The hard truth about LinkedIn (applies for all social media)
Olena Bomko
11 replies
The hard truth about LinkedIn:
- A lot of people with big audiences can post superficial content and get a lot of likes.
- You can have a very big audience, 200+ likes per post, be included in TOP lists but have 0 customers and be totally broke.
- "Influencers" with 100K+ followers steal content.
- You can’t (and shouldn’t) compete with people who post on LinkedIn about LinkedIn.
- If someone with a big audience (not a celebrity) tells you that they spend 15 min on LinkedIn. They’re lying. Engaging with others takes time. Responding to comments takes time. Creating good content takes a lot of time.
- Hooks work if posts deliver hooks’ promises.
- Tricks and hacks can sell bad products/services. ONCE.
- There are a lot of scammers on LinkedIn.
- A lot of famous people on LinkedIn use pods and buy likes.
- You can’t force everyone in your company to build a personal brand.
- LinkedIn is a rented channel. You can’t control the algorithm and its rules. LinkedIn can ban you anytime.
I love this platform. But you should know about the other side, too.
I will launch my (honest) LinkedIn Inbound Playbook on Product Hunt. Support me, please 😊
https://www.producthunt.com/products/the-linkedin-inbound-playbook
Replies
Relja Denic@relja_denic
Launching soon!
Oh, it's really nice that you said the influencers steal content and use pods. Many people are not aware of that and there just like I can't do that, I'm not creative enough.
Share
Waiting at the tip of my seat for this playbook!
Thank you for insightful comments, and I absolutely love your brutally honest style of writing! Looking forward to your launch!
Eye opening post. I haven't started my social media journey yet, and I don't know if I ever will, but it's important to have clear expectations from the start. This is really helpful, thank you for sharing Olena.
The LinkedIn Inbound Playbook
@iskandarchacra My pleasure :) I have customers, clients, friends on LinkedIn. It's a great channel, but you should know about the other side, too.
Congratulations @olenabomko looking forward to your playbook.
Interesting take on Linkedin and good to know.
This is spot on accurate advice and similar to some tips I've written up for companies I've been at.
- I've seen multiple attempts to force every team member to be an evangelist. Always fails.
- I've seen scammers... especially with photos of attractive young women who have names that don't match the faces and no connections.
- My son once wanted to be an Influencer and I did some searching and found out that in the category he was interested in, the top 10% of revenue generating influencers made about $60K/year on average. He was stunned because that's not a great wage for where we live.
To participate meaningfully:
- Post useful content regularly that is relevant to the audience
- Actually be interested in that audience and their wellbeing (it shows if you are not)
- Never go negative.
- It's OK to block people (if the platform allows) who are negative to you or who try to piggy back on your posts in an unhealthy way.
- Remember that it's real people who are taking their time to read your posts and interact with you.