I’m a LinkedIn and marketing consultant and I work with companies who are looking to grow. I coach and train c-suite executives on LinkedIn and I’ve been a marketing professional for over 30 years.

I’ve grown with LinkedIn and as the platform has developed it’s changed the way I do business. When I first made my account I had about 27 connections in my professional network.

My primary focus was using the platform to find a new job when I was relocating to Raleigh, NC. Today, I have 15,000 direct connections and 3,500 of those are in my local area.

I use LinkedIn to promote my book about how to “pay things forward.”

Everyone understands how to pay others “back” with reciprocity, but the real trick is to also pay things forward at the same time.

This creates a chain of events in the world that can have a positive benefit for you similar to how compounding interest works.

This means actions big and small! It can be buying a stranger a free cup of coffee all the way up to making a large charitable donation.


 
There are several places where you can share content “forward” on LinkedIn. Everywhere from group discussions to blogs and status updates, all of these forms of content can be shared on the platform.  
You can share content into groups or directly with others.

Shared information on LinkedIn is then seen by your entire network and if anyone reshares it then it’s seen by their network as well. It creates an amplification effect on the impact of your message.

The more your content gets shared and seen by others the more likely it is that you’ll see hits back on your profile and your other pieces of content.  
All 500 million people on LinkedIn now have the ability to publish. This is a huge change from how it used to be before they opened up the feature.

Now that you can share content into groups you can spark incredible discussions among members that can become fuel for future content as well.

Right now I have about 30 LinkedIn blog posts published all with over 40,000 hits. Each time I publish a new piece all my pieces of content pick up new hits.

I share on LinkedIn and Twitter as well as in online groups, I also ask some of the other influencers I’m friends with to give me a reshare.

I always reciprocate in sharing back their content so we have a good relationship on this level. I’ve built these relationships over time, online and in person.

I never spam my network with content and I make sure I’m sharing 4x as much content as I’m asking to be shared.

That’s my 4-1-1 method. For every four pieces of information I share from others, I have one piece of promotional information and one that has a direct sales focus.  
This keeps the reciprocity working in my favor and usually your contacts will be all too happy to give you a share.

 

Action Steps

  1. Create great content worthy of being shared on LinkedIn.
  2. Share your content in relevant groups, on Twitter and ask your friends in your niche to give you a reshare.
  3. Always share more of their content than your own, utilize the 4-1-1 method and keep paying things forward.

 

Result You Will Achieve

More hits and shares for content you publish on LinkedIn.

Mentor: Chuck Hester

Marketing Communications Executive of Chuck Hester Enterprises. Chuck is a Marketing Communications Executive, LinkedIn publisher, speaker and author of Linking in to Pay it Forward: Changing the Value Proposition in Social Media.

 
This article is based on an EHQ interview with the mentor.