Last week I ran a LinkedIn poll, the topic was “What do you really want to see in your LinkedIn feed”. The purpose of the poll was to receive some genuine and helpful feedback from my network on what they are looking for when they open their LinkedIn feeds.

I positioned the poll with this text in the main post:

The choices were clear, do you want to see:

1.      Jobs - “Just let me know who you are looking for”

2.      Products and Services - “Just tell me what you have and what you do”

3.      A mix of 1 and 2 - “Just tell me what you do and who you need”

4.      More humanised content – “I like knowing more about the people in my network…”

Not the greatest range of question but you are restricted to 4 options in your poll, and these seemed ok to run with in the first instance.

I completed the post with these Hashtags:

This was the first real poll I’d done since the feature was launched in June 2020. I ran a light-hearted poll on the day it was launched but nothing since, the main reason being I was seeing a lot of polls in my feed and none of them really interested or resonated with me. The news on the wire is that polls are being well supported by the platform so I decided to run one for 3 days.

The day of the poll…

I posted it just after 9am on Tuesday 11th May 2021.

The first hour was slow with just a few hundred views and 17 votes but then things really started to move.

Within the first 2 hours the views had shot up to 2000 and the votes now to 55. Likes and comments had started coming in and it was beginning to take shape.

There was some good debate going on in the comments.

After about 4 hours it was clear that option 4 “More Humanised content” was in the lead and would likely win.

2 first degree connections started talking with in the post:

Nice comment from Graham Dallas and I thought Tim D Clarke's comment was excellent.  We can exist in echo chambers on Social Media, if you have surrounded yourself with likeminded people, its likely you’ll get likeminded interaction and response to your content.

I responded to Tim and we continued the discussion.

I thought more about Tim’s excellent point and the wider context of living in fishbowls only surrounded by those who agree with you… 

I did some more digging.

Before I became a Social Selling & Influence coach, I worked in leadership roles in the energy sector.

Today I have 8900 followers, back then I had 4500 all mainly engineers, sales/marketing/bd professionals, operation, technical and leaders across sectors in energy. When I looked across the followers added since, I found that they were mainly the same positions but now across a wider range of industry tiers.

I looked at the split in votes across connection tiers:

Jobs: 17% with 37 votes

1st degree          23%       

2nd degree         64%

3rd degree          13%

77% of respondents not connected with me.

Products and services: 7% with 15 votes

1st degree          33%

2nd degree         61%

3rd degree          6%

67% of respondents not connected with me.

Mix of 1 & 2: 29% with 62 votes

1st degree          22%

2nd degree         74%

3rd degree          4%

78% of respondents not connected with me.

More humanised content: 46% with 99 votes

1st degree          50%

2nd degree         43%

3rd degree          7%

50% of respondent not connected with me.

I have yet to establish how LinkedIn measure this. Are we to assume that this poll has been pushed so far that its mostly people not connected who see it? Or are these followers that are showing as degree connections?  Not sure right now but will dig a little deeper on this.                           

The final result:

Actionable data

Views

The poll was viewed by 11,006 people. I can check those views and see from which organisations, disciplines and locations they originated. If those don’t match with my target’s organisations, disciplines and geographies then I know I’m not getting my content where it needs to be and can make adjustments.

Votes

213 votes. Allows me to reach out and interact with those people.

Likes and comments.

31 and 64. Allow me to reach out and interact with those people.

More humanised content won with 46% of the vote.

This echoes well with our research, the results from our content and that of our clients. Often, people thing this means giving away family secrets or baring your soul, starting with talking to us like you would your friends would be a good start. Lose the MBA talk, open you shoulders and talk to us they way you would over lunch.

Example: If you post a dry piece of content on the intricacies of Project Management, you will appeal to a relatively small and niche audience who are really into the intricacies of Project Management. If you were to recraft that same content and put your point out in a conversational context that more people could relate to, more people will relate to it…

A mix of jobs and products & services came in 2nd at 29%.

We all have jobs and products we want to talk about, but don’t just advertise in your precious content. Take the clue from the winning option, talk to us about them in a humanised way, it will change everything for you – don’t sell to your network, sell thought it.

Jobs came in 3rd at 17%

You don’t have to search very far on the average feed to find someone complaining about bad recruiting practices. Gain the trust of the people you are targeting by being present, following up and being consistent on Social. Again, take a cue from the winning option….be more human to humans…

Products and Services came in last at 7%

So, this is an issue for you, you have products and services that you want to show everyone, but they are not interested.  Nobody likes being sold to…

Create a content plan that never asks us to buy your products, a plan that never ask us to contact you for more information, create a content plan that focuses on you and your people – More humanised content….

Conclusion

A poll is yet another great addition to your content plan. I would suggest using them sparingly and touching on topics that resonate. 

Taking this poll at face value, people want to see more humanised content in their feeds. If we are to look at the other options, they too could benefit from a humanised approach.

This platform has changed significantly over the last few years, more so this last year.  It’s not a place to sell, its a place to network and get to know each other as professionals. It’s a place to share, to help and get help. 

Most of all, it’s a place where human beings meet each other and start amazing stories.

Thanks to all who took part in the poll, I really appreciate you taking the time and I hip the results are of some benefit to you.

Live Social ‘21

Eric Doyle

CruxDLA Ignite

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