Screen Time: On LinkedIn

LinkedIn is like the world’s most professionally dressed flea market. You’ve got a core group of users recycling the same concepts day in and day out. Also, much like a flea market, LinkedIn is somehow both everything and nothing all at the same time. Need to connect with your coworkers? LinkedIn. Need to grow your thought leadership? LinkedIn. Need to find a job? LinkedIn. Need to announce your new job? LinkedIn. Is LinkedIn optimized for any of those things? No, absolutely not.

So far, we’ve broken down the influence of screen time on Facebook and Instagram. When we talk about the influence of screen time on LinkedIn, we must first establish that it is much different than the Meta apps. LinkedIn exists as a self-described “professional” social media. Both Facebook and Instagram are, at their core, entertainment outlets. LinkedIn does it’s best to clarify that it isn’t for entertainment, it’s for furthering your career. Is that how people actually use LinkedIn? Quick answer: it doesn’t matter.

The theme of this blog series is that, across the entire internet, screen time equals value. With that in mind, you should be able to discern at least a few things about what forms of content LinkedIn favors. I try my best not to humanize any forms of “the Algorithm” because it is inherently not human. To suspend that practice momentarily, I think it’s fair to think of the LinkedIn algorithm as a high school guidance counselor. It’s going to give you what it thinks you need, whether you like it or not.

LinkedIn values concrete metrics that determine a posts worth. The more engagement a post gets, the more people LinkedIn will show it to, and vice versa. Growing from nothing on LinkedIn is more difficult than it is on any other platform for this exact reason. If you don’t have a following base to boost engagement on your content, your content will never make it past your following base. That’s a little confusing, let me say it a different way. The only way to grow on LinkedIn is to grow on LinkedIn.

There it is, the ever-present growth paradox of social media. This paradox is actually true of all platforms, but LinkedIn is the most glaring example. See the average engagement rate of all content across the internet has been about 1%-3.5% this year. That means of your 100 followers, only one to three and a half of them will ever click on your content. Social media apps that focus on entertainment combat this with discoverability features. LinkedIn doesn’t really combat this at all because it doesn’t want to suggest your content to people who will enjoy it; LinkedIn wants to suggest your content to people whose career Linked thinks will be furthered by your content.

Now let’s talk actionable strategy. If you want to grow on LinkedIn, you need to prioritize showing your value as it pertains to someone’s career growth. The easiest way to do that is through connections. LinkedIn gives you lots of boxes to fill in and you should fill in as many of them as you can. Previous jobs, schools, certifications, skills, whatever tags you can add to your profile, add them. LinkedIn uses these fleshed out pieces of your profile to build out it’s connection suggestions. LinkedIn wants to show your success to people who can benefit from your success, so you should frame your content to be valuable to the growth of your target audience.

Speaking of target audience, I want to talk briefly about the average LinkedIn user. How much time per week do you think the average user spends on LinkedIn? Seriously, go ask five people and track their answers. Add those bad boys up and divide by 5. What did you get? I think this question is difficult to answer because most people don’t access LinkedIn regularly. In fact, LinkedIn has a daily user rate of about 16% and a monthly user rate of about 48%. So even though the average user spends seven minutes on LinkedIn per session, more than half of those users visit the site less than once per month. 

Let’s tie that last fact back to screen time. Because LinkedIn’s daily user rate is so low, it DOES NOT want people to leave the site. That means any links that lead users away from the app will automatically be deprioritized. Keep that in mind as you develop your LinkedIn strategy. Instead of linking out to a landing page, how much of your flow can you build into LinkedIn. Can you post your content there directly? Do they need to leave LinkedIn at all? If so, how can you keep that process organic or move it down the funnel so as to not limit exposure?

LinkedIn is tough, no bones about it. That doesn’t mean it’s a waste of time. If you provide a product or service directly related to your customer’s career journey, you’re primed for the journey. The true advantage of this model is the built in trust that exists within the platform. If someone has a following on LinkedIn, they must have provided value to someone! Of course, we all know that isn’t always true, but keep it in mind as you define yourself on the platform.

We’ve reached the middle of our social media breakdowns! We’re going to finish out the week talking about the two “primarily video” outlets. Tomorrow is YouTube and Friday is TikTok.

See you then

-MC

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This article is the sixth in a series of blog posts about Screen Time. If you missed the first blog of this series, you can read it here. 

Screen Time: On Instagram

Let’s crack open Instagram and see how it works. In yesterday’s blog, I did this with Facebook. Today I want to move on to a more modern outlet and one that may be part of your digital marketing strategy. While Instagram and Facebook are both owned by the same parent company, the way the platforms work are quite different. The game plan here is to take our knowledge of screen time and apply it to Instagram. We’re going to identify what Instagram likes, how users spend time on the app, and how you can use both of those things to your advantage.

Before we begin, right after I posted yesterday’s blog, Meta announced that they plan to change Facebook’s primary metric. Put simply, they’re going to start valuing the number of views a piece of content gets versus variable metrics like “plays” or “accounts reached.” Instagram made this switch in August, both in an effort to match TikTok’s structure. But here’s the reality: none of that matters to what we’re discussing. Screen time is screen time, no matter how you track it. Should you reassess your strategy to reflect this change, absolutely! Should you assume massive change in the larger flow of app usage and function, definitely not.

ANYWAY, let’s talk about Instagram. It’s hard to believe this app was built exclusively for photo sharing. Now a strange amalgamation of what it once was and early Snapchat, Instagram is one of the more robust social apps. Instagram switched to an algorithmic feed structure in 2016, but they remain as one of the more broad outlets. I noted yesterday that Facebook doesn’t have a real content identity.

“Ten(ish) years later, Facebook has become a content wasteland of reposts. Unlike TikTok and Instagram, Facebook doesn’t have a defined content identity. There’s videos, images, text posts, and everything in between. The site has been around so long that inactive pages have millions of followers and something like 30 million Facebook accounts belong to dead people. Facebook has become the social media equivalent of flipping channels on cable TV. Maybe you see something you like, maybe you don’t, maybe you stumble onto a foreign language channel with enthralling content.”

Step one to understanding Instagram is understanding what it’s for. Instagram has one of the broadest, yet somehow most defined content identities out there: visual. I like to say that Instagram is for your eyes, not your brain. Let me say that a third way, Instagram is for pictures and videos. Sometimes those pictures and videos have text in them, but the app exists to give you something to look at. 

Case in point, let’s look at the Instagram user experience. When a user opens the app, they’re immediately greeted with the top post, image or video, in their feed. If they want to look at Stories, they click on little pictures. If they scroll through their feed and see suggestions, these suggestions will be videos. When they click on the Search/Discover tab, they’ll see more pictures and videos than they’ll see text box. Back to the main feed, every single caption is in a small font and automatically truncated. Cherry on top, url links are disabled basically everywhere in the app. Where are they enabled? In Stories when they’re shared within a picture or video. Yes, yes, also in the bio. Lay off dweeb.

Now within that defined content identity, there’s a wide range of options. You can post an image, a group of images, or a video to your feed. You can make a vertical video and upload it as a Reel. You can take either of those and share them to your Story filled with gifs and geotags. For today’s discussion, we’re going to condense those options into two groups: Posts and Stories. Posts go on your feed, Stories go in your Story. If those words are unfamiliar, think of it this way: Posts go on your profile and live there forever. Stories are uploaded to your “Instagram Story” and are only available for 24 hours. Put a pin in that, we’ll come back to it.

Ok, let’s talk screen time. A user can spend their time on Instagram in three main ways.

1. Scrolling their main feed.

2. Watching Reels

3. Flipping through Stories

Each of these three options provide a different user experience and foster a different kind of screen time. 

• Scrolling your feed doesn’t take long, but it’s high engagement. You’re more likely to like, share, comment or save posts from accounts you already follow or that Instagram’s algorithm can feed you.

• Watching Reels generates massive amounts of screen time because of its rabbit hole nature. It’s not exclusively accounts you follow, so it doesn’t have a natural end like your main feed. For that same reason, engagement ratios are much lower.

• Flipping through Stories is somewhere in the middle. You can flip through them incredibly quickly, but you also have to engage with the app to progress through them. You’re also more likely to accidentally click on an ad because they blend in more seamlessly.

Going back to our last pin, it’s crucial to remember where your content fits among these three actions. Anything that we’ve defined here as a Post will fit into the first two, while the third is reserved for what we’re calling Stories. You can share a Post to your Story, but it will only live in that part of the app for 24 hours. The first conclusion here should be to prioritize Posts over Stories. Better screen time, better engagement, higher priority.

That doesn’t mean you should ignore your Story completely. On the contrary, remember what I said about ads? Screen time may equal value, but ads equal money and that is always an app’s priority. Instagram has the most to gain if user screen time is dedicated to Stories. That means Instagram has every reason to favor accounts who post Stories regularly. Second conclusion, post to your Story as regularly as you can, even if it seems fruitless. It fosters community engagement and Instagram will reward you for it in their algorithm.

All the way at the top of this blog, we established that Instagram’s Ken job is Visuals. Let that be the guiding light of your content creation for Instagram. It feels simple, but it’s effective. Consider Instagram as a wholly visual medium and think about it creatively from that lens. Prioritize your visual creativity to your posts and post to your story as regularly as you can and you’ll see your numbers rise, guaranteed.

Two social media down, three to go. Tomorrow we’re going to shift away from Meta, put on a shirt with buttons and talk about LinkedIn.

See you then,

-MC

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This article is the fifth in a series of blog posts about Screen Time. If you missed the first blog of this series, you can read it here. 

Screen Time: On Facebook

We’ve covered the topic of screen time in detail over the last week. We defined it, we connected it to the algorithm, and we learned how that ties to our digital usage. Now it’s time to get into the real meet of this blog series and learn to apply this knowledge. To do that, I’ll be dissecting one social outlet each day and explaining how an understanding of screen time can really unlock that platform. Today’s platform: Facebook. No, not Meta you nerd, Facebook.

Remember when I used the wrong form of “meat” three sentences ago? You’ll likely have an easier time remembering that than if I asked you to remember when Facebook’s main use case was to meet people. That wasn’t even that long ago. Way back in the day, Facebook was mostly used to connect with distant relatives and before that, college classmates. But this isn’t your granddaddy’s book of faces. It’s 2024 and we live in a post “Pivot to Video” era. If your impression of Facebook is still tied to the idea of personal connections, you’re already a step behind. 

Let me backup, in 2015, advertisers decided it was time for the industry to “pivot to video.” That’s not the topic of this blog, but here’s the wikipedia page if you need an overview. Many point to Facebook as the spearhead of this movement. That’s because in 2015, Facebook issued a statement that they “received more than 1 billion video views every day.” Then in 2016, Facebook was basically like, “oops, jk.” Turns out Facebook had dramatically overestimated video views on their site. But, because the 2015 statement pushed millions if not billions of dollars into video marketing, Facebook decided to keep pushing video anyway.

Ten(ish) years later, Facebook has become a content wasteland of reposts. Unlike TikTok and Instagram, Facebook doesn’t have a defined content identity. There’s videos, images, text posts, and everything in between. The site has been around so long that inactive pages have millions of followers and something like 30 million Facebook accounts belong to dead people. Facebook has become the social media equivalent of flipping channels on cable TV. Maybe you see something you like, maybe you don’t, maybe you stumble onto a foreign language channel with enthralling content.

So then, how can one go about marketing their content on Facebook and what does screen time have to do with it? Great question, so glad you’re engaged.

Facebook wants users to feel comfortable. It’s got the oldest user base and the most established formula. Facebook wants to make sure that when imaginary user Jan logs onto “The facebooks” on her lunch break, she sees things she recognizes. If Jan has a handful of friends she interacts with regularly, Facebook is going to feed Jan their posts. Perhaps Jan likes to save recipe videos to try with the family; best believe Facebook is giving her some recipe videos. Unfortunately, Jan’s lunch is only 40 minutes and she can find a plan for dinner later. So how can Facebook get Jan to stay online for that 41st minute or, better yet, reopen the app later on her shift?

Enter the dark side of the Facebook algorithm, conflict. Facebook wants users to feel comfortable, so comfortable that they feel empowered to defend that comfort. So while Jan’s feed may be 65%-70% pictures and pot roasts, Facebook is going to fill that 30% with imaginary user Ron’s posts. Ron and Jan went to high school together. They aren’t friends in real life and they hope to never see each other again, but every time the one posts something passionate on Facebook, the other is quick to chime in and disagree. Ron and Jan create a feedback loop of revolving screen time. Ron’s low quality meme will get a rise out of Jan on lunch, then Ron will reply 45 minutes later and blam, Jan’s back on the app to respond. When she logs on, she finds a video about making Baked Alaska in your microwave. She saves the video. And on and on forever.

The key to successful marketing on Facebook is to find where you fit in that endless loop. Are you the update from an old friend? Are you the comfort video or fun new trend? Are you the impassioned image garnering ire? What is your place in an imaginary user's screen time cycle and how can you solidify your place in the routine?

Meta likes to tell you the answer to my last question is with paid ads. Truth be told, in some cases, they’re correct. Because Facebook is so old and the user base so established, gaining traction with a new account can be incredibly difficult. I rarely, if ever recommend paying for ads, and I won’t recommend it outright here either. That said, if you’re struggling to gain traction and impressions are your identified issue, run some short, low cost ads and see if you see improvement. A word of warning though, do not mistake impressions for engagement. A Facebook ad will show more people your content, it will not make them click it.

If you’re looking for free, organic growth on Facebook, this next part is for you. While that growth will come slowly, it is not impossible! I am a huge proponent of Facebook groups. I think it’s one of the best forums of discussion on the internet right now and the options are vast. Find some Facebook groups in your niche and join them. Don’t spam these groups with your content, but monitor trends and conversations to fuel your content. If the opportunity arises, promotion from within a group always does better than promotion from outside. Also, don’t discredit your existing Facebook presence! Most of us have a Facebook page with ~300 followers that we haven’t touched in years. Make sure to like, comment, share and save your brand's content from your personal pages. Invite your existing friends list to like your page or share your content. I have family members who inherited Facebook pages at birth, I know you’ve got a few old crushes you’d like to brag to.

Last but not least, do not forget the name of the game here: screen time equals value. Facebook has nothing to benefit from users leaving its app to view your website or your products. Try to upload content to Facebook natively and limit linking out. Make sure your website is linked to your profile and that the link is working. If someone wants to leave the app to go to your website, they’re capable of doing so. You do not need to, and explicitly should not, add a link to every post. If you’re a brick and mortar business, keep your hours and address updated in your about section. And always keep an eye on your Facebook inbox. Facebook likes pages and accounts that are “responsive.” Even if you don’t get many Facebook messages, responding to the ones you do get will go a long way.

Finally, if you reached the bottom of this article and decided “maybe Facebook isn’t for me,” that’s ok! I’ll be doing this with four more outlets. Tomorrow, we’re tackling Facebook’s artsy little sister, Instagram.

See you then,

-MC

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This article is the fourth in a series of blog posts about Screen Time. If you missed the first blog of this series, you can read it here. 

Screen Time: Controlling Your Algorithm

Let’s face it, spending time on social media in 2024 is a bit of a nightmare. You never see half the things your friends post, it’s riddled with ads, and it’s impossible to log on without seeing something downright upsetting. It’s easy to feel like you don’t control the content of your feed. Luckily, that’s not the case.

Grabbing your personal algorithm by the reins is actually easier than you might think. Once you understand what drives an algorithm, you can pave a path in whichever direction you choose. So what drives an algorithm? Here’s a quote from yesterday’s blog:

Across all social media, in every single app, the algorithm exists for one reason, to keep users’ attention. See chronological feeds have an explicit problem, they end. A user viewing posts chronologically will eventually catch up to where they left off on their last scroll. But, if that user sees posts based on their interest, and is introduced to content from accounts they don’t follow, they can scroll forever. So what does the algorithm want? It wants users to stay on the app.

All you need to do to point your algorithm in the right direction is be intentional with your screen time. When you see something you like, a post from a relative, art from a friend, etc, stop and smell that digital rose. Click on it, share it with someone who might like it, or just hover your screen on it for an extra second or two. When you see something you don’t like, something you want to see less of, something awful, close the app. Leave the website, refresh the page, unfollow or disconnect from its source. 

This is not some ploy for engagement, (though I yearn for that side effect) this is very real. Think of what we established at the beginning of our series on screen time: screen time equals value. Algorithms are designed to maximize that value. It’ll serve you whatever it thinks you’ll like, you just need to tell it. The easiest way to communicate with your algorithm is screen time, but the most effective way is engagement.

Next week, we’re going to walk through five social media and deep dive into their interpretations of screen time. Thanks for following along with this blog series, I’ve really enjoyed writing it! A friendly reminder that you can have every issue of this blog sent directly to your inbox by signing up here.

Have a great weekend!

-MC

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This article is the third in a series of blog posts about Screen Time. If you missed the first blog of this series, you can read it here. 

Screen Time: The Algorithm

The year 2016 marked a major shift in social media. To be fair, the year 2016 marked a major shift in A LOT of things, but today we’re talking about social media. See in 2016, both Instagram and Twitter announced they would be moving away from chronological feeds. Both outlets announced they were following in the steps of Facebook and switching to an algorithmic feed. This meant users scrolling the apps would no longer see things in the order in which they were posted, but instead in the order Instagram and Twitter served up to them based on their usage.

Algorithmic feeds weren’t a new concept in 2016. Facebook actually made this change when they introduced their “News Feed” back in 2011. YouTube followed not long after in 2012. Believe it or not, MySpace actually dropped their chronological feed all the way back in 2009 in an attempt to boost their user base.

Here we are, 15 full years after the introduction of algorithmic feeds. You have, no doubt, encountered advice in your travels about what “The Algorithm” likes. If you’re on TikTok, (which I am right now) you’ve probably heard the phrase “bottom up engagement.” Perhaps if you’re a LinkedIn enjoyer, you’ve been told to comment on your own posts and request people DM you for the sake of “dark social.” Heaven forbid you’re a YouTuber trying to ride the waves of “The Algorithm” in a post ad-pocalypse world. No matter your platform of choice, there is always the question: “What does The Algorithm want?”

If you read yesterday’s blog, you already know the answer. For those uninitiated, the answer is screen time.

Across all social media, in every single app, the algorithm exists for one reason, to keep users’ attention. See chronological feeds have an explicit problem, they end. A user viewing posts chronologically will eventually catch up to where they left off on their last scroll. But, if that user sees posts based on their interest, and is introduced to content from accounts they don’t follow, they can scroll forever.

So what does the algorithm want? It wants users to stay on the app. Forget everything else, every rumor you’ve ever heard and any suspicion you’ve ever had. Algorithm want screen time. Period.

Now what do you do with that knowledge? You’re asking the right questions. Next week, we’re going to discuss how this knowledge can be applied to every post you make on social media. But before we do that, we’re going to identify how you can use your screen time to take control of the algorithm for yourself.

See you then

-MC

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This article is the second in a series of blog posts about Screen Time. If you missed the first blog of this series, you can read it here. 

Screen Time: What Is It?

Today’s word is, “Screen Time.” Can you say “Screen Time?”

Jokes aside, can you define “Screen Time?” And if you can define it, do you know how “Screen Time” affects social media algorithms or why it matters to you? Heads up, that was the last time I’ll put screen time in quotes or capitalize it.

Let’s start at the beginning. Webster’s dictionary defines screen time as: The amount of time someone spends using a device with a screen, such as a smartphone, tablet, computer or television. Pretty self-explanatory, right? Screen time is the amount of time spent looking at a screen.

But let’s take it a step further. If I told you that each app and website you visit in a day is tracking the screen time you devote to their individual outlet, would you believe me? Well you should because this has been common practice for a long time. In fact, mobile devices typically do this internally and then forward the data to app developers. Here’s a five-year-old article about app tracking if you’d like a source, but again, this is common knowledge.

So why does that matter? And why should you, beyond trying to limit your own digital usage, care about screen time? Here’s the simple answer: screen time equals value.

See when social media companies sell ads, they need a way to quantify value to their ad partners. If Company A wants to purchase an ad on Social Media F, how can Social Media F guarantee that Company A’s ad will be seen? And how can they quantify how many times it will be seen? Social media ads aren’t like newspapers or magazines that have defined subscriber numbers. They also aren’t like television ads, which use viewer ratings as a standard. Social media ads are quantified by, say it with me now, screen time.

Sure, you might see the word “impression(s)” thrown around. But what is an “impression” if not a single instance of screen time? Long story short, social media companies use screen time to define the value of their service. Because social media companies are companies, their goal must then be to increase that value. If screen time equals value, then to raise value, they need to raise screen time.

Enter “The Algorithm,” an omnipresent, omniscient, ethereal force that seemingly dictates everything we see. Social media companies use algorithms to increase screen time to increase value, but that’s a story for tomorrow’s blog.

Congratulations, you’ve made it to the end! Here’s the takeaway: screen time equals value. Keep that in mind while you’re scrolling today. To what are you adding value by dedicating your screen time?

See you tomorrow!

-MC

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This article is the first in a series of blog posts about Screen Time. If you missed the announcement of this series, you can read it here. 

coming soon: an in-depth look at screen time

This week, I’ll be running a series on Blogfyre aimed at demystifying the concept of “Screen Time.” Why? Because understanding “Screen Time” is the first step to understanding “The Algorithm.”

We’ll start by defining “Screen Time,” then we’ll take a look at how it impacts different social media. Finally, we’ll identify some actionable strategies you can use to influence your audience’s “Screen Time” and break down how that will impact your marketing.

Sound cool? Good, I hope so! If you want to keep up with this series as it’s published, click here and I’ll send each issue straight to your inbox. If you’d rather binge the whole series after it’s complete, I’ll archive it as one piece over in Free Stuff.

See you tomorrow!

-MC