Are you commenting too much or not enough when it comes to using

LinkedIn for business growth?

In today's episode, let's find out.

G'day everyone.

It is coach Michelle J Raymond.

And as this episode goes live, I have already begun my World Page Advocacy Tour.

That's right.

I'm going to speak at Uplift Live in the UK and then heading over to Social Media

Marketing World in the US to share about my new framework to help people get better

engagement out of their Company Pages.

But if it wasn't for comments on LinkedIn, this trip would never have happened.

Let me rewind the clock four and a half years.

Once upon a time, I wrote a comment and I wrote a comment on a post about

Company Pages and the person who I wrote that comment on, he was based in Vienna.

And lucky for me, that comment, which had a pretty strong opinion on

Company Pages, which went against the grain was seen by somebody in Dubai.

Now that person in Dubai, they also had a podcast and invited me on as a guest

to discuss Company Pages some more.

After that podcast went live, a listener in New Zealand who heard that and heard

me talking about Company Pages reached out and asked me to write a book.

Shout out to Lynnaire Johnston, co author of Business Gold, the world's

first and only book on Company Pages.

As we keep fast forwarding into the future.

Here I am the person that is known for Company Pages that has been invited to

speak on these international stages.

This listeners is exactly the power of comments.

And as we've seen recently, LinkedIn have just updated LinkedIn comments.

They're changing lots of little things about how they're counted, showing

us the power of the impressions that they create so we can measure

the impact of our comments.

And if I go back a couple of episodes ago, I also did an episode on how many

times should you post per week on LinkedIn if you want to grow your business.

And lots of you really enjoyed that.

It's pretty much been the most popular episode I've done.

Beyond just posting content on LinkedIn there was a lot of follow up questions

about how often should you comment?

So we're going to cover that in today's episode, because honestly

commenting is just amazing.

It's a power tool for you.

And especially if you're not somebody that feels confident to

create your own content as yet.

You don't need to just sit on the sidelines in the

background and be invisible.

Before we go into the benefits of having an amazing commenting strategy, I have

got some exciting news from my friends at Metricool who sponsor the podcast.

They have been doing some epic research into LinkedIn.

So here's a quick word about what's coming up.

In today's episode, we're talking about the power of comments and comments are

amazing because they are your way to not only show off your thought leadership,

contribute to somebody else's success and be discovered by new people.

And they are kind of the three elements that you need to build

a really amazing personal brand or business brand on LinkedIn.

And so there's so much upside with commenting.

And I know for some of you, you're like, but how many times should I comment

versus how many times should I post?

And the answer is, it depends.

How big are your goals?

What else do you have on your plate?

For those of you who aren't posting content at all, which is totally fine.

For you, my numbers of comments would be much higher.

So I would expect you to be spending 15 minutes to half an hour every

day, commenting on as many posts as you can find in your subject matter

area, to an ideal audience and really just start discovering who else is

interested in that topic as well.

And, you know, always show up and be helpful and be supportive and

don't spam other people's posts cause that's very uncool, let's be clear.

If you are somebody that is posting, let's say you're doing that two to three

times a week, you may not have as much time to be contributing to commenting as

a person that's doing no posts at all.

But I would still aim by five posts, five days a week to getting

comments out there because you are leveraging somebody else's community.

If you've been listening to the show for a while now, you know that I

really dislike strongly and I'd go as far as saying I hate prescribing

a particular number of times that I would recommend that you do things.

And I do this because, again, I don't know where you're at, I don't know

the resources you have, I don't know the goals that you have, and so if I

say to you, go and post five times a week, but you have a really big

product launch coming up, or you're just starting out and need a community,

or you're super busy, like giving you an arbitrary number that I pluck out

of the air is not going to be helpful.

The bigger the goal, the shorter the timeframe, the more

effort that you need to put in.

So this really comes down to you.

Like how much are you doing?

Are you maximising your time on LinkedIn strategically?

Because besides being wary of giving you a number because I don't

know your circumstances, there is something that freaks me out even

more about prescribing numbers.

And what happens is if I tell you go and comment 50 times a day or

something silly like that, then there are people that would follow that.

And that's when tools like automation of commenting become really attractive

because people think more is better.

And it's not always the case.

Not all comments are created equal.

There are comments that are going to help you get towards

your goal and build your brand.

And there are going to be comments if you do that at a crazy scale with not

much thought that are just going to reflect poorly on you and I'm never

going to be an advocate for that.

So those people and Company Pages especially, that have it set on

autopilot, just basically spray and pray that it lands somewhere.

The comments that we see, we know that it's just regurgitating

whatever has been posted in the post.

It is so awful and it looks terrible for you and your brand.

We know what you're doing, so please just stop it.

And especially if you are somebody that is doing it on my posts, like there is

one Company Page that keeps doing it.

And I literally, every time I see it, it makes me angry and I'm working to

try and get that stopped with LinkedIn.

How amazing would it be to be able to block Company Pages that spam comments?

That is something that I would love to do.

So not all comments are created equal.

What I encourage you to do is adjust that number way back down, go for

quality over quantity at all times.

That should always drive every action that we've got on LinkedIn anyway, but

in case it wasn't obvious to somebody that might be new to this podcast,

firstly, thank you for listening.

But again, I am never going to tell you to go and do something at

volume at a compromise of quality.

Besides the number of comments, I want you to stop and think, where am I commenting?

Are you commenting in places that are going to help you get closer

towards your business goals?

Or are you commenting in places that you find interesting or entertaining

or probably a big distraction?

Because LinkedIn is designed to keep you on there for long

periods of time so you watch ads.

They are going to keep serving up the things that you engage in.

Now if you're always supportive of your friends posts, and I'm, you

know, certainly on board for that.

But if that's all you're focusing on and you're distracted away from your

business goal commenting, then you are not going to achieve your goals no

matter how many comments that you do.

So just take a moment and just check, are you spending time

commenting in the right places?

It's not to say that there are times where there are swings and roundabouts, you

know, we all need those moments where, you know what, it's not all about business.

We just need a break.

We just need to use LinkedIn for fun.

I totally I'm on board for that, but ultimately just make sure that that

doesn't become a newly formed habit.

And it can be so easy to slip into.

It just starts with one here, one there.

And then all of a sudden it snowballs.

So just go back and check.

You can go to the comments tab on your profile and go back and have

a look and see, is this getting me closer to my business goals or has

this been a distraction and, you know, adjust things accordingly

or know, yep it was a distraction.

That's okay.

With where I'm at right now, business is good.

I've checked in, I know what I'm doing and that's fine as well, but just, just have

a look and make sure that you're on track.

Let's talk about some advanced commenting strategies.

So we've said here that not all comments are created equal, but what

are some different advanced strategies that you could use that would mix

things up and really help you elevate your game, stand out from the crowd

and be top of mind for other people.

And one of the ways that you can do that is I call them the mini

thought leadership comments.

And that is where you really go deep and it's offering real valuable

insights based on your expertise, based on your knowledge, based

on your own personal opinion.

Like give me something that is a view of how you see the world that may

be different to something else that I can regurgitate from elsewhere.

That's what I'm most interested in.

That is what true thought leadership is.

So these comments quite often are more than one or two sentences.

And the cool part about this is you can go and turn these into posts.

You know, they're often the trigger for an idea, and you can go and expand that

further on and continue that conversation, continue leading that conversation.

That's what thought leadership content is, and it can certainly

happen in the comments.

Another advanced strategy for commenting is what I would

call the tag and engage method.

So this is where if I came across a post and we're going to say it's on the

topic of Company Pages, then I would write my opinion on Company Pages.

And then I could ask someone in my network who I know It is also a fan of

Company Pages and ask for their opinion.

So I would tag them and say, what are your thoughts?

So shout out to Dario Valente, for instance, I would say, I've been asked my

opinion on Company Page engagement rates.

What are you seeing with the pages that you manage?

So that is one way that you can do this.

Again, it shows that other person, Hey, I'm thinking of you.

I'm keeping an eye out.

I want you involved in this conversation.

So the tag and engage method is really great to show that you've got a really

strong community, strong opinions, and you're supporting the person

whose content you are commenting on.

And it expands their communities, it gets us all out of those echo chambers.

And it's always nice when you get to meet new people, as introduced by somebody

else, but think about who can you tag that would come to the post and engage

with it and expand that conversation.

The third advanced commenting strategy that I would like to share about is

all about the call to action comment.

And this is a comment where you are driving the action of whoever reads

it, asking them to do something.

A perfect use case, I have Company Pages set up for my podcast or also my books.

So if somebody is looking for book recommendations

or podcast recommendations.

I use the identity switcher, switch over to my book and I would say,

Hey, come and check this out.

This is where you can find it, right.

And put a link to where someone could buy the book.

Same goes with podcast recommendations.

I'm also doing it on my personal page.

It might be that I comment as my Company Page and say if you want a

free intro call, go to my website.

Here's the link, right?

So it's an action that you want the reader to take.

Now, this can be helpful because we know that LinkedIn doesn't love links in posts,

and I'm not sure that they really love them in comments, any more than that, but,

you know, ultimately sometimes it's a good chance to put a comment like that, where

you are sending someone off LinkedIn into the comments and put those links in there.

So that's another option that you've got.

So you've got mini thought leadership ones.

You've got the tag and engage method.

And you've also got the call to action comment.

And they're three advanced commenting strategies.

To quickly recap what we've covered in today's episode.

Not all comments are created equal.

So giving you a straight out number is not going to be helpful, but do make

sure you're investing time and energy into commenting because it will help

your brand, build your community and ultimately keep you top of mind with

your audience and what goes around comes around so other people will help

you and support your content as well.

The second thing that we're looking at is that not all comments are created equal.

So think about how can you use those comments more strategically and certainly

stay away from automation tools.

As we wrap up today's episode, I hope I've inspired you to leave more strategic

comments in the right places because you never know where you will end up.

So for those of you who've been following along, I'm now officially

on my Page Advocacy World Tour and UpLift Live in the UK is my first stop.

So if you're a listener and you are going to be there, please come and say hello.

Introduce yourself, if I don't already know you.

I can't wait to share a Tim Tam with you all.

So until next week, listeners cheers.