NerdBrand Podcast
The NerdBrand Podcast is at the intersection of nerd culture, branding, and advertising. Nerd culture is no longer an isolated subculture; it’s THE culture of the day and makes its way into our daily lives through the entertainment we seek and the technology we rely upon. Listen as we discuss our views on visual design, branding, and advertising for movies, comics and novels, video games, technology, and other nerdy passions.
NerdBrand Podcast
Links Are Back: How LinkedIn's Algorithm Changes Are Challenging Everything We Thought We Knew
ABOUT NERDBRAND
NerdBrand is a national branding and advertising agency based in Louisville, KY.
Learn more about NerdBrand.
Hear more of the NerdBrand Podcast.
Welcome to this episode of the NerdBrand Podcast, everybody, where we're going to be talking about LinkedIn. Woo, everybody's favorite social media network, isn't it? I know I can hear your excitement. I can hear it. It's palpable. Hey everybody, welcome to this episode of the Nerd Brand Podcast. We're talking about LinkedIn and I thought something would be interesting to start off with is a new study. That was 577,000 LinkedIn posts challenges common marketing advice. It finds that posts with links get 13.5% more interactions and 4.9% more views than posts without links.
Speaker 1:What do you know? What do you know it used to be? When you put a link in a LinkedIn post, it was like a death nail. That thing wasn't going nowhere. So now they're saying okay, this is sort of like that whole thing about eggs. You know it's like don't eat eggs, they're bad for you, cholesterol and they're like protein, eat eggs, they're good for you. And so you know that's the world we live in. So you know, wait until tomorrow. Linkedin will be like yeah, you know about that link thing. Sorry, we didn't really mean that. So, anyhow, in the same article that I read, this research says that's wrong. So the data shows about 31% of LinkedIn posts contain links to other websites. These posts consistently did better with posts than without links.
Speaker 1:So what do you do? Do you link or do you not link? Um, it's just one of those things where, if you're going to make a post in LinkedIn, you know I need to read it. Is it important? Is it relevant to what you do? I don't really post a whole lot, uh, kind of busy Uh, but at the end of the day, you know it's like, well, and I speak about, uh, personal accounts, okay. So if you have a business account and you're trying to figure out how to grow that, you're going to need to do really some heavier tactics with content sharing, getting other people involved in your community.
Speaker 1:Social media is not something you can just post from a business page and hope everyone sees it, because 99% of the time, they probably are not going to. It's just something that I've seen happen both on Facebook and LinkedIn. So you have to tell people that it's there and they have to follow it, and then they're going to be able to see it. Share, like, subscribe. You know all the fun things you want people to do Other than that. Your personal one, though. However, now that's different. So Facebook is basically a backyard barbecue. Post what you want. It's yours personal.
Speaker 1:But if you run a business, pay attention to what you post, because you're the personality of that business. So if you complain a lot, if you get political, if you get religious, if you get all these things, it will affect your audience and who buys from you and who wants to do business with you. It's just a fact. It's the times we live in, so be aware of that. Now you may say, like, well, maybe I don't want to do a business with those other people. Well, I would say to you, like you know, those other people have money and if you need to eat, who cares, as long as you're not breaking the law? But that's just my opinion. So I would say on Facebook, yeah, do what you want, you know, but just kind of be mindful of the PR and angle of that.
Speaker 1:But on your LinkedIn, that is your resume, that's your online resume. It's where you've been, what you know how to do, your profession, your topical stuff, that you're a professional at that you're the actual authority of. These are things you definitely, definitely want to steer away from the Facebook-y type posts. And I've seen a lot of Facebook-y type posts on LinkedIn. That's made me wonder what in the world's going on, and I would like for it to stop. If you're out there because you know I'm good reading stuff on LinkedIn that's, you know, newsworthy as regards to finance, or what's going on in business, or what other business owners are doing or achievements they have, or people changing jobs, people looking, you know all of anything related to that but man, I don't really need to see that emoji too much. I really don't. I mean, it's something that you know. Again, the messaging on the two need to be different. So if you're copy pastpasting from one to the other, just careful, it's just not going to maybe translate as well, especially if you're going from Facebook to LinkedIn.
Speaker 1:Anyhow, moving on Document posts carousels, these work really well for engagement. So about 45% of any is the engagement rate. Any format. People on LinkedIn are willing to spend time clicking through multiple slides. So, yeah, do it. If you got something worth showing off, go for it. I think it's good Polls. I think they're a missed opportunity, mostly because I think there are a lot of them.
Speaker 1:I ask dumb questions, but if you could find a way to use them, uh, you could pretty much. Uh, you know, you probably get a lot of engagement out of that. That's kind of what you want, right? So, and then text only, uh posts. These are posts that do not contain an image and they don't contain links. They're just uh, you know, they perform the worst. I mean, I remember when they were good, you know, because it's a text link, so you're not asking for anything. You're not, you know, asking anybody to like, click a link, for example, or call no, call to action, right, so now it's got the fewest interactions.
Speaker 1:So, those posts you're writing that are a paragraph long or pages, use a blog because it's going to perform better there. Use a blog because it's going to perform better there. Let people know on LinkedIn you have that and then put your thoughts into your blog and then direct them to that and according to this, it should be the best thing to do. But also find an image that's relevant to it. And you know, nobody wants to scream out into the ether. So, you know, just keep it positive, keep it positive. There's a lot of negativity going on, so we don't need more of it.
Speaker 1:Um, linkedin video content actually grew about 53% and engagement went up about 87. So that is faster than TikTok and YouTube, ladies and gentlemen. Uh, good for LinkedIn. If I was near the button for the board that I have with the applause, I would press it and you would hear people applauding like we're in a studio, because I'm nerdy that way. But we'll just leave it alone. The report states video posting may have increased 13.77%, but the real story is in the rise of impressions at 73.39% and views at 52.17%. Users are engaging more with video content, which indicates that LinkedIn is prioritizing this format in its algorithm.
Speaker 1:We've heard this before and it's not new. See, just because you got a video doesn't mean people are going to interact with it. So let me pause on that for a minute, because I think a lot of people think and hear video content and go, pull your phone out, take a video of me eating my potatoes at lunch. You know you really need to plan your video content where it's going to go. You need to kind of think about that. But also you need to think about, like, what do you want to show? Like it comes down to like writing an article. What do you want to talk about? What do you want to share? You know this podcast is being recorded and I'm sharing about LinkedIn because why not? It's fun. I think that I haven't talked about it in a while.
Speaker 1:But, um, you know, while I struggle with allergies and Kentucky gunk. So when, um, you take your phone out of your pocket and you're going to do video, take the video, maybe edit later, post it so or have somebody do it for you and on that note, you can go to nerdbrandagencycom and ask us about that. We will help you with that. But you know, strategy needs to be in place before you just go out and do a thing. You know, because I know we all want everything to go viral, but not everything will. Sometimes things just land flat. So it's always good to have a strategy.
Speaker 1:Know thy audience, Industry-specific insights on this. They broke down the performance by industry. So you're probably wondering like, well, yeah, who does better education or retail? Yeah, you know manufacturing utilities, that kind of thing. You know it's not really for you, it just has fewer followers, your engagement, I mean. But look, if you're a manufacturer and you make stuff and you have a process, you could probably do a long form video and put it on YouTube and it's sort of one of those satisfying videos, if y'all know what I'm talking about where you watch people do stuff and you're like that's neat and it just kind of relaxes you in a calm way and you have no idea why Do that? If you're in manufacturing or utilities utilities Like watching somebody, like I don't know, lay bricks or whatever. I don't have any idea what I'm saying here, but you know what I mean. It's just one of those. Go onto YouTube, look it up, you'll find it. You'll know what I mean.
Speaker 1:However, on education, retail companies you got a product, you got unboxing. You got the use of the product. You got people talking about it. You know faces, places, things. That sort of strategy works. So you know. But you know having more followers doesn't mean you're going to get better results. Okay, you still got to have that whole thing branding all worked out and then your strategy with marketing.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so don't avoid links. Include them when they add value. Can't stress that enough. If you're going to add links to your LinkedIn posts, do it when they only add value. If they help they're going to hurt, don't do it. So if you're writing a long form content, maybe not a link, because you want people to stick around and read and, let's be honest, we all read the first sentence and just nothing. So don't do that. Mix up your content. It'll, you know you'll get a little crazy with it. You know, go a little nuts, get a little Michael Keaton. You know Jack Nicholson, batman, 1989 nuts and uh, mix up stuff. You know more carousels polls, image posts, you know that kind of thing. No-transcript links go away and we're all just getting answers and nobody's visiting a website. Linkedin may be your boy, maybe the one where you want to go to get that website traffic. So and I did not say ads, that's a whole other animal Not talking about that today because they expensive Anyhow.
Speaker 1:Realistic about your follower growth. You got to be realistic. Keep it real 17.68% of accounts gain followers in 2024. So growing a LinkedIn following is harder than any platform. It just is. So keep that in mind that if you're starting out, you're going to be at it for a long time. It's going to take a long. This is a long game and that's kind of how everything's playing out. It's the old adage of trying to get rich quick. If that's your strategy and marketing branding your business not going to work for you. You're going to think it does, but your burn rate is going to be way up and you're going to end up out of business. So think long term, look ahead.
Speaker 1:Ok, it's the fundamental marketing beliefs is in the data. For at least for us, anyways, the most useful finding is, like for SEO and content marketers, adding links, you know, helps and rather than hurt the posts. So you know, there's the follow, there's that bot that will follow and they probably won't follow from LinkedIn to your site and you probably shouldn't have LinkedIn posts that are posted on your site go the other way. But you know it does index your website, it does index your LinkedIn page. Just saying Marketers, test it, test, test, test. So you know, I think that what happens and works now everyone needs to keep in mind. Again, it's kind of like eggs they were good for you, they were bad for you, they're good for you, they're bad for you. So this is just where we are today. Are we going to stay there? Is that going to be the thing? Your guess is as good as mine.
Speaker 1:You know TikTok has made changes recently. You know X has these community notes and TikTok now launches what it calls footnotes. And yeah, it's all about fact checking. You know there's a really good fact checker. You just look it up. Stop letting other people tell you what is facts. Just go go read it yourself, go look it up. Come on, now y'all can do this, um, and then you know, when you have a linkedin profile, your first uh degree contacts should help you get introductions to the second ones that you want, or the third.
Speaker 1:Use that, but use it in a good way. Don't send messages that are just aimless in the messenger. That's not working, I can tell you. I get them all the time. And if you send a message to tell somebody you're going to help them get more leads, like don't Just stop, just stop. Like that's not probably the problem. Yeah, everybody needs more leads, everybody needs more customers. That's just a. That's a, that's an aspiration. It's not a goal, it's not a KPI that I can go like hey, yeah, you know, I mean I could, you know, spend a lot of money on it and ads, but at the end of the day, it's like you know, there's gotta be some brand awareness blah. Contact us at nerdbrandagencycom and if you like this podcast, you can go to nerdbrandagencycom slash podcast and listen to the latest episode. You can find it on your favorite podcasting app. I don't care where you go, it's your phone, not mine. So at the end of the day. We hope you enjoyed this podcast and remember, keep your nerd brand strong.
