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It’s National 🥪 Sandwich Day, Reader!  Grilled 🧀 cheese, 🥚 egg salad, 🥓 🥬 🍅 BLT... what’s your go-to?

In today’s edition:

• Today's 👉 Tip of the Day is for search rank

• Optimizing for LinkedIn Reach

• Facebook opens a new ⚙️ API for Stories

• 🤖 AI-powered LinkedIn Premium features

• Musk’s 🔮 future plans for X

• YouTube experiments with a new 🔎 search feature

• ❗️ New Reels ⚖️ split testing tools for Facebook

•  👩‍💻 Google changes AdSense rules 

If you’re working diligently toward SEO but can’t seem to break into the top 10, you might have overlooked something fundamental. 

Check Your Page Load Speed 

Google has confirmed that they use load speed as a factor in ranking websites so this really matters.

If you’re not sure where to start, you can use Google’s own PageSpeed Insights to get some recommendations. 

Be cautious, though: Google is a tough grader and very few websites ever get a high score from them. Try implementing the changes they suggest but don’t stress if you don’t get a perfect grade. 

Today's tip is inspired by Jeff Oxford, a featured speaker at Social Media Marketing World.

You know your ideal customers are on LinkedIn, but your content isn't performing well and you're not bringing in new business. Why is that?

If any of the following three mistakes describe your approach to LinkedIn, then you're probably not getting the reach you deserve.

Mistake #1: Relying on Corporate Content and Ads: If you rely on corporate messaging and ads, you’ll struggle to get reach, interaction, and conversions on LinkedIn. Some of the biggest brands in the world have this problem. The key to a successful organic LinkedIn content strategy is creative, genuine, and human-led content that shows the human side of your brand.

Mistake #2: Chasing the Wrong KPIs: If you chase the wrong key performance indicators (KPIs), then your views, engagement, and conversions will shrink over time. Stop thinking about Shares, Reactions, and Clicks. Instead, focus on Comments and Messages.

Mistake #3: Focusing on the Wrong Goal: In 2023, it is almost impossible to generate leads on LinkedIn. LinkedIn ads have low conversion and lead generation rates, and only 2% of posts in the LinkedIn feed come from organic company content. Leads shouldn’t be the goal for your marketing team. Instead, you want your marketers to focus on brand awareness. Then once your name, products, and ethos are in front of as many people as possible, the sales team can follow up with individual sales prospects to build relationships and convert them into leads.

To succeed, your marketing team needs to orient its strategy around the LinkedIn algorithm—understanding, playing to, and using it to build brand awareness.

How the LinkedIn Algorithm Works

Organic reach works differently on LinkedIn than on other platforms. The watchword of the algorithm is interaction. Not likes, shares, or number of followers or comments but the value of individual comments, messages, and interactions.

This is partly because LinkedIn has a unique user profile that includes a majority segment of silent content consumers. They scroll through the feed and consume your content but they choose not to interact. It takes long-term, consistent posting to convert them into active leads or followers. 

Because this segment is so large, LinkedIn developed an algorithm that takes the silent community into account.

4 LinkedIn Content Optimization Tips

Aim for Longer Dwell Time

Dwell time is an essential metric on LinkedIn. It refers to how much time a user spends looking at your content or how long it stays on their screen. Do they stop scrolling? Do they read a post or watch a video all the way through?

The platform itself is designed to increase dwell time. For example, LinkedIn only shows the first few lines of a post before adding a See More link. That's designed to collect useful signals for the algorithm from the silent community. 

You can boost your LinkedIn performance by creating posts that demand more dwell time. Aim to write longer posts of at least eight lines. You can add lines and white space to your posts to enhance the effect.

Share Links Carefully

Most marketers have heard that sharing external links in your LinkedIn posts can limit your reach. Unfortunately, this is completely true. A post with links to content—whether it's from external websites or simply to a different LinkedIn page—will barely get 50% of normal reach.

Regardless of the reasoning behind it, marketers still need to share links sometimes. So how can you share links without being penalized by the LinkedIn algorithm?

There are two options, based on your goals for each post. If conversion is the main goal of your post—for example, registering users for a webinar—then go ahead and share the link anyway. Your audience will be smaller but you should aim for quality leads anyway. If the link isn't absolutely essential, then you can share it in the comments on the post. Just be sure to direct people to the comments in the main post so they don't miss the link.

Shift Your Calls for Engagement

Several months ago, the social network announced that posts asking for engagement would be penalized by the algorithm. If you ask for shares, likes, or even invite people to comment a key phrase, then your post will be downgraded in the feed.

You can avoid the problem by taking a different approach. Instead of thinking about a call to action, try to give your followers a call to think or a call to feel. For example, you could ask them to think about how an issue affects their business or how they might solve a problem. You could ask them how they feel about a news story, change in their industry, or economic challenge.

While these options are less direct than a call to action, they still help start a conversation and position you as an expert guide and thought leader.

Avoid Artificial Engagement

LinkedIn also uses negative engagement signals to round out its data. These are signals that people are choosing to ignore or navigate away from your content such as pausing a video, unfollowing you, or removing themselves from a tagged post.

Negative signals can also include signs that you're using an engagement pod or engagement network— groups of people who agree to like and make short comments on each other's posts. However, the LinkedIn algorithm is smart enough to spot this kind of artificial activity and use it as a signal to downgrade your content in the feed.

Today's advice is provided with insights from Richard van der Blom and Michael Stelzner.

Is Imposter Syndrome Holding You Back?

Is there something you don't feel confident enough to do? Maybe it's short-form video or positioning yourself as a thought leader. We're here to tell you that you are enough and you can do it. The first step on your new journey is to surround yourself with people who really believe their work is making a difference. 

You'll find these people at Social Media Marketing World. And there’s a very good chance that you’ll walk away inspired to do that thing you've always wanted to do. 💪

Secure your ticket and start your adventure.

🗞 Facebook Stories API: Facebook is launching a new Stories API that allows developers, creators, and brands to publish Stories to public Facebook Pages. They can use any desktop or web application to create and publish Stories. This gives more flexibility to post Stories without needing a mobile device. The API rolls out this week Source: Facebook

🗞 LinkedIn Premium Features: LinkedIn celebrated reaching 1 billion users by announcing the rollout of a new Premium experience to select subscribers. It aims to provide more personalized interactions, including suggestions for skills to build and professionals to contact. The AI-powered system will analyze feed posts and reveal key options tailored to each user. It will summarize long articles and videos into actionable takeaways. Microsoft Bing is integrated to give timely information on trending topics. The goal is to help users unlock hidden options and spend time taking action. Source: LinkedIn

🗞 The Future of X: In a recent employee meeting, Elon Musk says his plan for the platform is to become an ‘everything app’ that replaces YouTube, LinkedIn, FaceTime, dating apps, and bank apps. Source: The Verge

🗞 YouTube Search Shortcuts: The system analyzes comments and adds shortcuts to relevant phrases. Clicking a shortcut starts a YouTube search for that term. The goal is to help viewers learn more about topics mentioned in comments. This early experiment is only on some Android mobile channels. Channel owners can remove comments with shortcuts. Source: YouTube

🗞 Facebook Reels A/B Testing: Facebook is introducing new tools for creators, most notably Reels A/B testing. This allows creators to test up to four different thumbnails or captions for a single Reels video. The different versions will be shown to separate groups of the creator's audience for 30 minutes. At the end, the best-performing version based on plays will be set as the default unless the creator changes it. The feature is currently only on mobile. Other new tools include an overview of all posts' performance, the ability to hide or trash posts, and more performance data like 90-day instead of 28-day metrics. New metrics include a reel's performance compared to a creator's other videos, viewer retention showing drop off points, and replay-inclusive view counts. Overall, the tools aim to help creators better manage and optimize their Reels content. Source: Meta

🗞 Google Ad Sense Changes: Google is making two changes to AdSense - updating the revenue-share structure and moving to pay publishers per impression instead of per click. With the new revenue-share structure, publishers will receive 80% of ad revenue after Google Ads or third-party platforms take their fees. Previously, fees were processed within a single AdSense transaction where publishers kept 68% of revenue. Now the buy-side and sell-side fees are separate. When Google Ads buys ads, it takes around 15% on average. With third parties, the fee rate is unknown. Additionally, AdSense is shifting to per impression payments like the rest of the industry. Google expects these updates to provide more transparency and uniformity across ad platforms without affecting publisher earnings. The changes will take effect in early 2023 and require no action from publishers. Source: Google

TOGETHER WITH YOUR BRAND

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Let us help you increase your brand exposure or bring in qualified leads for your team. Why not chat with us?

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Did You Know?

Octopuses and squid have three 💙💙💙 hearts.