Chuck Hester

Marketing Communications Executive, LinkedIn publisher, speaker and author of Linking in to Pay it Forward: Changing the Value Proposition in Social Media. He has a foundation of more than 30 years experience in public relations, social media and the art of connecting.

Expert session

Tactic that has had the biggest impact on Chuck’s success

Using the 411 method to get more views on LinkedIn content

Result if you follow the steps in Chuck’s session

More hits and shares for content you publish on LinkedIn

Full session with video, notes, audio and discussion inside EHQ Club. Learn more

Expert session snapshot

Transcript

LinkedIn is pretty good about allowing you to share. For instance, via status update on the LinkedIn success summit that we’re doing and basically say, you know, looking forward to being part of this. And here’s the link to it. I could then share it into my groups that I’m involved with.

I’m actively involved in about 30 to 40 groups right now. And I could share that information out. I could share it directly to someone else. Or I could share someone else’s information as well.

All right. And why would someone want to even share something on LinkedIn? Can you take us through that, the why?

Sure. Be glad to. I mean, if you have a LinkedIn network of about 1000 people, if you share information, if you post information on LinkedIn, through a status update or a blog post, those 1000 people will see that information. However, if you share it into someone else, and they share it with their network, then you’re taking advantage of their network as well.

So if I’ve got 15,000 connections, and you share information to me then I can share it out to my 15,000 connections. And basically, you’re multiplying the impact of the message you’re trying to get out.

Okay, and why do I want that amplification? I mean, why do I want other people sharing the content that I’m sending out?

It’s basically word of mouth marketing. And when it sort of really comes down to, so you’re marketing your information on LinkedIn, whether it be now being part of a summit or a new book that you’ve got coming out, or you know, even new product marketing that you’re doing, you want as many people as possible to see that information.

And while you may have a great network, you don’t have the largest network. And in fact, you know, LinkedIn at 300 million people, there’s a lot of folks who can find that information. But if you’re not sharing it to them directly, they may have trouble find it.

Do you have any examples of what sharing has actually done for you or a client?

You know, my LinkedIn blog posts, I’ve got about 30, LinkedIn blog posts out right now, with close to 40,000 hits every single time that I post up my new blog post on LinkedIn, I’m sharing it directly out both on LinkedIn and Twitter, as well as into five to six groups at a time, I’m sending it out to other influence.

SIRs that may be able to help out, you know, everything from Craig Newmark all the way through to Ted Rubin or Vivica, whoever it may be, and letting them share it out to their network as a result, those 40,000 hits occur. And that makes a difference. I mean, it really honestly makes a difference for my reputation, and for the content marketing, and I’m trying to do for both my myself and my clients.

All right. So it’s all about really sharing the creating, obviously great content that your connections are willing to share out to their network as well increasing your reach of your branding or the message that you’re trying to push. Now I can walk through for everyone just step by step, how that process works from actually, you know, creating or deciding what we should be sharing and then that to the end result.

Sure. Best way to describe it would be you know, first of all, all 300 million people on LinkedIn are LinkedIn publishers. Now you have the, you’re lucky to publish a blog post on LinkedIn. And it’s basically on your homepage. And it starts with write a post. And you click on that, write the post, and then you publish it. And it goes out to your LinkedIn network.

Now, if you were to do that, and like I said, if you had 1000 connections on LinkedIn, that’s pretty much where it would, you know, you’d have 1000 people potentially seen that blog. But if you were to share it with other people, so once I publish that blog post, then I can go out and I can add it to a status update, it automatically gives me a status update. I can also share it into LinkedIn groups.

So I can take that LinkedIn blog post, and actually share it within groups and start a discussion based on that blog post. So it may be you know, the history of content marketing, why that’s important. Here’s my latest blog post on LinkedIn. If you’d be so kind, you know, like it, share it, comment on it, and then that becomes a really cool way to add to what you’re doing as far as that goes.

Now, you can also send it to directly to you individuals within your LinkedIn network and specifically asked them to share it as well. So I may send it to Liam Austin, saying, ”Liam, I just wrote a blog post on LinkedIn, if you’d be so kind, take a look at it. If you like it, if you’d like it and share it and share it with your networks and your groups as well”. That’s an easy way for you to add to it.

All right, so just in terms of reaching out to people and asking people to share it. So it’s something that you’re actively doing. How often are we reaching out to people? And are these relationships like, how is that process? How is that deal, I suppose done with one of your connections or a partner?

Sure. And it is important that you have a relationship with the person that you’re asking them to share that information. So you know your content, if I don’t know you very well, Liam, I’m probably not going to send you an email or a message through LinkedIn and say, “Hey, here’s a great blog post. Why don’t you go ahead and share it”, because you may not know me well enough to be comfortable to do that.

But you know, we build relationships as we go within LinkedIn, whether as a group of fellow group member, or you’ve known them from meeting them in person, or for instance, this now, you know, with this social media summit that we’re doing here, you know, I’d feel more comfortable now sending you a quick email and saying, “Hey, I’ve got a blog post out on LinkedIn, can you share that information?”.

The other part of that and we’ll get into this but you know, in Job Luzie, from Content Marketing Institute, it’s his basic theory, if you will, but there’s what is known as the 411. So I share more information that I actually asked people to share for me, and that’s really what it comes down to. And for one, one is simply this share four pieces of information and from other people.

Then the other one piece of information is maybe promotional information or, you know, a new milestone within the company. And the other one aspect of it is direct sales information, whether it be a new product or, you know, you’re trying to push something from some, you know, even registration for this summit, for instance, I mean that to me is promotional information.

So what you really want to do is, it’s a 411 situation where you’re sharing four pieces of information before you’re even asking somebody else to share your information. That’s the important part. What does that do? There’s a couple of things that happens at Liam, if you come to me and say, “Hey, I’ve got a blog post on LinkedIn. You know, this is really cool. Can you share it?” And I share it.

And I do that several different times. When it’s time for me to come to you and say, “Liam, I’ve got a blog post or a status update. Can you share that?” Because I’ve shared your information, you’re going to have a tendency to share my information quicker or be more comfortable doing.