The great debate continues. Where should you post on LinkedIn for maximum business results? Is the popular answer the right answer? You might be surprised.
Today's episode is sponsored by Metricool. Make sure to register for a FREE Metricool account today. Use Code MICHELLE30 to try any Premium Plan FREE for 30 days. https://i.mtr.cool/NEDXVZ
Key moments in this episode -
00:00 Introduction and Episode Overview
00:47 Should you post on LinkedIn Profile or LinkedIn Company Page?
01:25 Understanding the LinkedIn Algorithm
02:38 The Importance of LinkedIn Company Pages
03:39 Employee Advocacy and Content Creation Challenges
07:41 No One-Size-Fits-All Approach
07:57 Creating a LinkedIn Content Strategy
09:38 How post scheduling can help
12:25 Actionable Tips - LinkedIn Content Repurposing
14:36 Final wrap up
ABOUT MICHELLE J RAYMOND
Michelle J Raymond is an international LinkedIn™️ B2B Growth Coach. To continue the conversation, connect with Michelle on LinkedIn™️ and let her know you are part of the community of podcast listeners.
Connect with Michelle J Raymond on LinkedIn™️ - https://www.linkedin.com/in/michellejraymond/
B2B Growth Co offers LinkedIn™️ Training for teams to build personal and business brands and a LinkedIn™️ Profile Recharge service for Founders/CEOs.
Book a free intro call to learn more - https://calendly.com/michelle-j-raymond/book-an-intro-call-15mins
Social Media for B2B Growth Podcast is a fully accessible podcast. Audio, Video, Transcript and guest details are available on our podcast website - https://socialmediaforb2bgrowthpodcast.com/
Subscribe to our YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/@MichelleJRaymond
#LinkedIn #LinkedInContent
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This one is going to be a good one, and it is probably the most popular
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question that I ever get asked.
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Now, anybody that knows me knows that I love LinkedIn Company Pages, but the
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question is, should you be posting on your Company Page or your personal profile?
00:00:35
G'day listeners, Michelle J Raymond back again.
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I hope you're all having a great week, wherever you're listening in from.
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For those of you in the Northern hemisphere that are enjoying the sunshine, enjoy
00:00:46
some for me, because I'm not a big fan of winter myself, so enjoy it while it's there
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because I'm hoping it's coming back this way down under to Sydney sometime very soon.
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As we jump into today's episode, we're going to be talking about whether or not you should
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be posting on your page or your profile.
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First of all, let's have a look at why are people asking whether you should
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post on a profile or a page more often?
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And the obvious answer to that one is always going to come back down to there's so much
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noise on LinkedIn that talks about if you post on your Profile versus a Company Page, you will
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get more reach and probably more engagement.
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Now I'm not here to debate that.
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I think that's absolutely right.
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The way that LinkedIn is set up right now, Pages are really, when we're talking organic,
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not paid strategies are really behind the eight ball because just a simple scroll of
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your own feed, grab your phone right now and count how many posts of each show up.
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So you'll see a personal post, probably four of them, an ad, which is a paid Company
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Page post back to another few personal posts, and maybe you'll see a Company
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Page post that hasn't been paid for.
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And if you think about it, that means that Company Page posts aren't really favoured by LinkedIn.
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The next most obvious question is always well, Michelle, if profiles get
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more engagement and reach, why would I bother posting on my Company Page?
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Now you've got to remember when we're talking about companies in the B2B space, they go from
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everything from micro teams of one or two people, consultants, service based businesses all the way
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through to multinational and global businesses.
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So the reason that you shouldn't ignore your Company Page is that is there
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to represent your brand as a whole.
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Whereas personal profiles, they're all about the reach and yes, the engagement.
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So you can get involved in other conversations.
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They are absolutely designed to work differently.
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It's just a matter of making sure that you work out which one is right for you.
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And that's not always easy.
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It is not as simple as it is obvious if I get more reach, I'm going to do it on the profile.
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And here's why, because I worked for a company once upon a time where they
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relied on me and my personal brand.
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So we hear the words employee advocacy.
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Well, I was kind of an employee advocacy team of one person in a company of 1200 people, because I
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jumped on LinkedIn early, almost 10 years ago now.
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And what happened was I built an amazing community and then I switched jobs
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and I took that community with me.
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It was my personal community.
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I had built everything and the Company Page had been ignored.
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So what happened when the employee left?
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I took it with me, and then the company had nothing left.
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They had all their eggs in one basket.
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Keep in mind, employees come and go, that's fine, but the brand is the
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consistent that stays there forever.
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And so this is what you've got to be mindful of and always coming back to the Power
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of Two, not either or, not a definitive, there is only one way on LinkedIn, always
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coming back to what is the power of two, how can we get the best out of both sides?
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Before I step you through how you can decide whether you post on your LinkedIn profile
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or your LinkedIn Company Page, here's a quick word from our podcast sponsors,
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Metricool, who I deeply appreciate.
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There's one other factor that people conveniently gloss over when they're talking
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about this and they're hell bent a hundred percent of the time saying all about the
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employees, all about the personal profiles.
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And the problem is that nine out of 10 people do not ever want to post content on LinkedIn.
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There are so many bits of research out there that look into how users behave in online communities.
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Ultimately nine out of 10 people will never put out content, never like or comment.
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They're the lurkers that log into LinkedIn, keep up to date, have a look around and then disappear.
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They're like the ghosts that are going down the hallways.
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But don't ever think they don't know what's going on.
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They absolutely do.
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But do you think that they're ever going to post?
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No, they're not.
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Now, if you think about it, that's the majority of people.
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That leaves pretty much 1%.
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Even if we went the other way and went crazy and said, okay, it's 10
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percent of people that will post.
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If you have a look in your company, that doesn't give you a lot of options in many cases.
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So I want people to stop and think it is not that easy to just say, off you go, employees,
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we want you to post and it's just simple.
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Because I've worked with so many teams and companies of different sizes and you see it.
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We do the training.
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People love it.
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They're excited by it.
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They learn from it.
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And then getting them to do that first action, especially without support is really, really hard.
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So don't just think that you can ignore your Company Page, put all your eggs in one
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basket, and then it's all going to be okay because every employee is going to be so
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excited about posting content on LinkedIn.
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The simple fact is they aren't.
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And that's okay.
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What I've been surprised by is that in many businesses, the people that would not
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post personally are very happy to create content under the Company Page so it's
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not their personal name going out there.
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So Company Pages can be a really great place for people to start, to build their
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confidence, get familiar without any of that intimidation factor that happens on LinkedIn.
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LinkedIn can be professionally scary place.
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It is something where, we're thinking that others are judging us.
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We're worried that it will impact our professional career.
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Maybe you're worried you'll miss out on your bonus.
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You'll lose your job.
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You'll say the wrong thing.
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There won't be that promotion that everybody promises, just if you go and post on LinkedIn.
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These thoughts go through most people's brains when it comes to sitting down
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at that keyboard and writing the posts.
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So let's just agree up front that there is no one size fits all approach.
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If we agreed up front that there isn't a one size fits all approach, how is it that I
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think that you can work out what you should be doing and where you should be posting?
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Let's start with the first place that I think everybody should always start.
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What's your game plan?
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So we're going to be having a look at what are your business goals?
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How are we aligning our LinkedIn strategy back into those business goals?
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Alongside that is we look at our resourcing.
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What resources do you have internally right now that you can put towards
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this content strategy on LinkedIn?
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Now, if the answer is you've got a one person marketing team and nobody else trained up in
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the business, nobody that's already creating content, then most of your content will
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probably go out on the page, that makes sense.
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With the occasional ones going out with your team.
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But if you've got a much bigger team and an employee advocacy program,
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then things are going to be different.
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The answer is always going to be, I want you to sit down and think about
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what is it that you can do consistently and persistently over the long term.
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So this isn't about what you can do for the next three weeks.
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It is what can you do for the next three years, the next five years, the next 10 years.
00:10:02
Because brand building on LinkedIn, as long as that business exists, continues.
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And it doesn't matter what size the business is.
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We are always looking to attract better fit opportunities that lead to increased sales.
00:10:18
That's why we're doing this.
00:10:40
Now, if you are short on resources and trying to figure out how you can keep up with everything,
00:10:46
then I highly recommend tools like Metricool.
00:10:49
There's a reason I've got them for the sponsor for this podcast so I can
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talk about the product all the time.
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Because it is a game changer in ensuring that your business can remain consistent
00:11:00
and persistent over the longterm and do things in the most efficient way possible.
00:11:05
Imagine if you wrote one post today, which is an evergreen post that we talk about.
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So a post that doesn't matter if we were to do it today or in three
00:11:13
months time, you could reschedule it.
00:11:15
So after you've worked out what resources you have in your business, it's time to look at page
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or profile and there's pros and cons for both.
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As I said, the page is there to be consistent.
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It is the thing that you can always rely on to keep showing up.
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And for people that want a number, for small businesses that have some resources, I would be
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saying three posts on the Company Page per week.
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Some of you have much bigger teams and you might even be doing two posts per day, which sounds
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crazy to small business owners, but it's very easy to fill up that much content in big businesses.
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So for consultants, I know that you're listening into this podcast.
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Here's the simple answer for you when you're trying to decide.
00:12:00
If you have the choice and you have limited time because you're already trying to do
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everything in your business, you have the option to look at if I did one post and I put
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it out on LinkedIn, if I put it on my page or my profile, Which one will be seen by more people?
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The answer every day of the week is on your personal profile.
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Now that doesn't mean you ignore your Company Page brand.
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That means you're just not going to put as many resources towards that.
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When it comes to your Company Page, you might only do one post per week.
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You might only do one post every two weeks.
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And for some businesses out there, it might only make sense to do it once a month.
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And that is perfect for them, if it's aligned back to their strategy.
00:12:44
Now, If you are someone that would love to keep your Company Page ticking over some more without
00:12:50
having to create new content all the time, then I've got a strategy for that that I'm going to use
00:12:54
as my actionable tip in a moment, so stick around.
00:13:23
My actionable tip for this week's episode.
00:13:26
While you're trying to assess, do I post on my LinkedIn Company Page or my LinkedIn profile?
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My tip is how can you do both without having to keep up with the demands
00:13:36
of always creating new content?
00:13:38
And the simple answer to this is go back to your Greatest Hits Library.
00:13:42
What are the posts that perform so well, either on your personal profile that you can repost
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or repurpose over onto your Company Page?
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Or vice versa.
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And for the bigger companies, that means you could take employee posts and
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repost them over onto the Company Page.
00:14:00
For employees, you might want to repost one of your Company Page posts and bring
00:14:05
that over onto your personal profile.
00:14:08
There are so many different ways.
00:14:10
Tools like Metricool again, I'm going to shout it from the rooftops how much this tool
00:14:14
has been a game changer for my business is that you can take a post that, you know, has
00:14:20
been a greatest hit something that performed well, something that's not going to date.
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If you posted it today, you could post it in three months time.
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Metricool allows you to do that, quickly and easily.
00:14:32
Things that are consistent messages that I want to repeat over and over again.
00:14:37
So things like, Hey, it's the end of the month.
00:14:40
Don't forget to use your 250 page invite credits.
00:14:44
Hey, this is the services that I offer.
00:14:46
Did you know I wrote Business Gold?
00:14:48
I've got the LinkedIn Branding Book.
00:14:50
They're examples of the types of posts that I repurpose that are my
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Greatest Hits that we schedule out multiple times to the end of the year.
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And the beauty is we've just got five posts for the price of one.
00:15:02
Doesn't that sound amazing?
00:15:10
So as we wrap up today, I know it can be frustrating sometimes when you want
00:15:14
someone to just tell you what to do.
00:15:16
You want me to say post three times on personal profile or ignore personal profile
00:15:20
altogether, or only post on your Company Page and don't worry about the profiles.
00:15:26
The simple fact is there is no one size fits all.
00:15:29
There is no prescription that I can give you.
00:15:32
The best way that I can help businesses grow by using LinkedIn is to teach you
00:15:36
to have a look at the fundamentals.
00:15:39
You need to go back to your game plan.
00:15:41
You need to have a look at what your business goals are.
00:15:44
You need to assess what your resources are.
00:15:47
You need to then have a look and say, based on the resources, i.
00:15:51
e.
00:15:51
The time, the energy, the money that we can put into this.
00:15:54
How many staff we have available.
00:15:56
Do you have a staff at all?
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You may not.
00:15:59
Where is the best bang for buck to get started?
00:16:02
So the only thing that I can tell you definitively is that you can not be invisible on the number
00:16:10
one B2B platform where people come to do business.
00:16:14
Where four out of five decision makers hang out.
00:16:17
It is not an option to be completely invisible.
00:16:20
So you need to find a way that you can get active out on the platform.
00:16:24
And of course, if you need some help, if you're stuck, you don't know how to make this
00:16:28
assessment and work out where is the best use of your time and resources, then that is
00:16:33
absolutely something that I can help you with.
00:16:35
So connect with me on LinkedIn, drop me a message, and we can set up a time to have a
00:16:40
chat and see how I can work with your business.
00:16:43
Next week on the podcast, I'm going to be talking about something that nobody
00:16:47
else on LinkedIn is talking about.
00:16:49
And that is page advocacy.
00:16:52
That is all about how can your page help support your employees to build their personal brands?
00:16:58
How can the page get involved in conversations?
00:17:01
There's so much talk about employee advocacy.
00:17:04
It's all about how do you get the employees to talk about the brand?
00:17:07
And I'm going to go the other way around.
00:17:09
Get the page to help the employees shine.
00:17:12
I can't wait to talk about this one.
00:17:13
So make sure you're following the podcast so you don't miss out.
00:17:16
Until next week, everyone.
00:17:17
Cheers.
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