How you should use hashtags on LinkedIn for more views despite low followers
Publicado 2021-07-28
I went from a company with no followers and posts that literally got fewer than 2-10 impressions to multiple posts that got over 10,000 all within its first week of posting. Again, on a company page that was 100% brand new. And, people think that LinkedIn organic reach has died. Clearly, that's not the case.
So, first it is important to note that not all hashtags are built the same. My old process was to think of a post and then as an after-thought put a hashtag that was relevant to the post.
I recommend doing some research and to come up with 10 hashtags that you want to "own." Do the opposite and have your posts built around those hashtags. "Owning" those hashtags means that you consistently post using that hashtag and consistently respond to others in that hashtag, although it should be noted that I've gotten great results without responding to others in those hashtags too.
For those 10 hashtags, finding out the follower count upfront is huge. I recommend doing a mixture of hashtag follower counts, but I definitely have better results when I go crazy on a couple of hashtags with over 10 million followers and do an interesting post around those.
If your post is relevant and different and prompts users to click the "read more" button, you'll do well. The "read more" button pops up when you do a post that is more than 3 lines or so. Rather than taking up tons of space in the feeds of other people, it condenses it, and only shows your full post to those who specifically click it. We'll come back to this soon.
But, LinkedIn actually doesn't make it easy to determine hashtag follower counts.
So, first, in the search bar, type a hashtag symbol and then select something from the drop-down options that auto-populate. It really doesn't matter what you select. But, for some reason if I just type my own hashtag and press enter it shows me posts and people under those hashtags, and that's not really what you want in this research phase.
Alternatively, you could just type the following URL in as well, but the hashtag for innovation has the URL of:
www.linkedin.com/feed/hashtag/innovation
Replace "innovation" with whatever hashtag you want to research and the follower count will appear at the top, front and center.
For an idea of my hashtag follower mixture, my 10 hashtags range from 20k to 40 million or so. And, you might be surprised by which hashtags have tons of followers and which have diddly squat, which is the difference between nobody extra seeing your excellent post and 10s of thousands of extra people seeing it.
Test out some posts using just 2-3 of those hashtags; don't go overboard here. LinkedIn doesn't prioritize and spam hashtags in the same way that other platforms do. Also, make sure the hashtags are relevant and interesting to your post. Then leave your text post with a cliffhanger or question around the 3rd line so people click "read more" and you'll be on your way to heavier post views. If you post and the cliffhanger isn't the very last thing before the "read more" click the three dots at the top right of your post and edit your post until it is.
Part of the LinkedIn algorithm judges your post as worthwhile by likes, comments, and clicking that "read more" button. So, if you post something that gets lots of "read more" clicks on a popular hashtag, it'll show your post to a lot more people. All of my successful 10k+ view posts have excellent cliffhangers even though they might have few likes and no comments; conversely, I've had posts with a bunch of likes and comments not go as far because fewer were clicking the "read more" so don't underestimate its power.
And, when doing this, LinkedIn seems to not take into account your current follower count or anything, because again, I used a new company account, and less than 20 views from my 10k+ view posts came from followers.
Let me know if you have any questions and good luck hashtagging.