LinkedIn: The Broccoli of Social Media

I was listening to one of my (many) podcasts recently, and a group of social media analysts were discussing the latest (May 2019) report of which platforms were trending for business and which were losing momentum.

After almost a decade of being a front-runner for business, Facebook is beginning to plateau and that is in no small part to the fact that organic reach is damn near impossible if you have an established page. At one point, one of the analysts said, “You’ll need to be a billion-dollar company to afford meaningful ad reach on Facebook in the next 3 years.”

Kinda seems dramatic, but we’ll see…

While Instagram is gaining in popularity for business, it is also owned by Facebook, so many analysts are wary of putting too many eggs in that basket. The news feed changes that occurred on Facebook which drove so many people away from the platform were at the helm of one leader, Adam Mosseri, who is now the CEO of Instagram. So. Take that for what it’s worth.

So what is the platform that is showing the most promise and growth that is outside the reach of Mark Zuckerburg? LinkedIn. LinkedIn has shown over 40% growth in the last year in terms of businesses and daily users.

In the early days of LinkedIn, it was a platform meant to connect with business professionals and pretty much share when you had a new job title. Now, it’s a living, digital resume, to keep your business contacts in the know of what projects you are working on, share insightful tips, and even watch inspiring videos on occasion (Thanks, Tedx!).

If you have a sales team (or, you are your sales team), chances are that they are living and breathing on LinkedIn.

If you are consistently pushing out thought-leadership articles, news briefs, etc. related to your industry on your business LinkedIn page, your employees (especially your sales team) can share that efficiently with their networks by just “liking” the post. Unlike Facebook where a “like” doesn’t do anything for your content, on LinkedIn, it increases your reach.

For a long time, Facebook profiles were a “no-brainer” and many businesses clamored to launch on that platform. Now, I hear businesses scrambling to start an Instagram page. I’m not saying an Instagram page isn’t a good idea; however, pull back the reigns a bit. Take a closer look at LinkedIn. The data is telling us something.

I get it: it’s not a sexy platform - but that doesn’t mean it’s not good for your business. Call it the broccoli of social media. It’s important to the health of your business in the long-term, even if you don’t love how it looks or tastes. But you’re an adult. You can swallow this for sure.