How to Become a LinkedIn Influencer

How to Become a LinkedIn Influencer How to Become a LinkedIn Influencer If you have been active on LinkedIn lately, you might notice the uprising of “LinkedIn Influencers”. You may be asking yourself, “What exactly is a LinkedIn Influencer?” Or, “How can I become a LinkedIn Influencer?” For the sake of this article, we will not be talking about the actual LinkedIn Influencers who have the little logo (see below) next to their name. Instead, we will be talking about the self-proclaimed, new era of “LinkedIn Influencers.” In this article, I am going to tell you exactly how to become a “LinkedIn Influencer.” But first, let me explain what a “LinkedIn Influencer” is and what qualifies someone as a “LinkedIn Influencer”. What is a “LinkedIn Influencer”? A “LinkedIn Influencer” is an individual who has reached “celebrity” status exclusively on the LinkedIn platform. This person has built a large enough following to be considered influential to the general public. LinkedIn Influencers come in all forms. They come from different backgrounds, industries, professions, and locations. While the job title does not qualify one to be an Influencer, the vast majority of Influencers are founders, business owners, or entrepreneurs. Now, there are a variety of different terms you may hear used to describe these people, however, the most popular is “LinkedIn Influencer”. Some of the most common terms are: LinkedIn Influencers Thought Leaders LinkedIn Celebrities Top Voices LinkedIn Gurus Purple Unicorns What makes someone a “LinkedIn Influencer”? Becoming a “LinkedIn Influencer” takes time, effort, and commitment. One must feel confident that they are filled with information, insight, and expertise that not everyone else has. They also must be willing to share this expertise with an audience on LinkedIn. The medium in which these Influencers share their knowledge is through posts on LinkedIn. While many LinkedIn Influencers claim there is no secret formula to their popularity, more often than not, there is. Below, I will explain how to improve your chances of becoming a “LinkedIn Influencer”. I will tell you the best times of the day to post, what kind of content typically goes viral, and the habits necessary to influence your network. How to become a “LinkedIn Influencer” Becoming a LinkedIn Influencer does not happen overnight. But it can be achieved by just about anyone. Especially with the recent changes to LinkedIn, more and more people are becoming Influencers than ever before. 1. Weekly Habits To become a LinkedIn Influencer, you must commit to posting regularly. Posting a minimum of 2x per week will keep the momentum going and ensure that you are staying fresh in your audience’s mind. Many LinkedIn Influencers choose to post daily. Once you have made the commitment to post a minimum of 2x per week, you have to start thinking what you will post about. What are you an expert in? Where do you have the most experience? My background is in recruiting, so it makes the most sense for me to talk about recruiting. I tend to offer advice to job seekers, recruiters, and hiring managers. 2. Strategic Timing There is a best time of the day to post on LinkedIn. There are also best days of the week. Common sense tells us that posting when the most people are online will yield the greatest results. That is indeed correct. The best days to post on LinkedIn are Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Mondays tend to be a little crazy in the office. You are catching up on work that has piled up over the weekend. This means you have less time to hang out on LinkedIn reading posts. Similarly, on Friday, you might be hustling to finish your week off strong. Additionally, your mind is focused on making plans for the weekend. The best times to post on LinkedIn are before work, and after work. While LinkedIn is a professional site, your boss still does not want you dilly-dallying around on LinkedIn during work. Many people check LinkedIn first thing in the morning, kind of like a morning newspaper. While these stats have been tried and tested by myself, I did not create them. Check out this great infographic by HubSpot which shows the best times and days to post on ALL social media sites. 3. Juicy Content At the end of the day, content is king. It doesn’t matter how often you post, or what time of the day if your content is crap. The hard part is knowing what content is good content before you post it online. This takes a little bit of practice. Chances are, you are going to make some mistakes in the beginning. Accept this reality before you start posting, or you will become very discouraged. While learning from your mistakes will be the very best way to improve your content, you can always study the way other “LinkedIn Influencers” post, writing styles, tone, and overall flow. One thing you will notice is that showing a little personality is OK. People want to see that you are human. Not a perfect little angel. People do not like to be told what to do. Do not make one-sided comments. Ask your audience whether or not they agree? The goal of your post should not be to receive 1,000,000 likes. It should be to receive 1,000,000 comments. 4. Formatting Recently, the vertically long posts seem to perform the best. You know what I am talking about right? The posts that look something like this. Very short sentences. That move down the page after a few words. They make you scroll down the page. The suspense is building. Now you are this far… You can’t stop now! So, you keep reading. And finally, it is over. Conclusion “Influencers” are revolutionizing the way that people view LinkedIn. If you want to voice your opinions or share your knowledge, LinkedIn is the place to be. By following some of these basic principles above, you will begin to reach a larger audience than ever before. Evidence of Credibility… I don’t claim to know it all. But I do create posts regularly that do fairly well. Below I have added a few sample posts from 2017 including one post that received over 15 million views. Age Discrimination: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:634852540245719449 Be Grateful: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6335855349190524928 Follow Your Dreams: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6323109030856400896