Here at Flat Living social media plays a large part in our strategy to get articles and information out to our target audience within the residential property management sector.
We have recently seen that trends are changing and we are experiencing increased interactions and results from LinkedIn, so what better way to kick off our new social media focus than by looking at LinkedIn and what it can do for you.
1 out of every 3 professionals on the planet is on LinkedIn
Jason Miller, Content & Social Marketing Leader LinkedIn.
There are two new LinkedIn members every second and LinkedIn is transforming from a perceived recruitment platform to a B2B networking tool, now is the time to make sure you and your company are getting the most out of it.
In this article we will take a look at how often you post on LinkedIn and whether or not you are commenting and liking other people’s posts. We asked our audience which people they think you should be following for great content, and we take a look at a recent thought provoking conversation on LinkedIn that highlights what is current in our industry.
Finally, if you’re an established LinkedIn user or you are just starting out, take a look at this new tool we found to see what you need to improve on.
How often do you post on LinkedIn?
Whilst the title is how often do you post, I think we need to step back first and ask are you posting on LinkedIn?
Creating posts on LinkedIn allows you to get your message out there, for people to hear what you have to say and understand more about you – it allows us to start creating and building the foundations of business relationships that can help us in the future.
Most people understand this, but then it all stops – what can I say in my posts? A good place to start is asking a question or for recommendations, this allows people to respond with help and advice which can then create a dialogue between you. Other good posts can be about your wins and successes, or things that you have found challenging, really the ideas are endless but you will only see what works for you by starting. So right now, create a post, ask a question or let people know what has been good about your day.
If you’re asking yourself what the point is for your business – somewhere on LinkedIn there are people who could become your customers and clients or recommend your services to others, and completely free of charge you have the opportunity to market yourself and network with these people for a relatively short daily commitment of your time.
Now, on to the original question – how often should you be posting? Two posts a week would be a great start and that is manageable for most people. You could have one post asking a question and the other post could be sharing information that might be useful to you network.
If you’re already doing this then look to post once a day during the week – this means that 60% of your network connections will see at least one of your posts.
Are you commenting and liking other peoples posts?
Liking other people’s posts, or even better commenting on them increases your own profile visibility, improves your existing relationships and of course can lead to connections with huge possibilities.
Spending a short amount of time each day looking at your feed and commenting on posts that you found useful or informative is a great way to boost your profile and create more established relationships.
Top tips
“…don’t use it rarely. You have to show up, you have to get involved, and don’t just drop a ‘Lazy Like’ when a comment carries far more value to both the contributor’s post and your own presence.”
Kate Lister – Grimsby-based florist at Kate Lister Flower Design and social media obsessive
“Use the comment button wisely on people’s posts where you would like them to do the same on your posts!”
Peter Dunsby – Director at ECO Matters
Great accounts to follow
On LinkedIn there are some great people to connect with in terms of building relationships and also because they share interesting and informative content.
I find there are particular accounts that I look out for, not only because I enjoy their content but they are always happy to comment on and like my content – it’s good to do the same and give something back.
About a week ago I asked my LinkedIn connections what social media accounts they would recommend for updates and information about property management.
What was interesting was that I received some good recommendations both on the post and via message, but also how the conversation moved on to what platforms were the most sucessful for different areas of business.
The general agreement is that LinkedIn is the best for business networking, and that Twitter, Instagram and Facebook were better for connecting with you end customers.
Matt Bowyer
Matt Bowyer is a Block Manager at Hive Block Management.
Matt regularly shares interesting content from his industry peers as well as his own opinion on industry news.
Connect or follow Matt here
Beth Lancaster
Beth is a Senior Property Manager at FirstPort (UK).
Beth shares and comments on environmental, property management and general affairs posts with the odd quote thrown in that she is pondering.
Connect or follow Beth here
Top tips
“…you have to remember that people go to Facebook, Twitter, etc as a social thing, the last thing you would probably want is to see more of work!”
James West – Property Manager Specialist Recruiter at Randstad UK
“Be active! Comment, like, share & publish your own articles. Also, join relevant groups and post engaging content to these groups to start conversations with professionals in your industry.”
Katie Mooney – Social Media Executive at 4site Consulting
Thought provoking conversation
We wanted to take a look at how LinkedIn can be used well to promote discussion with your peers and what we can learn from each other.
Below you will see a post from David Goldberg, CEO of POD Management that was recently on Linkedin.
David Goldberg
‘Evolutionising’ Property Management | Estate and Block Management Expert | PropTech Advisor
“How can we expect innovation [in block management] to come out of a one year contract”.
A statement made by an extremely respected member of our industry at a recent event I was present at.
Innovation doesn’t necessarily only mean in the area of technology – can we not innovate the way our industry does things and how it delivers its service? If the ability to innovate on service relies on people then are guarantees of business to support that investment needed beyond one year?
To a degree I concur. I think that with security of tenure we can play around with more innovative solutions to problems but, innovation can come from simply challenging the status quo. Disruptors have shown that innovation often comes from shortening contract lengths (think Now TV, mobile operators, financial products etc).
So my question is, do we need change in the legislation to allow our industry to become more innovative?
propertymanagment #leasehold #property #developers #ARMA #residential
Clearly an experienced story teller, David started the post with a statement he had heard at an industry event that he had been considering, providing some examples that questioned the statement David then invited others to comment with a specific question.
You can click on the comments button to read all of the responses within LinkedIn, but what was interesting on this post was to see open and transparent opinions from all levels of the industry that we only normally get to hear in publications.
On social media people have the opportunity to present themselves, to show their personality and their values in a more open and easier way than within general marketing.
Experienced user? A new tool for you
Social Selling Index is a recently new tool if you like your numbers and would like to see how LinkedIn thinks you are doing and how you can improve.
Based on a score of 100 it is split into four areas:
- Your professional brand – your profile
- Finding the right people – growing your network
- Engage with insights – discovery and sharing of content
- Building relationships – strengthening your network.
Each of the above is scored out of 25 so that you can see which area you may need to focus more time and effort, LinkedIn then provide links to content to help improve each of these areas.
This score is updated daily and in addition it shows where you rank for your industry and where you rank within your network.
We appreciate you probably won’t be checking this out every week but it’s a nice indicator tool to give some direction on where you can focus your efforts.
I hope you enjoyed this new article on social media, I would love to hear your opinions, find out who you like to follow and see your great tips – so please do connect me with on LinkedIn.
Rebecca Kelly
Head of Partnerships at Flat Living
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