Steven Macdonald
30.06.2023
Organic reach on Facebook and Instagram is dead.
If you want to acquire new customers on meta platforms, you have to pay for it.
But on LinkedIn?
Organic reach has never been better.
Case in point:
I reached 1 million content views on LinkedIn with zero advertising.
Let’s rewind:
I first started posting in May 2020, but 12 months and 100 posts later, I hit 1 million views.
And then I stopped posting.
No new posts. No comments. Nothing.
I disappeared from the platform.
18 months later, in October 2022,, I started posting again.
I refined my process so that others can replicate the same results.
And instead of posting alone, I had a group of people at INEVO posting, too.
We called it the LinkedIn Mastermind Group.
Prior to joining the Mastermind group, the team had no visibility on LinkedIn and had only published content 2-3 times - each generating a few hundred views per post.
Five months later - all starting at 0 views - we’ve hit 2.2 million content views.
All while generating a pipeline value of 3 million NOK.
Here’s how we did it.
LinkedIn marketing strategy
After posting solo for 1 year, I had a good understanding of what worked, why posts resonated more than others and what I needed to change going forward.
I refined my process, created the documentation and shared it with the team.
I also made them a promise:
It takes less than one hour per week.
Here’s the process we use for LinkedIn marketing.
1. Have a goal
Why are you posting on LinkedIn?
Is it to grow your network, acquire more clients or go viral?
Each of these goals has a different content strategy.
Having a goal helps you stay focused and motivated.
At INEVO, our goal was to become known as the best experts in our field.
2. Find your X (X = expertise)
What kind of experience do you have? What skills can you monetize?
Figure out what you’re good at then be laser-focused on that topic when you post content and engage with others. A few questions to ask yourself:
- What am I good at (i.e. can demonstrate results)?
- What do I have a lot of experience in?
- What do I like talking about?
- What topic can I answer a lot of questions on?
- What topics could I present an all day workshop on with no preparation?
I used to post on a wide range of topics. Now, I'm laser focused on content and SEO. For others in the group, their X is content marketing, paid social and conversion rate optimization (CRO).
3. Find and connect with buyers
Who typically buys your expertise?
Find and connect with them on LinkedIn.
Try to avoid using “personas” and base it on real experience:
- Who in a company typically has a pain that you solve?
- What role/ position does the “hiring”?
- What kind of company?
- Where are they located?
- Which clients do you work with right now that fit that profile?
- Who do you like working with? Why, what qualities do they have?
Once you have a defined ideal customer profile (ICP), you can then start connecting with them.
I try to connect with 10 people that fit this profile each week.
We don’t believe in spamming connection requests, we don’t use automation and we do not try to pitch our services.
4. Engage with their content
If your buyers post content, engage with it.
Engaging means:
- Like their posts if it’s aligns with your X
- Share their posts with your network if it’s aligns with your X
- Comment on their posts if your comment aligns with your X
- Share your experience
- Share input based on a recent article you have read
- Provide a counter-argument (with respect)
- Share a trend you’ve been noticing with existing clients
- Share an experiment you did (even if it failed)
We try to leave 5-8 comments per week.
LinkedIn is a rewards platform.
The more you engage with others, the better your own content will perform.
One more thing:
Leaving helpful comments is a great way to increase your followers without posting any content.
5. Post your own content
Posting cat Gifs is a great way to entertain your audience, but if you want to use LinkedIn to generate leads, pipeline and revenue, then there’s a specific type of content you can share.
Demonstrating expertise.
This type of content includes:
- Case studies
- Practical how-to content
- Lessons learned
- Failures
- Success stories
This type of content builds trust with your buyers.
And when the time comes to solve their problem, they’ll automatically think of you (instead of Googling it).
Another thing:
You don’t need to post 5X per week, either.
Demonstrating expertise once per week is enough.
It’s the cadence we use in the LinkedIn Mastermind group.
Conclusion
We’ve been publishing content on LinkedIn since October 2022.
In less than 20 posts, we’ve earned:
- 10,700 Followers
- 7,700 Likes
- 1,600 Comments
- 2,286,000 Content views
- 3 million NOK in Pipeline
We’re now opening up this process to 1-2 companies in Norway. We’re already helping 1 client generate 15,000 views per month from LinkedIn and we’d like to help you, too.
Ready to use LinkedIn marketing to grow your business? Sign up here.
Related content:
- Watch Steven present the LinkedIn marketing strategy here
- Listen to Steven present the LinkedIn strategy on Spotify or Apple Podcast