Why your LinkedIn work-winning strategy is probably failing

There’s been quite an uproar lately about LinkedIn’s changing algorithm and how it favours certain content over others – and contractors need to be in the know, writes Matt Craven, founder and winning work expert at The CV & Interview Advisors.

Here, exclusively for ContractorUK, I want to share my forthright perspective on content creation and discuss some strategies that contractors can use to win work on LinkedIn, despite the challenges of getting your posts seen, which has potentially been brought on by LinkedIn’s ever-changing algorithm.

Algorithmic favouritism

We’ve heard folks complaining about AI-generated blogs being favoured over authentic copy; we’ve heard bloggers talking about huge drops in engagement, and we’ve even had word from online marketers who have ‘split-tested’ LinkedIn posts -- only to find their musings about breakfast cereal received more traction that a high value Thought Leadership piece!

This is leading many people to question the validity of LinkedIn in their marketing efforts.

But let’s look at the situation more closely.

Personal brand reassurance

The first thing to consider is the whole point of you or your contractor business posting content.

Regardless of LinkedIn’s current algorithmic favouritism, it has always been a challenge to get eyeballs on posts, articles, and other forms of content. It’s nothing new, and if you get your LinkedIn strategy right, it also doesn’t matter as much as some folks might make out.

Posting content on LinkedIn isn’t, by itself, going to win you a customer as a contractor.

Put another way, it would constitute a huge leap for someone to see your post in their LinkedIn feed and decide to reach out and hire you as a direct consequence.

No, as a contractor, your LinkedIn activity is there to create a strong professional footprint, so, when potential clients land on your profile, they see positive and intelligent signs that give them the confidence to engage with you.

Think of your LinkedIn posts more as reassurance than the driving force behind anyone hiring you.

Traffic versus engagement

I like to draw comparisons with websites.

Your contractor LinkedIn profile is, after all, akin to your personal website. Expanding on this analogy – when companies post articles and videos on their website, they are not exclusively doing this to drive traffic. That may be part of the reason, but to a large extent, they are doing it to drive engagement once users land on their website. Driving traffic in the first place is through other means such as paid advertising, backlinks, SEO (which content is part of), social media marketing, and probably email marketing.

This is how I recommend contractors view LinkedIn business development – drive traffic to your LinkedIn profile through business development activities and use your content to engage people once they end up there.

Now obviously these things overlap because good content will, to an extent, drive traffic to your profile, and good quality content should, in theory, also help with your profile's visibility and its SEO standing.

You can also post your content to other platforms, forums, and websites to drive non-LinkedIn users to your LinkedIn profile therefore increasing your reach.

So, what business development activities can you use to drive engagement and interest in you and your contracting business?

The proverbial networking

The first and obvious strategy is networking; leveraging people you already know to get introductions to people and opportunities.

To be successful here, you need to be building relationships with people; getting favours in ‘the bank,’ and constantly increasing the number of people in your LinkedIn network. This all takes time, but to steal the premise of a Chinese proverb, “The best time to start networking was 20 years ago, the second-best time is now!”

Highly personalised outreach

Then there’s ‘LinkedIn Outreach’ where typically you use LinkedIn Business Premium or Sales Navigator to identify, connect with, and contact decision-makers in client organisations.

Success with outreach hinges on sending highly personalised connection requests and subsequent messages, leveraging mutual connections to get an intro, adding value, and nurturing relationships.

The key is not to pitch until you have formed a relationship.

So it’s more about creating awareness of yourself and your business and gently edging people towards a point where you can make them aware of what you do and your availability for contract work.

At this stage, they will want to delve deeper into your expertise, and check out your LinkedIn profile and activity -- this is precisely where all your highly inciteful content (not cereal musings), which I mentioned at the top comes into play.

The presenter in you

Also, I would recommend embracing ‘the presenter in you’ and think about running a webinar or podcast-style presentation on a topic that you feel your target audience will benefit from.

LinkedIn allows you to invite 1,000 people a week from your network, so if you promote a webinar one month ahead, you could invite 4,000 people and get yourself a decent-sized audience of potential clients, hanging off every word you say.

We write lots of articles and stick them on LinkedIn. In all honesty, their reach is pretty variable and can even be mediocre, but when we run a webinar, we are able to talk directly to a good chunk of people and a decent proportion of these webinar attendees eventually become paying customers.

Everything hinges on your LinkedIn profile

And a final point, if you are reaching out to people, networking, inviting folks to webinars or even just posting content, before anything meaningful happens, they are going to have a good nosy at your LinkedIn profile.

So what you have written must be polished and mean something to them.

I would go as far as saying that if your LinkedIn profile is a bit naff, everything you do on LinkedIn to try and attract clients is utterly pointless. A bit like spending £10,000 on an advertising campaign that directs potential customers to a home-made website!

To see if your LinkedIn profile is up to scratch, you can request a free and confidential LinkedIn profile review with one of my team through this link: https://cvandinterviewadvisors.co.uk/partners/contractor-uk