Have you ever published a perfectly crafted post and received nothing but crickets?
Or, you’ve received way less engagement than usual?
The sudden drop in posts’ reach could be because you’ve likely added a link(s) in your post.
Does it sound strange how a seemingly harmless link can hamper your content’s reach?
Then, read on to understand why LinkedIn is link-unfriendly and what to do about it.
You’re going to learn about two best practices, plus an alternative to posting LinkedIn content without hindering its reach.
LinkedIn post and Links
LinkedIn, or for that matter, any social media channel does not want its users to leave the platform.
And an external link does just that – redirects the users to another platform other than LinkedIn.
If you publish a link to any external site, including:
- Your blog or website
- YouTube video
- Documents, files, or apps
Then your posts are likely to not perform well, i.e., not gain many views, thus, resulting in less engagement.
These links take users away from the platform; hence, LinkedIn posts that include links often perform poorly relative to those that do not have URLs.
Why does it matter?
There are 310 million active monthly users on LinkedIn, and the organic reach on the platform is massive.
A well-written LinkedIn post brings many opportunities. Some of these are:
- Lead generation
- Increasing follower count
- Building a personal brand
- Retaining customers
This is not all; there’s more to LinkedIn, but let’s get back to the blog for now.
Additional read: how to leverage LinkedIn and get more clients?
If your post is not reaching the right audience, your efforts are not hitting the target.
Hence, read on to understand how to add links with your LinkedIn post without upsetting the algorithms.
Alternatives to Adding Links in Post
The good news is: you don’t have to compromise the links for the sake of pleasing the algorithm.
The following are two easy ways to add links and still know your posts will perform well:
1. Write-Publish-Edit
One way is to publish your posts and then add your links.
Here’s how to do it:
- Write the post as usual
- Publish the post without the link
- Go back to your published post, click edit. Now add your desired link
- Hit save
Does this method work?
Candidly speaking, there’s no one remedy to the situation. It depends on the time of posting and the current algorithm updates.
However, this method works well because LinkedIn does not seem to recognize that the link points to an external source. Hence, you’ve published the post without the link and edited while pushing the content too.
2. Add Links in Comments
Another interesting method to post without links is to add the links in the comment section.
Heads up: don’t forget to mention in the post that readers have a link waiting for them in the comments.
The method is quite self-explanatory. You publish the post without the link. Then, add the link in the comments of your post.
Does this method work?
There are two things this method does:
- Signals the algorithm that people are engaging with your post (further increasing the reach)
- Preventing your reach to sink by not adding the link in the post
Although there’s one thing, you should note: if there’s good engagement on your post, the link may get lost in the pool of comments.
So, an even better alternative to links is creating native content on LinkedIn. Let’s say you’ve published a YouTube video, you can publish its snippet or the entire video (if it’s not too lengthy) on LinkedIn. Or, if you’ve written a blog post, it’s best to share key takeaways in the post itself. The third option could be to write an article using LinkedIn pulse.
This way, you’re not making the users leave the platform, and at the same time, forcing them to consume your content.
Conclusion
So these were two ways to add links along with your LinkedIn post without hampering its reach.
Apply the two techniques shared – write-publish-edit or comment, or post the content natively and achieve the results you want with well-performing posts.
