How do you know whether all the work you’re doing to build an authoritative presence on LinkedIn through creating and posting great content is succeeding? Metrics, that’s how.
That raises the question as to what you should be tracking. I’m not into obsessing over numbers for their own sake, so I’d like to share some ideas that will help you focus on the metrics that really tell you something.
Content marketing is all about audience focus so the first question is, “Who is viewing your profile?”
Are you consistently attracting readers who represent your ideal client or at least something very close to that?
If you want to know the number, just login to your newsfeed. Navigate over to the left to your profile thumbnail and the number will be there. Here’s an example from my profile
That’s a good start but what’s more interesting is to track the trend and LinkedIn helps by showing a graph. You can always see very clearly the impact of your activity, as you’ll see a spike in profile views whenever you are more active on the platform.
In the example below from my profile you can see two things. A recent slight dip in page views which probably reflects a slight decrease in activity over a few days. But there’s also a very clear surge that coincides with a time I had a lot more going on. In fact, that relates to a LinkedIn event I was running and had over 2000 people sign up.
If you have a Premium account, just below this graph you will also see a list of links to the profiles of the people who have been viewing yours so you can get a good idea if it’s the audience you want or just your friends, family and colleagues.
Those are the absolute basics.
I’m guessing you also want to know how your content is doing.
If you’ve been following my work for any length of time you know that my prime focus is on driving engagement through posting relevant, high quality content. So how do you know how much traction you’re getting?
“Likes” is the obvious first metric to watch. You’ll see this number just below each post. It’s a useful quick indicator that your content is at least getting noticed.
What it doesn’t tell you accurately is whether they’ve actually read your post or just hit Like and kept scrolling. Sometimes those Likes are just from people in your network who’d like you to notice that they’re still there and paying attention.
What you really want to see is a decent number of “Comments”. That tells you people haven’t just noticed your post, haven’t just taken the easy way out and hit “Like”. They’ve almost certainly read at least part of your post and taken the trouble to add to the conversation.
What’s even better than a Like or Comment?
That’s when some people in your audience think the post was good enough to Share. They can do that in two ways. They could just hit the Share button and push it out into the LinkedIn universe. Sometimes they might take the trouble to add their own comment to the post before they Share it.
That’s gold!
So to sum up so far. Keep an eye on your number of profile views to make sure there’s a strong positive trend. Check the Likes, Comments and Shares you get on each post. It’s a great feeling when you see one really start to run but that’s not the main point.
When you do get good traction it’s some of the best feedback you can get that your content is striking a chord with your audience and that can be invaluable in shaping your content strategy.
There are a couple of other metrics to check from time to time to make sure your audience is growing and correctly targeted.
There are plenty of LinkedIn experts out there who’ll tell you that you should have thousands of Connections. I agree that a decent list of Connections can help to build momentum but I think for a content marketer, your Followers can be even more important.
Connections may just like the idea of being associated with you. Followers are interested in what you have to say so they’re more likely to be in your ideal client group.
And finally take a look at how many Endorsements you’ve got and what skills they highlight. That’s going to be a good indication of how many of your network perceive your strengths. It’ll tell you if your positioning is spot on or needs some adjustment.
If all this sounds like a lot to manage, don’t worry…..
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