Your Guide to Going Viral on LinkedIn

Written by ilya-azovtsev | Published 2020/01/02
Tech Story Tags: linkedin-viral | linkedin-views | linkedin-guide | linkedin-hacks | socialmedia | social-media-trends-2020 | linkedin-content | growthmarketing

TLDR LinkedIn is booming and people are more likely to support content makers rather than other platforms. People are not creating as much content on LinkedIn (comparing to FB or Twitter) they need to boost good posts on a bigger audience. Don't try to focus on sales from your first LinkedIn post. Generate only high-quality content. Get LinkedIn connections on your first post to 1st connections and organize likes and comments from your colleagues and 1st comments. Organize your post to get more likes and engagement with your content.via the TL;DR App

If you've ever posted on LinkedIn, you'd probably know how tough it is to get a lot of views there. 😩
I know what I'm talking about, my first posts got 3 likes. 1 from my wife, she always supports me and 1 from my friend who I asked to. So frankly speaking, it was just only 1 like.
That posts reached 100-200 views and it doesn't (even DOESN'T look 😬) like great results.
But for the next few months, I dived deeper into the content creation on LinkedIn and reached 100K views in just 30 days.
I'm not a guru (yet🤣), but 100K views for the LinkedIn account with just only 3K connections is still huge!
And in this article, I gonna share with you my learnings on how to promote your LinkedIn post organically and get amazing results.
But before that,

Why you should promote on LinkedIn and start doing LinkedIn content marketing right away.

Spoiler: LinkedIn is booming.
And we’re at the beginning of it.
Don’t believe me? Still think that LinkedIn is just a place for finding emails for the cold email outreach?
I’d love to share my personal example.
Today I have almost 3K followers, but I can easily reach 30K views with my Linkedin posts🤓. Yeah, it’s not a million, but it’s still 10X from the amount of my 1st connections.
Can you do the same on Facebook or Youtube?
NO, with a big "N" and a big "O".
Pssst, if you can, let me know I need to take some lessons from you 😅
So, why is it happening?
The answer is easy - (I’ve already told that, but anyways) LinkedIn is booming and today they are more likely to support content makers rather than other platforms.
LinkedIn is a media platform. And as every media they are selling ads (the same like FB or Twitter does). And to sell more ads with a bigger price they need content on their platform. So users (you, I and everyone who is using LinkedIn) will read that content and stay on LinkedIn more. And since people stay on the platform more, they watch more ads -> LinkedIn get more money.
Since people are not creating as much content on LinkedIn (comparing to FB or Twitter) they need to boost good posts on a bigger audience.
This is what happened with Facebook 7 years ago, and with Youtube 5 years ago, and this is what is happening with LinkedIn right now.
For example, in 2012 the cost per view started dramatically increased in the USA. Credits to the Search Engine Journal.
Ok, but there is still a question - “How does LinkedIn define whether they should boost your posts or leave it with your 500 views?”
I don’t have a 100% right answer (since I don’t work for LinkedIn) but I can share with you insights that I got on my road to 100K views.
But, generally, 2 main things make a real impact on boosting your content by LinkedIn:

1) The type of LinkedIn content you're creating

People read and engage with a valuable content. So there are 2 main points that you should follow when you're creating your LinkedIn content:
a) Give value, give value aaaand give value. Don't try to focus on sales from your first LinkedIn post. Try to build the trust to you and your company by providing content that is helpful to your target audience.
b) Generate only high-quality content. Bullshit never gets a lot of views.
Frankly speaking, there are so many things to tell about this, so I covered this topic here "How to post on LinkedIn to get views in 2019😎".

2) The type of LinkedIn engagement you get

This is the main point that almost everyone is missing.
When you're just at the beginning of your "Content Creation on LinkedIn" road - it's not enough to just create a post (even if it's the most awesome post in the history), it's important to promote it.
And here is the list of 4 best practices to promote your LinkedIn posts organically and boost its' views:

Get LinkedIn post likes from your colleagues and 1st connections on LinkedIn

Since LinkedIn algorithms work by this principle:
LinkedIn shows your post to 1st connections first, and only if they like it and engage with your content with likes and comments, LinkedIn understands "Ok, this piece of content is interested to at least 1st connections, it probably might be interested to others"
So in order to start getting more LinkedIn post views you definitely need to organize the process of getting likes and comments from your colleagues and 1st connections.

How to organize getting likes and engagement from your colleagues? (manually)

It's easy as 1,2,3.
Step #1 - You just create a separate channel on Slack or group on Facebook.
Step #2 - You need to ask everyone to support your LinkedIn post with likes and comments.
Step #3 - that's it.
That looks great, but what to do if you have less than 50 people in a company? 7-10 likes won't make a huge impact on your LinkedIn engagement.
In this case, you need to go to the LinkedIn Engagement Groups. Here is what I'm talking about:

Boost your LinkedIn post views with engagement groups

It's the place where people support each other with likes and comments on LinkedIn posts.
The idea of such a group is to reach each one's audience.  When other people engage with your LinkedIn post, it starts appearing to their audience. As a result, you can get 30K views when you have only 3K connections, because also "friends of friends" will see your content.
It might be a public Slack channel, Facebook or LinkedIn group. The place may be different, but the same is just 1 rule  - support others posts and hope people will support your posts as well. 🤜🤛
There are lots of different groups and places, but the one I personally use and recommend you is - Game of Content.
(It's the awesome place to share the content. I'm personally there)
The Pros and Cons of such a kind of LinkedIn Engagement Pods
I've created the pods for my colleagues, I've joined around 10 different LinkedIn engagement groups, and here is what I've found:
PROs:
- It's Free.
- You get better results with 10 likes rather than with 0 likes.
CONs:
- It works manually, and people need to spend their time to open this Slack chat, read your post and write a relevant comment... A-A-A ... Too many things to do, so from my experience people just ignore my posts and I got up to 10 likes and 3 comments on the luckiest day. As a result, I didn't get great results with such an engagement.
- When it comes to public LinkedIn Engagement Groups, it's super hard to find the relevant group. For example, you're writing for Start-up founders about VC funding, but you join the LinkedIn group with recruiters, software engineers, and growth hackers. And even if their audience will see your post, you won't have great results since it's just not relevant to them.
But I'd also share with you a solution that covers both drawbacks.

Automatic LinkedIn post boost from colleagues with lempod

lempod is the hugest marketplace of LinkedIn pods where people automatically support each other with likes and comments. This tool lets you create and join different LinkedIn Engagement Pods that are focused on your target audience and get an automatic engagement with your content.
How to organize getting engagement from your colleagues:
1- Install a lempod Chrome Extension and ask your colleagues to install lempod as well.

2- Open lempod, click on your own picture aaand click "Create Enterprise Pod"
4- Once you've created your own pod, you will have the Unique "Pod ID". It's the code that you can share with your colleagues, so they can join your Pod.
5- Your colleagues just need to join this pod with the Secret code you gave them (this automation will cost you just 2 $/ user per month, and you will get real results and won't bother anyone).
6- So, when everyone had added lempod and joined your Pod, you can start creating the content and promote your LinkedIn posts within this Pod.
To use lempod you should:
1- Copy the link to the LinkedIn post you've just created,
2- Go to the lempod and choose the Pod,
3- Add the link to "Add post" field,
4- Write your custom comments that your colleagues will leave automatically. Note! these comments should be relevant to the content of your post.
5- Start Engage This Post (button)
Every single member of your pod will automatically engage with that post with likes or comments!
PS: Every member of this Pod can do the same. So the more people do content on LinkedIn the better results you as a company gets. And it costs you just 2$/month.

Join LinkedIn engagement pods from lempod

It's not enough just getting the likes and comments from your 1st connections and colleagues to significantly boost your content (Especially if have less than 30 people in a company 😅).
The best way to get hundreds of thousands of views on your LinkedIn content is - get the engagement from top influencers in your industry and other awesome people who are also creating the content for your target audience.
So just imagine, if people who create a lot of content for your audience and have a huge SSI (social-selling index, the better content you're creating the more SSI you get) will interact with your LinkedIn posts and their audience will see your post?
Does it sound insane 😱?
It does!
And it's possible with lempod ❤️
As I told you earlier lempod is the hugest place for people who are want to support each other's content on LinkedIn and to join our family you just need to:
- Install lempod Chrome Extension
- Open lempod by clicking on Extension icon
- Click on the search field and start looking for the relevant pods with your "keyword" (for example, "startup") OR join the pod with a "Secret Code" (at the end of the article I'll share with you my lempod Secret Codes🔥)
Once you join the right LinkedIn engagement pods, you can start getting a boost from other members.
And it's easy as it is.
To use lempod you should:
(I've already mentioned but let me show it again for a public Pod, not the Enterprise one
1. Copy the link to the LinkedIn post you've just created,
2. Go to the lempod and choose the right Pod,
3. Add the link to "Add post" field
4. Write your custom comments that other members will leave automatically. Note! these comments should be relevant to the content of your post.
5. Start Engage This Post (button)
So everyone who is in the pod will automatically like or comment your Post, so their connections will see your content as well.

Written by ilya-azovtsev | Head of Growth at lempod.com
Published by HackerNoon on 2020/01/02