THIS LINKEDIN POST WAS READ OVER 25,000 TIMES. WHAT MADE IT WORK?

Background

Why do some LinkedIn posts get more traction than others? It's the sixty four dollar question. If I could give you an exact, definitive answer from inside the algorithm, I'd be writing this from a beach in Mauritius.

This week I published a post which, as I'm writing, has been viewed by over 25,000 people. In the big scheme of things, that's not bad. Let's have a look at some of the things I think have helped to give it that reach and engagement.

The big idea

Every post I write starts with a big idea. In other words, I know the point I want to make before I pick up my keyboard. That's important, otherwise there's a risk you'll ramble.

In this case the point was "We all make buying decisions emotionally, not logically". The unwritten point was, if you're going to get your prospect's attention you need to appeal to their emotions, not by talking about products.

Humour

Humour is always a winner. If you can make your reader smile, then you break down lots of important barriers.

This post is about "that guy". Everyone has met someone like him, so can relate. He's the guy who thinks that all the normal rules don't apply to them. He's the guy who can tell Pepsi from Coke and, he's the guy who can tell you 100% for certain that we didn't land on the moon. He's the man who's always right, and he's a pain in the arse.

Of course he's not subject to normal human psychology, and he can't see the undistilled irony of telling you that marketing doesn't work on him, and he never makes emotional buying decisions, as he's covered head to toe in designer logos.

Hopefully my reader will conjure up a picture of someone they know who is just like that, and they'll crack a smile. Job done.

I kept it short

LinkedIn has extended the length of posts recently to 3,000 characters. That could be anything up to 750 words, which is virtually a novel. That many words will take up to 5 minutes to read. It doesn't sound much, but unless someone is a raving fan of your writing, they aren't about to give you 5 minutes of their day. 

This post is short. It's just 66 words (347 characters). It's going to take someone less than 30 seconds to read. 

It made people think

Once people have had a chuckle at the humour and thought about the person they know who is exactly like this, I'm hoping they'll then have a think.

Why do we buy expensive logos when there are cheaper versions available? Hopefully they'll relate it to their own experience. Why do I wear a  £3,000 Tag when I could have bought a £50 Swatch?

Teach them something new

The bit that the reader may not know, is that once we have made a buying decision based purely on emotion, something else happens. We start to justify that decision to ourselves. We think of a bunch of logical reasons why the emotional decision was a great one.

By telling that story in the post, I'm hoping people will stop and think about their own experience and realise that's exactly what they did last time they bought something.

Giving people a piece of new insight is another handful of gold dust. Those "aha" moments give you a huge amount of credibility and have you filed away in people's minds as an expert. Where do you think they're going to come next time they have a question about this topic?

The accident!

Not thinking, I illustrated the post with an image of a man wearing a Rolex, even though the post was about a man wearing a Tag. That drew quite a lot of comment from the Chrono Mafia. I took it on the chin and admitted to my schoolboy error, but the extra comments won't have hurt my standing with the LinkedIn algorithm

The post

Here's the post in full