What’s the one platform I’ll be leaning into most in 2024? I’m glad you asked!

Drum roll, please.

And the platform is . . . LinkedIn!

Wait, how did you know? I guess the blog post title gave it away, didn’t it?

Shoot.

Anyway, yes, it’s LinkedIn!

I know, I know, I can almost hear your eyeballs rolling as you softly mutter to yourself, “Really, LinkedIn? Not Instagram, TikTok, Threads, or X?”

Nope. Not any of those. Here is why: LinkedIn is the perfect ‘sleeper’ platform for local government organizations.

A ‘sleeper’ is something or someone that becomes unexpectedly successful or important after being unnoticed, ignored, or considered unpromising.

LinkedIn has been a ‘sleeper’ for years as many government organizations primarily use it as a job board or place to share their organization’s one-off accomplishments.

This is why I will be making LinkedIn a primary focus of mine this year.

In my opinion, LinkedIn is the local gov trifecta: The ideal platform for local governments to engage in targeted outreach, establish thought leadership, and attract skilled talent.

Here are a few tips and insights to make the most out of your LinkedIn efforts:

Comments Reign Supreme

While other social media platforms emphasize likes, shares, and video views LinkedIn is all about the comments.

Why?

Comments mean conversations, and conversations mean valuable and meaningful engagement.

It’s important to note that like other social media platforms, your posts on LinkedIn are never actually seen by your entire list of followers or connections. Instead, they are only visible to a small fraction of your audience.

However, by crafting content that encourages comments, you stack the odds of your post being deemed valuable in your favor. In addition, the algorithm may even determine the content worth sharing with a larger percentage of your audience and the LinkedIn network at large.

Whether it’s your original content or you’re commenting on others’ posts, focus on providing value, unique insights, and creating meaningful conversations.

Links Limit Reach

In recent years, the updates to social media platforms’ algorithms have forced social media managers to learn and adapt.

LinkedIn is no different.

The one change that many have overlooked across all platforms?

Posting links within your content limits its organic reach.

Why would these platforms do this?

It’s simple. Facebook, X, LinkedIn, and nearly all social media platforms make a significant chunk of change from advertising. Keeping people’s attention on the content and keeping them on the platform exposes them to more ads, which translates to more revenue.

Including a link to external content such as a video or blog post is common practice for many, but few know how detrimental it can be.

Posting content that contains a link on LinkedIn can expect reduced organic reach by nearly 50 percent!

Not to worry though – there are ways to circumnavigate this penalty.

– Alter your content in such a way that you don’t need to include a link
– Post the link in the comments as opposed to the post itself
– Post the content without the link. Then, once published, quickly edit the post and add the link as you would have done originally.

Video Falls Flat

While video, especially short-form vertical video, may perform well on other platforms – video is generally the worst-performing content on LinkedIn.

You see, people rarely comment on videos on LinkedIn. And what does LinkedIn place the most value on? Comments.

So, if video is no good on LinkedIn, what works well?

By far, the best-performing content on LinkedIn for both reach and engagement are text-only posts or text with a single image.

If you decide to include an image in your post, avoid those stereotypical stock images as they perform especially poor on LinkedIn.

Pro tip: Give generative AI tools such as Midjourney, Dall-E, and Adobe Firefly a try when striving to craft eye-catching imagery for your original posts.

Less is More

In the eyes of LinkedIn, there is such a thing as “too much of a good thing.”

On other platforms, multiple posts a day are tolerated and perhaps welcomed by the algorithms. 

As you might have guessed, LinkedIn is different. Posting too frequently will limit your post’s organic reach by as much as 95%!

Aim to post about once a day. This will give the LinkedIn algorithm time to show your content to your test audience, allow those who see the content to engage (and hopefully comment), and the post will begin to gain organic momentum.

Should a particular post of yours produce above-average engagement, hold off on posting additional content for a day or two. This will allow the successful post to continue to perform and potentially reach a larger audience than it otherwise would have.

Final Thoughts

If you take one thing away from this post, I hope it is this: To give LinkedIn a try for your organization this year.

In my opinion, it’s a platform you and your organization can’t afford to overlook.

And a special shout out to Richard Bliss from Blisspoint Consulting for sharing these LinkedIn tips with me.