Introduction: what is LinkedIn Engagement?

LinkedIn Engagement is the fact to get likes and comments on your LinkedIn posts which result in a better reach on the platform. LinkedIn Engagement is also the fact to let these likes and comments

You can also have LinkedIn engagement with comments left under B2B influencer posts.

1°) Why LinkedIn Engagement matters for your LinkedIn growth?

Without LinkedIn engagement, you can't grow on LinkedIn and make yourself visible to make more sales. A strong LinkedIn engagement has compounding effects, meaning that the more you get engagement, the more you'll get in your next LinkedIn post over time.

A solid LinkedIn engagement brings many results

In short, getting LinkedIn engagement will bring you:

• more followers

• inbound visitors on your website

• inbound leads

• networking opportunities

If you don't increase your LinkedIn engagement, it's pointless to post on LinkedIn because no one will see your posts. You should therefore work on your LinkedIn engagement before and after posting content.

2°) How the LinkedIn Algorithm works? (LinkedIn Engagement insides)

What's the goal of any social media platform? That you spend as much time on them.

LinkedIn's algorithm is pretty basic: the more you're on their platform, the more you'll get exposure but when it comes to LinkedIn engagement, there are other details to look at.

To get LinkedIn Engagement, you need to build relationships with other LinkedIn profiles.

Building relationships on LinkedIn is mainly about:

• liking LinkedIn posts

• commenting LinkedIn posts

• talking in LinkedIn Direct Messages (DMs)

To get more LinkedIn Engagement, you basically need to build more B2B relationships

Liking posts is a weak action because it's a one way action. The LinkedIn profiles you engage with have a low incentive to engage back. That's why LinkedIn comments are a huge factor in LinkedIn engagement success.

Why? Because by commenting under people's post you create a social selling loop:

• you comment their posts

• they reply to you because it will help the reach of their posts

• by replying to your comment, they tell LinkedIn algorithm that you're interesting

• so when you post, they'll be more likely to see your posts (1) and they'll be more likely to like and comment because now they like you (2)

Finally, LinkedIn algorithm will make sure that people you talk to see your posts because it's arguably the biggest factor for LinkedIn Engagement.

In conclusion, what matters for LinkedIn engagement according to the algorithm is in the following order:

• likes (increase by 30% the chance of seeing the next post from the author in your feed)

• comments (increase by 70% the chances)

• conversations in DMs (increase by 85% the chances)

When you see this kind of statistics, you start to know what you should be doing

But to really get LinkedIn engagement with someone and not just impressions, you need to build a strong B2B relationship, let me show you how below.

2°) My process to increase LinkedIn Engagement by +500% in 1 month

Once I understood the LinkedIn algorithm, I put in place a technique that increased my LinkedIn Engagement by 500% and I ultimately went viral on LinkedIn.

This technique works for:

• growth marketers

• growth hackers

• sales development representatives (SDRs)

• business development representatives (BDRs)

• account executives (AEs)

• startup & agency founders

This technique partially helped me to land the following result: How I went viral on LinkedIn to reach 497 000 people and 40% of my target audience for my SAAS

My technique is simple:

• finding people in my niche or prospects active on LinkedIn who are interested in what I'm talking about

• making them** 1st degree** connections

• liking and commenting their posts

• reaching out at some point

• building a strong B2B relationship until a natural LinkedIn mafia takes place

1/ Finding the right person to engage with

To increase your LinkedIn engagement, you first need to find the right people to engage with.

You want to find people who will engage back with your content, so it can be prospects, peers or micro B2B influencers.

Option 1: LinkedIn Search bar (works the best to find B2B influencers)

You can use the LinkedIn search bar to type some keywords related to the kind of people you're looking for. The best way is to find a B2B influencer you like and from there see the LinkedIn suggestions to discover other profiles.

Example of a LinkedIn search

You can also go to the B2B influencer activity and look for the other LinkedIn creators she/engages with.

Option 2: LinkedIn Sales Navigator (the best to find active prospects)

It's pretty basic, you go to Sales Nav, type the keywords of your niche for example "social selling" and filter results with the people who posted on LinkedIn in the last 30 days.

Example of a LinkedIn Sales Navigator search

Option 3: Databases softwares

You can use some softwares like ZoomInfo or Apollo to find people to engage with but it will be hard to spot active people on LinkedIn which is key to build engagement. You want to aim for people who are active every day on the platform.

Example of a database search

Option 4: Public databases

You can find some LinkedIn creators which will be key in our LinkedIn engagement boost techniques by looking at rankings like the Top 200 LinkedIn Creators by Favikon.

2/ Building my engagement list with a LinkedIn Engagement Tool

Once I've accumulated about 20 to 50 LinkedIn profiles, I import the data in my social selling software: Breakcold.

Like, comment and send messages from the same place

Breakcold will allow me to automatically aggregate all the LinkedIn & Twitter posts of my contacts in one place so I can engage with them in a productive way. You can basically create different curated feeds to generate leads, close deals or grow your LinkedIn personal brand.

LinkedIn tip for salespeople: add your warm prospects that are active on LinkedIn to your engagement lists, you'll be able to close deals faster thanks to social selling.

3/ Segmenting my engagement list if needed

Once I have my contacts inside Breakcold, I tend to put them into different kind of lists. This allows me to focus on specific groups at different time of the day (for example if you have people in Europe vs in United States).

My lists will display me different curated feed for a faster and better engagement

4/ Engaging with my list every day

Then I block 1 to 2 hours every day to engage with my contacts. Some of them publish every day on LinkedIn but most of them don't publish every day so imagine you have 300 people to engage with, you won't spend more than 1 hour to engage with new posts every day.

This can work for sales prospecting but also with regular B2B contacts

5/ Reaching out to my list

Once I've interacted with people for some days or weeks, I will reach out to them. Liking and commenting their posts prior to reaching out will increase the chances of starting a conversation.

But sometimes, people will contact you even before you contact them like it happened to me with Matteo.

LinkedIn tip: you need to be a 1st degree connection to reach out someone on LinkedIn without using LinkedIn InMails. If you want to always make sure to get your LinkedIn invite accepted, do Social Warming which is basically the fact to like and comment posts before sending an invite.

6/ Booking calls with my list

When it makes sense to, I will try to have a networking call (virtual coffee) with the people in my list to really build a strong B2B relationships.

If you engage with someone on a recurrent basis and you met the person virtually during a 30 minute call, it's a game changer, they'll remember you forever. That's how you turn impressions into comments.

7/ Building a natural LinkedIn mafia

When you give, you receive.

The more you'll interact with people in your engagement list, the more they'll engage back with your content even if your content is not exceptional. Tons of LinkedIn creators talk about it.

The bond you create with the people in your list usually results in what I call a "natural LinkedIn mafia". Basically, without organizing yourself in a chat group or a LinkedIn pod, you naturally support each other posts and increase therefore your LinkedIn engagement exponentially over time as more people join the mafia.

From there, you'll land partnerships, more inbound leads, and so much more!

A final example of LinkedIn engagement from one of my archives

3°) LinkedIn Engagement Techniques once you posted content (+ tips on the content itself)

To increase your LinkedIn engagement, there's also a few things to consider when you design your content but also once your LinkedIn post is live.

What type of content gets the most LinkedIn engagement? (LinkedIn engagement statistics)

In a fantastic LinkedIn Post by Richard van der Blom, Richard tells us what kind of LinkedIn posts get the most engagement:

Reach boosters:

• document posts = 2.2 to 3.4x more reach

• polls = 2.1 to 2.9 more reach

• carousel posts = 1.8 to 2.3x more reach

• text & multiple pictures = 1.2 to 16.6 more reach

Note: if you get more reach, you get more LinkedIn engagement by default

(Source: Just Connecting 4th Annual Algorithm Research)

Reach drainers:

• video posts = 0.5 to 0.8 of average reach

• posts with 1 external link = 0.4 to 0.5 of average reach

• celebrate an occasion = 0.3 to 0.6 of average reach

• posts with more than 1 link = 0.2 to 0.4 of average reach

What to do once you LinkedIn post is live to boost engagement?

Once you published a post, make sure to stick around to engage with a least 3 posts from your network. This will give your +20% reach will ultimately result in more LinkedIn engagement.

If you publish 1 another post within 18 hours of publishing your first post, you'll get a minus 15% reach and if you publish 2 other posts within 18 hours, you'll get minus 30% in reach.

If people share your posts or save it, it will incredibly boost your reach so make sure to create some call to actions in your copywriting to boost these metrics.

Always make sur to be active on the platform after you publish content

4°) Other options to increase LinkedIn Engagement

If my personal technique to increase LinkedIn engagement does not satisfy you, you can check out these 6 other options that I tried in the past!

Option 1: engaging manually on others people posts from LinkedIn App

No secrets here, it's the most basic form of LinkedIn engagement.

You scroll your LinkedIn feed and every time you see something interesting, you leave a like and a comment. Your goal is to not consume content but to scroll and engage as much as possible so your 1st degree connections will engage back once you publish content as well.

Downsides of this LinkedIn engagement technique:

• your LinkedIn feed is hard to curate

• even if you block some accounts, your feed will always be a bit off track so you can't engage in a productive way

It's a performing way to engage B2B contacts but it's such a time consuming one

Option 2: creating a list of favorites in Google Chrome or Safari

This method is often recommended by LinkedIn gurus to increase LinkedIn engagement.

The concept is simple:

• find some relevant LinkedIn B2B influencers in your niche

• make sure they're in your 1st degree connections

• add 20 of them to a safari favorite list or a Google Chrome one

• you want to add the url that ends with "/share" on their LinkedIn profile so you end up directly on their posts history

• every day, you check their profile then you like and comment their posts

Downsides of this LinkedIn engagement technique:

• it's not a scalable technique to build engagement on LinkedIn

• opening too many tabs in a row can get your LinkedIn account restricted because LinkedIn will think you're using a LinkedIn automation software (happened to me, got restricted twice and saw it on LinkedIn creators as well)

Example of what I used to do before Breakcold, definitely not the good old days

Option 3: activating the LinkedIn notification bell

The LinkedIn notification bell can be turned ON/OFF on any LinkedIn profiles that activated this feature.

Once you turned ON the LinkedIn notification bell, you'll get a notification every time someone shares a LinkedIn post.

It's a very good method to always end up in the first comments of people's posts because you'll be notified immediately once they post.

For example, Justin Welsh (who has +200,000 followers on LinkedIn) only engages with his first 40/60 comments every day out of hundreds/thousands. If he engages with your comment, your comment will be more visible which usually result in many likes, comments under your posts and therefore more followers.

This is where you activate the bell

Option 4: using LinkedIn Sales Navigator

LinkedIn Sales Navigator is used by +10 millions users to find and contact prospects. However you can also use it to boost your LinkedIn engagement, it's actually a secret feature but it's very limited compare to what you can do with Breakcold.

On Sales Nav, when you are in the home section , you have a feed of the activity of your prospects.

When you scroll this feed, you will notice that sometimes LinkedIn Sales Navigator will tell you who shared a post recently, you can then click on "View" to see the post.

Once you've clicked on view, you can see the whole posts with its comments and likes and you can engage with it. Like we explained above, this will help these people to engage in return which result in a better LinkedIn engagement.

Downsides of this LinkedIn engagement technique:

• it's not optimal to engage with people in a productive way

• you can access only the recent posts and not the history of your prospect posts

• you need to put in place too many filters each time you connect to Sales Nav to make this work smoothly

LinkedIn Sales Navigator UI/UX is not perfect when it comes to engage quickly with your B2B contacts, I still prefer Breakcold

Option 5: asking manually for LinkedIn engagement before or once you posted content

I didn't know it was a thing but recently more and more LinkedIn creators asked me in the LinkedIn inbox to engage with their posts.

What I noticed is that when they had a big LinkedIn post planned (for example a giveaway or a launch announcement), they would ask people to like and comment the post to make sure it has a solid boost in organic reach.

Some people also automate this process by sending bulk LinkedIn DMs which is basically sending LinkedIn messages all at once to hundreds of LinkedIn 1st degree connections. It's definitely a good LinkedIn engagement technique even though it can get your account banned if you abuse it too much.

The message is basically asking for a like and a comment to boost the LinkedIn post

Option 6: using LinkedIn pods

What is a LinkedIn engagement pod?

A LinkedIn pod is a group of people that organize artificially a boost in LinkedIn engagement by liking and commenting each other posts. I used the word artificially because technically they would have never liked or commented the posts in the first place without the pod.

The goal of a LinkedIn pod is to increase LinkedIn engagement as every people who like and comment the LinkedIn post will give it a reach in their own audience.

1/ Manual pods with your team

Manual pods with some LinkedIn friends is a classic. Some people also organize themselves in a Telegram or WhatsApp group.

This is the process to create and run a manual pod to increase LinkedIn engagement:

• find people in your niche that have a content similar to yours

• connect with them and ask them to join your manual pod

• every time someone in the chat group shares a LinkedIn post, each member of the pod will have to like and comment the post

Branded startup teams for example support each other under their posts to get more engagement but they do it manually

That way, you always make sure that you have at least 10 likes and comments under each posts.

This LinkedIn engagement technique is actually very efficient if you do it within your own team as a business or startup. The bigger your team, the more advantage you have to build a stronger brand and attract leads using LinkedIn.

Some startup teams like Lavender or Trumpet are doing it perfectly if you need some examples of this method.

2/ Automated pods via the use of softwares

Some LinkedIn pods are LinkBoost or Podawaa.

This is how you can use these softwares to increase LinkedIn engagement:

• sign-up to one of these softwares

• look for a group with a high Social Selling Index (SSI) score, eg above 75

• join the pod

• schedule a LinkedIn post and decide how many likes and comments you want on your post

Once your post is published, you'll get automatically likes and comments on your post as requested.

Example of a LinkedIn engagement pod

3/ Are LinkedIn pods illegal to increase LinkedIn engagement?

LinkedIn pods are illegal and prohibited by LinkedIn terms and conditions. What LinkedIn dislikes is precisely automated LinkedIn pods as manual ones have and will always exist.

LinkedIn got really good at spotting LinkedIn automated pods and it therefore results in a decrease your engagement instead of boosting it.

LinkedIn also banned many tools in the LinkedIn pod market such as Lempod.

This is the kind of results you can get if you're using LinkedIn Pods even without publishing content

Finally, another problem of using this LinkedIn engagement technique is that most subscriptions plans will you like automatically other people's post which are usually spammy posts or weird ones.

Therefore, when people discover your profile, they'll spot that your LinkedIn engagement is artificial or will think than you're liking weird stuff and that they won't appreciate to see what you like in their feed which result in a decrease in LinkedIn engagement overall.