If posting on LinkedIn every day was the secret to success, then pretty much every

LinkedIn creator would be a gazillionaire.

And given that's not the case, the question remains, listeners, how

often should you post on LinkedIn?

G'day everyone.

It is coach Michelle J Raymond, and welcome back again for another episode

of the podcast where we are looking into all the different ways you can

use LinkedIn to grow your B2B business.

Now, probably one of the most popular questions when I'm working with

new clients is Michelle, how often should we be posting on LinkedIn?

In today's episode, listeners, we are going to take a look at it from

a number of different perspectives.

So how often should you post on LinkedIn to keep the LinkedIn algorithm happy?

Number one.

Number two, we're going to have a look at how often should you post on

LinkedIn when it comes to keeping your community happy and engaged and number

three, to schedule or not to schedule.

That is the question.

And while we're talking about scheduling LinkedIn posts, here's a quick word

from our podcast sponsors, Metricool which is what I use in my business

to schedule all of our content.

Let's start with how often does the LinkedIn algorithm want you to post?

Now, this is something that I'm going to start with.

I'm going to answer the question because it's the one that comes

up in training every single time.

And that's the first point where I'm like, no, that's not what we're here for.

We're not here to keep the algorithm happy, but I know

it's important to understand it.

So I'm going to cover it from that perspective.

So here's your answer.

Quite frankly, the LinkedIn algorithm is not concerned with the volume

of posts that you're putting out as much as what you might think.

It wants you to put out content that creates conversations for your community.

So I've done podcast episodes on the LinkedIn algorithm.

LinkedIn told us it's about sharing knowledge and advice to one community, on

the area of expertise that you have and driving conversations, i. e. comments.

So it's looking at that.

So the word that LinkedIn uses more often is relevancy.

Are you posting content that's relevant to your audience?

So it's not going, Hey, go hard and keep feeding the beast.

That's not what it's trying to do.

It loves consistent content and it does love that you're there, but ultimately

they're going, for quality more than quantity, which hallelujah LinkedIn, that

makes sense to the rest of us as well.

From that perspective, I want you to just think about it

as far as the algorithm goes.

The one other little thing that I would say, there are people that

are posting every single day.

There are people that are posting once a week, or there are people that,

are posting multiple times a day.

In my personal experience with the clients that I've been working with and the

experiments that I try with my content, if you post multiple times per day, you

can expect that your first post will be the probably best performing one.

The second post almost cannibalises the reach doesn't quite go as far.

In general, there is no real advantage for all the additional

effort that it's going to take to be posting multiple times per day.

Now, I think I've seen this also play out when people are hitting the repost button.

So you write your own posts at the beginning of the day, and then you

go and repost other people's content.

My working theory at this point in time is that by doing that LinkedIn treats

that as a new post and then your original work isn't being seen by as many.

So I love the idea of reposting.

I'm not anti that, and it can be a great place for people to be starting, but

if you're getting pretty happy go lucky and reposting lots of content, then

just keep an eye on and see if that's reducing the number of impressions that

you're getting on your original posts.

If the answer is yes, do an experiment and just drop back to that one

post per day and see how things go.

There you go, that is all I'm going to be speaking on when it comes to the LinkedIn

algorithm and answering the question of how often should you post on LinkedIn.

There is something far more important than worrying about the LinkedIn algorithm

and we're going to talk about that next.

How dare I say that the LinkedIn algorithm isn't the solution to all

of our answers that we're looking for when it comes to LinkedIn.

What should we be looking at more importantly would be the

follow up question to that.

And I'm glad that you asked.

And here's what I would say.

Before we even talk about how often you should post on LinkedIn, we have to stop.

What's your game plan?

When I'm doing training in my G.R.O.W.T.H framework, G is for Game Plan.

So the question is, what are you trying to do on LinkedIn?

What are you trying to achieve?

Have you set goals?

What are the timeframes that you have?

What are the resources that you have available?

There is no point in me telling somebody that is brand new to

LinkedIn to go and post every single day, if they're actually,

struggling to even build a community.

If you have a small community, there is no point in putting all of your

energy into creating content day after day for pretty much nobody to see.

Think about this.

If you do a post and it goes out to roughly 10 percent of your connections

and followers, and you only have 200 connections, that's 20 people.

And if you think about the amount of effort that you're putting in,

honestly, it's just not worth it.

You should be spending more time building community.

There are people, however, that have really good consistent workflows,

have been on LinkedIn for a long time, have got other resources,

maybe doing research, creating graphics, and they can get more done.

So that perspective means that you could be posting three times

a week, up to five times per week.

And that might be something that is comfortable, that is going

to allow you to be consistent.

And most importantly, my favourite word persistent over the long term.

So on LinkedIn, when it comes to your content strategy and how often

you should be posting, really have a look at what can you commit to

consistently over the long term.

That is far more important than the actual number.

And so I want you to have a think about this.

So if you have a big goal that you are trying to make sure you achieve in a

short timeframe, then more activity is required that makes logical sense.

If you have time on your hands, cause business is slow and you

can get more done, you might up things to try and increase those

leads and opportunities coming in.

Conversely, the situation I find myself in right now is business is

booming, things are going crazy, and I can't always keep up with posting

every single day like I typically have been over the last 10 years.

I like to post most days during the week.

Sometimes I do them on the weekends.

And so, you know, I've dropped things off.

Now the world kept spinning.

My business kept growing and that's okay.

Now that's very different to the days when I go down that slippery

slope, just like everybody else.

And I stare at the screen and I can't write a post.

Yep.

Even me, after 10 years of creating content for myself, for businesses

around the world, training everybody else how to do it.

There are times when I just can't get over that writer's block, which is crazy

when I know I've got so many ideas.

So if you are new to creating content, just know this is a lot harder than

you probably think, to get started.

And so start off with one post per week, that is more than enough

while you're taking other actions.

And the other actions could be you're commenting on other people's posts.

You could be sending connection requests and responding to those messages that

you receive after somebody connects.

All those kinds of activities in building your community are equally as important

as the number of posts, if not more important when you're starting out.

So again, we have to start with your goals, where you're at and what

you're trying to achieve first up.

Will your audience notice if you are not posting every day?

No, you know, with how much is going on the platform, with how

much we scroll, quite often people don't even realise you're not there

and they just blame the algorithm.

So that kind of brings up the question, if you aren't posting enough, it means

that you could be out of sight, out of mind, and then that makes it difficult

for people to recall you when they have a problem that they know someone

in their LinkedIn network can solve.

There's a business out there.

There's a person out there that I can work with, but I

just can't remember their name.

I haven't seen their content for a while.

And so this is where that consistency does come up.

So I think the happy medium place, if you want me to put a number on it for most

people to aim for is three times a week.

And that for me, if it's every second day or every, Tuesday, Wednesday,

Thursday, or maybe it's a day over the weekend, it's fine, but it's a good

spread over the week so that you're mostly covered most posts will last in

the feed 48 hours, 72 hours, things like this before they disappear completely.

So from that perspective, there's always some fresh content that's coming through,

but I certainly would never recommend that for people that are just getting started.

So you need to start off slow.

Build up that momentum and then as you build up that momentum and those systems

and processes and confidence, you can keep going and it's no different to

me, I'm currently on a mission to learn how to go for a run at the gym and

I've got to tell you, my brain wants to go fast and it wants to go hard.

My body on the other hand, hasn't quite got that memo and every piece of

research that I've read about how you can go from none to run or couch to

5k, all of these kinds of programs, the advice is always slow down to speed up.

So when it comes to LinkedIn, it is exactly the same.

So slow down, get that cadence and then build on it over time.

One of the fastest ways that I believe that you can improve the cadence and

your capabilities of doing more posts per week is to schedule your content.

And I think it's important that we have a quick conversation

to schedule or not to schedule.

I know that there's noise out on the platform that says, no

way, don't schedule your posts.

You won't get as much reach as if you were to post them live on LinkedIn.

And after this quick break, I'm going to tell you exactly why I

think that's a load of rubbish.

I get that it was a pretty big call by me before the break to say

that those people out there who tell you that it's a bad idea to

schedule posts are full of rubbish.

So I better back this up, right?

So if you don't know what a scheduled post is on LinkedIn,

here's pretty much the summary.

You have the opportunity either to go directly in LinkedIn when you

create a post, you can write it all at a time that works for you.

And then before you hit post, there's a little clock next to it on the left

hand side, and you can click on that and it opens up a window where you can

schedule a time for the post to go live.

So think about it like this, create the post when works for

you, the post goes live at a time that works best for your audience.

And so for me, I quite often find myself writing my content on the weekends.

I don't know what it is.

It just always seems to be that way.

But that's not when most of my audience is around.

It's, you know, normally during the middle of the week.

And because I work globally, I find that my posts work better

if I post them in the afternoon.

Now, if you ask me to write a LinkedIn post in the afternoon it's not

where my brain's working the best.

I'm much better at afternoon naps is the joys of working globally.

I have early morning appointments with the U S later ones with Europe.

So afternoons aren't necessarily my best time.

So scheduling content can be a great way around this.

So not only can you do it directly in LinkedIn now, so

they've updated that feature.

You can also use tools like Metricool is the tool that you hear me talk about.

That's what we use at B2B Growth Co. You can schedule posts for

Company Pages or personal profiles.

Now, I think this is a great idea for a number of reasons.

It is far easier, especially if you are new to creating content,

to sit down and write one to three posts in one sitting, than come back

and do that three different times.

By getting your brain into that writing mode to having those ideas

and getting in that flow is much easier than waking up and thinking,

what will I write about today?

When you stare at a blank screen your brain will go

into lots of different places.

And quite often we end up paralysed by having so many things that we could

write about or the opposite happens and you can't think of anything at all.

So scheduling tools, you can always write those ideas when works for you.

Like I said, so if an idea comes to me right now, I can put it in the scheduling

tool and have it pre planned out.

This way life doesn't get in the way I'm guilty of this one.

I am still struggling with, posting my content and scheduling it and making

sure that it's done in advance so that business growth doesn't get in the way.

Life doesn't get in the way.

Being tired, doesn't get in the way.

All the other things that will creep up and give you the world's

best excuse to not do your posts for that day or that week.

So scheduling tools work.

Why do people say that LinkedIn posts don't work as well when you schedule them?

Ultimately it comes back to LinkedIn's algorithm rewards engagement.

And what is engagement?

Comments and conversations.

And so if you do a post that goes live at a time that you're not on

LinkedIn to either have been engaging with other people's posts beforehand.

Or during your post going live, you're not there to respond to comments that

you're getting, then the algorithm's going well, if you're not here to see

it and you're not going to respond, then why should we show other people?

And I get that some of that theory where people are like babysit your post, you

should sit around for an hour after it goes live and make sure you're responding.

And I'm like thinking, I don't have an hour to sit there and babysit things.

I've got a business to run.

I've got client work to do, and that's far more important than worrying about

getting an extra 20 percent impressions.

Now, if you do have the time and you hang around and engage, that's

great, but the world does not end.

If you use tools like Metricool, one of the cool parts is you can go in and

basically take that post and if it's what we call evergreen, so IE content

that never goes out of style or out of date, you can automatically reschedule

that to go in three months time or six months time or, down the track.

And that means you're not creating as much content.

And that's especially great if the content works really well.

To wrap this one up, listeners, you are creating content based on your goals,

based on your resources, based on your timeframes, what is going to keep you top

of mind and relevant for your audience?

That is your number one priority.

Then we're going to look at, can you commit to this over the longterm?

Is what you're committing to sustainable, like really, is it sustainable?

None of this hot and cold.

So I hope you've enjoyed today's episode.

I know it's getting closer to the time when I'm heading off on my World

Page Advocacy Tour, where I get to talk about all things Company Pages at

Uplift Live in the UK and Social Media Marketing World over in San Diego.

If you haven't got your tickets for that, please make sure you go and grab them.

I would love to meet with as many listeners as possible.

So until next week, cheers.