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
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. 