If LinkedIn were to shut down right this second, what would happen to your sales and marketing strategy?
Would you still be able to attract and convert leads? Or would you have to move to another platform and start from scratch?
If you work in the financial markets, and you regularly post content on LinkedIn, you might have got the sense that your posts have been making less of an impact recently.
And you’re not alone.
The reason for this is simple: it’s part of a routine lifecycle that all social media platforms go through.
It’s happened to the social channels that came before LinkedIn, and it will most likely happen to those that come after it.
But the good news is, it doesn’t have to spell the end for your business growth.
Read on to learn what the social media lifecycle is, how to ensure it doesn’t impact your sales, and how to keep business coming in across any and all channels.
How has LinkedIn reach changed? What the data says
Using detailed analysis of LinkedIn posts past and present, Blusteak estimates that organic reach (i.e. the number of people you can reach without having to pay for advertising) on the platform has gone down by as much as 30% since 2020.
And the impact of that starts to look even less optimistic when you consider LinkedIn reach works exponentially.
The more people a post reaches, the more interaction it gets, which helps it reach more people, and so on.
The same goes for the reverse.
So a 30% dive in engagement equals a significant drop in ROI for organic marketing efforts on LinkedIn.
So, what should financial markets businesses do about this?
Thankfully, it’s not all doom and gloom.
You can still use LinkedIn to build authority, make meaningful connections with your community, and effectively grow your audience (and business).
You just need an appropriate plan of action.
Developing that requires an understanding of two things:-
-
-
- The trajectory that all social media platforms follow
- The ability to attract and convert leads across ANY platform
-
Out of reach: the ‘social media lifecycle’ and how it works
Enough social media platforms have now grown and deflated over time that a clear pattern has emerged.
This is what we call the ‘social media lifecycle’.
Stage 1
First, the platform gives a lot of organic (free) reach to its users.
Stage 2
This quickly causes the popularity of the platform to surge, as influencers, businesses, and anyone looking to generate influence online flock to sign up.
Stage 3
With a large community of content creators engaging with a platform and getting incredible marketing results for free, the platform’s ad revenue starts to deteriorate.
Stage 4
The platform then begins to limit organic reach in favour of paid advertising, and you find yourself in the predicament that many businesses are currently in.
So, what should you do about it?
Have a strong inbound marketing strategy
Your ability to attract and convert clients must transcend the tools you use to do so.
In the financial markets, LinkedIn is the obvious choice of platform, and it’s fine if it’s the channel you use the most.
But if your success is defined by the rules and dynamics of this platform alone, and not sound inbound marketing principles that are applicable to any medium of communication, you could be setting yourself up for failure.
Embrace paid advertising
When you’ve previously ridden a beautiful wave of organic reach, it can be hard to shift your mindset when it comes to paid advertising.
It can feel like you’re cheating, or that you’re being cheated—suddenly having to pay for what was once a basic human right.
But if organic reach has declined to the point you’re taking more time to adapt or enhance your content to “game the algorithm”, then you’re already making more of an investment in social than you were before.
At least with paid advertising, there’s more certainty of a result.
Here’s the thing to remember—it is always in the interests of a social media platform to ensure you get the most out of a paid ad campaign.
The better your paid ads work, the more you’ll use them. You get the results you want from your social media activity, and the platform makes revenue.
Everyone wins.
By using the capacity for paid ads on social media platforms, you’re investing your resources into something that is far more stable, far more repeatable, and far more reliable.
The same cannot be said for organic content.
Establish communities on your own terms
As long as you have all your eggs in one basket, you are giving full domain over how much reach you have to a third party.
So look to build a core following that exists beyond social media.
Remember what we said about inbound marketing for financial markets?
If you want to do this effectively, you’ll need to put those skills to use.
Build a funnel that guides your customers off LinkedIn, and into spaces where you make the rules, and can enjoy complete ownership over your content and how far it goes.
An email subscriber list. A private podcast. A message board, admin-only WhatsApp group, or online forum.
There are plenty of options. So think about where your audience is most likely to be, and guide them there using your sales and marketing skills.
With these strategies in place, social media lifecycles won’t spell disaster for your bottom line.
And, you won’t lose time scrambling to get set up on the latest channel, only for the same problem to derail you again years later.
As long as you’re aware of the ebb and flow of social media platforms, and you have the strategic knowledge it takes to keep business coming in, your success will remain consistent—no matter what changes happen around you.
What financial markets businesses should know about LinkedIn: Key takeaways
- If you thought your reach has declined on LinkedIn, you were right—organic content doesn’t have the marketing ROI that it used to.
- This is a natural part of an organic lifecycle that all social media platforms go through. The key is to recognise this process and ensure you have the right systems in place to maintain a steady flow of inbound leads across all channels.
- Ensure your success is defined by solid inbound marketing principles, not the rules and dynamics of one specific social media platform.
- Embrace paid advertising: it’s stable, repeatable and reliable, and it’s always in the interests of social media platforms to help you get the most out of it.
- Look to build a core following that exists beyond social media. Build a funnel that guides your customers off LinkedIn, and into spaces where you make the rules.
Want someone to take the stresses of social media off your hands?
Enquire about our social media services for financial markets businesses