WHAT TO DO IF YOUR LINKEDIN ENGAGEMENT DROPS?

27 February 2023

LinkedIn, often referred to as the ‘Facebook or Instagram of the business world,’ now boasts over 880 million users. In recent years it’s really shaped itself as a top social platform, and despite its corporate undertones, it’s still an extremely valuable place for most businesses to be.

It’s a particularly good marketing tool for B2B, but there’s plenty of room for B2C companies to have an impact too. Use it as a space to focus on networking, building industry contacts and starting conversations around your brand’s values.

As with any platform, being successful means knowing your audience, working to a consistent posting schedule and giving users value to walk away with.

So what to do when you see a drop in your engagement? Let’s get into it.

First of all, how does LinkedIn decide if a post should be shared widely?

LinkedIn wants people to stay on the platform, scrolling the feed and learning from and engaging with people and brands, that’s why it encourages you to produce high-quality content.

Hootsuite explains that LinkedIn will categorise your material into one of three categories: spam, low-quality or high-quality. Spam covers posts with grammar mistakes, too many links, or overtagging. A post not following best practices or offering the reader a high-quality experience will be ranked as low-quality. To make it to the top spot you should be using keywords, three or less hashtags, and posts should be easy to read and practice optimized tagging. These high-quality posts are the ones that will be pushed out further to people with an interest in the topic, close connections, or anyone else likely to engage.

Note that the first hour after posting is also ve

ry important, so post when your followers are online and likely to interact. In this period, respond to comments and spark further engagement with a call to action.

For more general tips on working out your engagement, read our past blog post on IG engagement.

Why might my engagement be dropping and what can I do to combat that?

Your page isn’t attractive enough to potential followers

If people stumble upon your page organically, they’ll scroll through it before following. Make sure it’s appealing and looks active so they feel encouraged to read your content and give you a follow. Have a good headline, good images, clearly state your expertise and what they can expect from your page, and make sure to include keywords.

You’re not optimising your posts

Finding out which kind of posts do best on your page is vital for success, but as with most things, it won’t just fall into your lap. You need to trial a range of posts, answering questions like do posts with or without an image perform best? With a link preview or without? With a poll or with a link?

Similarly, think about the hashtags you’re using and make sure they’re relevant to your content but not too niche that they’re not reaching a big audience.

Spend time tailoring posts to ensure they match their purpose. For example, a post with the aim of getting people to click on an article should feature the link prominently, drop it in the comments!

A text-only post aiming to spark conversation should mention this explicitly - e.g. “Let us know your thoughts in the comments.”

This links up nicely with our next explanation…

You’re not including a call to action (CTA)

As we’ve mentioned multiple times already, LinkedIn users want to be engaged. Including a CTA takes a big step towards encouraging this. Think about asking people to comment their thoughts or answer a question, include a poll for them to vote in, or an article for them to read.

You’re not using analytics 

Learning about your audience is vital for boosting engagement. Spend some time looking at the data and thinking about how this can guide future posts. There's loads you can get from the native analytics LinkedIn gives you; here’s a whistle stop tour in the words of the experts themselves... 

“Visitor highlights shows the number of total Page views, Unique visitors, and Custom button clicks in the last 30 days.”

“Visitor demographics shows a breakdown of who has visited your Page and can be filtered by time ranges, Job function, Location, Seniority, Industry, and Company size.”

“Companies to track shows how your followers’ gains and losses, number of updates, and engagement rates compare to organizations like yours, and can be filtered by time ranges.”

There’s also a whole host of other analytics you can get on individual posts including engagement, demographics of people reached and discovery.

One stat you should really focus on is prime posting time. Posting at a time when your followers are active is an easy way to boost engagement. 

Your posts aren’t serving a purpose

LinkedIn users aren't just aimlessly scrolling, they’re on the platform to learn, and your job is to answer their questions. Do some research to find out what your target audience is curious about. Disguise your marketing in posts that serve the reader and don’t be afraid to use original content.  Share your experience and expertise.

You aren’t beating the algorithm

Getting on the good side of Mr. Algorithm is the recipe for success on any platform and on LinkedIn, clicks are your secret weapon. Increased clicks tell the LinkedIn gods that your post is interesting, valuable, important, and thus, something that more people should read.

Some hacks for this include:

• Writing a long, text-only post filled with valuable content, encouraging the user to choose the click more option.

• Try a carousel of five or six, rather than one or two images, so users have to click through to see more. Remember - photos of faces always win over buildings or locations.

• Upload a PDF, each page is another click. Try and optimize them for LinkedIn, make the pages visual and interesting.

You’re only appearing as a brand

Like we keep saying, LinkedIn is a place for conversation and networking. Have your staff develop their own profile and build a personal brand on the platform too. Encourage them to share blogs, engage with company posts, and connect with others in the industry.

Another way you can do this is having them consistently appear on brand pages, sharing wisdom, solving problems and becoming the face of the brand.

You’re not taking advantage of on-platform tools.

When a platform launches a new feature, they want you to use it. LinkedIn is constantly evolving, and there are loads of audience engagement tools - try them.

Audio shows, groups, newsletters, and daily storylines are all ways you can get your content seen and engage directly with your audience.

The moral of the story when it comes to boosting engagement on any social platform is learning about how to serve your audience, and being consistent at doing just that. Peaks and drops in interaction will come and go, but follow these tips, and you’ll be back on the path to becoming a corporate influencer in no time.