Linkedin is the most popular business-oriented social media in the world. This constantly growing network keeps people engaged, and gives many people hope to make more connections and sales.
Like any other social media platform, linkedin shows that a tiny fraction of users can get 100x the results of the rest of the crowd - and they are the ones who actually make meaningful connections and valuable sales.
Everyone else is scrapping to get by with up to 2k followers, thinking how to get better in the game.
Let's use my Emotion Shift framework to analyze the situation and create an engaging strategy, shall we?
LinkedIn users: who they are
LinkedIn has a very specific user group. The answer is: everyone in a working age. This is a very large group, but at least we managed to introduce some age restrictions.
Linkedin users may have different motives for using the platform: most of the users have the account to appear professional, but don't interact too much. Many people create content semi-regularly to increase their outreach, but are too shy, don't have enough skills to make it as protifable as they want it to be.
There is obviously also this narrow group of real influencers, with over 5k followers, often with tens of thousands of followers who have "made it" and probably use linkedin to gain significant business advantage.
Why should you consider building your profile on LinkedIn?
Some would say that they hate linkedin, that this platform delivers nothing more than spam or half-spam and is just a waste of time. I say, it is more like a modern business card. Your linkedin profile gives you the good old my-space vibe where you can build your own identity and keep it for years.
Imagine you are being fired from you current job and have 15k followers in your network to ask about new opportunity. Wouldn't it be 100x better than just sending CV as another anonymous person to various companies?
The image you create is solely in your hands and you will keep it for many years as linkedin connections do not expire. Plus it is free to use.
Lets pick a target audience for your linkedin profile
Because we already noticed, that almost everyone uses linkedin, we need to try to pick a sample from this group that we could tailor our messages to.
Lets go for CEO's, company owners, chairmans of the board.
What kind of emotions do they feel? What do they see? What do they think when they (in average) interact with the platform? What do they seek? What are they worried about maybe? These questions we will try to answer in a second.
Defining leading emotional set for ceo's browsing linkedin
- are they worried about their competition? or feeling safe all the time?
- are they worried about the economic changes and their impact on their business?
- are they confident, in the mood to share their wisdom here and there?
- are they tired, need to rest, wind down? or maybe energised, looking for opportunity?
- are they looking to see something good? starving for upligfing story/video? Or rather they are emotionally distant?
- are they willing to chat 1v1 or think it is waste of time unless they pick you?
- are they posting? how often? What group actually feels forced to post?
- what do they post about? their life? company news? something external?
- are they willing to learn? happy to acknowledge someones knowledge or willing to get entertained?
- are they hooked? or "aware of fake clownshow"
- are they looking to meet someone on linkedin? who?
When you ask yourself those questions, you can create an emotional image of the person using linkedin platform and observe the typical emotions. You can see a person that is going through a mix of emotions while scrolling through linkedin content. Sometimes it is competing product or service, and they feel fear that they are missing out. Sometimes he is approached by one of thousands sales people on linkedin, they send very smart invitation messages, and he is wondering whether he should accept and ignore and increase his network size counter, or just ignore and stare at the invitation for another 3 months. While going through this, he is feeling distant, uneasy about the fact that most likely another person has something to sell to him without him asking for it.
Sometimes he just sees something cool, or something "cool enough" sent by his friend, whom he would like to support in some way, and he presses the like button.
Sometimes he posts stuff about what he or his company is achieving in an endless effort to appear strong and successfull.
Emotional model of a person browsing linkedin
Negative: fear of the future (economy, competition), fear of missing out, losing the competition
Neutral: emotional distance, do not want to connect with someone who they don't know, not delusional about the only one reason everyone is here
Positive: energized, actively learning, need to be seen and appreciated
Emotion Shift - what will we do next!
fear ------- SHIFTS TO ----------> comforting news "you got it", "all obstacles lead to knowledge" etc
emotional distance ----SHIFTS TO -------> gift reception
need to be seen and appreciated ---------- SHIFTS TO --------> being appreciated, baffled, humbled (positively), getting taught how to succeed (on linkedin and in life), being part of posts about greatness, great leadership and great life story - even if it is just putting the like
Ok, looks like the only thing we need to do, to attract typical CEO, who is going through various different emotions while browsing linkedin is:
- Make him part of something successful he can be engaged about. Tell a story about struggle transforming into success. Tell a story about what success is (where leader shows example).
- Engage only after at least one interaction with both of you engaged (liking the same post at least?). Have something to actually give instead of ask. And ask how you can help.
- Appreciate him publicly, put him on pedestal, so he can say thanks
Why are we doing this?
Because once you discover the emotions you are willing to create, nothing else matters.
All other posts about various linkedin followers gathering techniques, all other e-books and courses teaching you how to succeed in this space doesn't matter anymore. They matter, but not for you and for your startegy. It is not only about getting "any followers" you want to have a meaningful network, that will produce fruits.
And no, you don't have to be posting cool videos 3 times a day to gather attention of this group.
Lets prove this.
As of the day of writing this post (18.03.2023), my profile has 1758 followers. I will be creating and tracking effectiveness of Emotion Shift framework on this blog, and submiting updates here (instead of linkedin) to make sure that the test is fair. Stay around for the updates!
Extra: creating a subgroup
If you think that the group we have targeted is still way too large for your needs, you now have an easy way forward for reduce it by specifying one truth about this person and extra emotions he may be going through, lets see.
Lets consider that you provide a software & consulting solution that is supposed to improve company culture around the world. You want to create a subgroup of CEO's who are consicious about the issue and are looking for a solution. Someone for whom the word "empathy" is not only a dictionary item. Someone who is emotional about other people issues and trying to help them. Active, social, leader.
So lets add some emotions he might have been experiencing:
- empathy (seeing people being mistreated as of effect of some business practices)
- powerless (facing bad things happening to workplace culture globally)
- agitated (when trying to express their opinion related to their view of leadership)
How are we going to shift these emotinos?
empathy ------ SHIFTS TO ---------> commitment
powerless --------- SHIFTS TO --------> feeling of being part of something positive that is growing
agitation --------- SHIFTS TO --------> feeling of being understood
Turns out that if you want to create a valuable relationship with a CEO who is well engaged in culture and people's problems, you need to look for the following actions:
commitment - when seeing posts about employee being mistreated, make comments that are provoking discussion in the field of commitment "How would you do this different?"
part of groving positive action - prepare comments and posts that showcase good examples of company culture growth
When responding for this person own posts, put emphasis on understanding where they are coming form.