Best Content for LinkedIN

This video provides an in-depth exploration of effective content strategies for LinkedIn, based on the speaker's personal experience and data from his 2021 posts. The presenter, Spencer Smith from Self-Funded, shares his analysis of over a year's worth of LinkedIn content, categorizing posts by type and ranking them by average views to identify what resonates most with his professional network. His primary goal for using LinkedIn is for prospecting, sales, and building brand awareness, particularly relevant for individuals and companies in professional services.

The speaker immediately challenges the conventional wisdom that LinkedIn should be strictly professional, advocating for the inclusion of personal content. He details seven content categories, presenting them in descending order of average engagement. The top-performing category, "Family," surprisingly garnered the highest average views, demonstrating the power of human connection. This is followed by "Business Insights (Picture)," "Memes," "Podcast Promotional Pics," "Personal Lessons," "Podcast Promotional Clips," and "Business Insights (Video)." He emphasizes that even personal posts should have an underlying professional message or value system, serving as a delivery vehicle for deeper insights.

Throughout the analysis, Smith provides specific view counts for his top-performing posts and average views per category, offering concrete data to support his claims. He discusses the nuances of each content type, such as the initial success and subsequent saturation of memes, and the difference in engagement between picture-based business lessons and video-based ones. A key point he highlights is the discrepancy in how LinkedIn counts views for pictures versus videos, noting that videos require a minimum three-second watch time. Despite lower average engagement for his video content, he expresses a commitment to video due to its ability to convey deeper, long-form messages, citing Dr. Eric Bricker of Healthcare Z as an example of someone who successfully leverages video on the platform. The video concludes by stressing the importance of consistency, frequency, and showing up regularly on LinkedIn to exponentially grow one's network and achieve business objectives.

Key Takeaways:

• Embrace Personal Content with Purpose: Contrary to popular belief, personal content, especially family-related posts, can be highly effective on LinkedIn. The speaker's "Family" posts achieved the highest average views (12,700), demonstrating that humanizing your brand and sharing relatable aspects of your life, infused with a professional message, fosters connection and engagement.
• Prioritize Pictures for Business Insights: While both picture and video formats for business lessons are valuable, the speaker found that picture-based business insights significantly outperformed video, averaging 5,500 views compared to 1,800 for video. This suggests that concise, visually supported text insights are often more digestible for the LinkedIn audience.
• Leverage Memes Strategically: Memes can be a successful way to communicate professional messages succinctly and engagingly, using culturally relevant templates. However, the speaker noted a drop in engagement over time due to saturation, indicating that this strategy might require freshness and originality to maintain effectiveness.
• Consistency is King for Brand Building: Regular posting, even if not every post achieves viral status, is crucial for building a consistent presence and brand awareness on LinkedIn. The speaker used his weekly podcast promotions (pictures and clips) as a consistent reason to post, reinforcing his frequency.
• Video Engagement Nuances: LinkedIn's view count for videos requires a minimum three-second watch time, which can artificially lower reported engagement compared to picture views (which count a millisecond scroll). While the speaker's videos had lower average views, he still advocates for video for its depth and long-form communication potential.
• Personal Lessons Humanize Your Brand: Similar to family content, sharing personal lessons (e.g., from college, sports) that offer value and are relatable helps humanize your brand and allows your audience to connect with you on a deeper level, fostering trust and rapport.
• LinkedIn as a Free Prospecting and Sales Tool: The platform offers immense potential for growing a professional network, prospecting, driving sales, and building company awareness, especially for those in professional services. The speaker emphasizes that consistent effort can yield significant results within a year.
• Adapt Content to Platform and Audience: The speaker's experience highlights that different content types perform differently. While he found videos less engaging for his specific style, he acknowledges others, like Dr. Eric Bricker, who excel with video by honing a particular format (e.g., whiteboard videos).
• Analyze Your Own Data: The speaker's methodology of reviewing his own 2021 posts and categorizing them by engagement provides a practical framework for others to analyze their content performance and refine their LinkedIn strategy.
• Focus on Underlying Message: Regardless of the content type (family photo, meme, business lesson), the speaker stresses that every post should have an underlying message or purpose that aligns with your professional brand or value system.

Tools/Resources Mentioned:

• LinkedIn: The primary platform for content strategy discussion.
• YouTube: Mentioned as a platform for the speaker's podcast.
• Spotify: Mentioned as a platform for the speaker's podcast.
• iTunes: Mentioned as a platform for the speaker's podcast.
• Dr. Eric Bricker / Healthcare Z: Cited as an example of successful video content creator on LinkedIn, known for whiteboard videos on healthcare topics.

Key Concepts:

• Content Engagement: The metric used (views per post) to determine the effectiveness of different content types on LinkedIn.
• Humanization of Brand: The strategy of sharing personal or relatable content (e.g., family, personal lessons) to make a professional brand more approachable and trustworthy.
• Content Saturation: The phenomenon where a particular content style (e.g., memes) becomes overused, leading to decreased engagement over time.
• Professional Services: The target audience for whom the LinkedIn content strategies are particularly relevant, encompassing consulting, advisory, and specialized expertise firms.