool.
So, there you go, proof-positive that the LinkedIn™ Freeze can be overcome by anyone with just a few adjustments to how you think about the platform.