The Algo-Rythm is Gonna Get You | Improving LinkedIn, plus thoughts on Positioning

To kick off Season Two, Steve talks about marketing topics that have been top of mind since the last episode. He talks about the current state of the LinkedIn algorithm, (not great, but better than the alternative!); the need to productize your offering, whether it’s an actual product or a service; and the importance of positioning and defining your niche.

Steve also introduces his Marketing Mentor program, working with small businesses and their marketing “team of one” to build in-house capabilities and keep projects moving.

Finally, he previews the line up for Season Two of The Marketing Mix.

Links:

“The End of Social Media” – The Economist

The Marketing Mentor Program - More details

Timestamp      Summary

00:01:30           What’s wrong with the LinkedIn algorithm

00:04:45           Some steps to improve the quality of your LI feed

00:07:25           The Marketing Mentor Program

00:08:50           Positioning, and finding your niche

00:13:15           What’s coming up on The Marketing Mix

Transcript

Most of The Marketing Mix episodes are interviews with marketers and business leaders, who know their stuff. Are doing it in real life. And are willing to share their expertise. I like to say they’re “In the Mix”. And in Season 2, we’ll continue that focus on digging into the strategies and tactics that make companies successful.

But in this first episode, I want to talk about a few marketing topics that have been top of mind recently, and also preview what’s coming up in Season 2.

 [Intro Music]

On today’s episode, I have a few subjects I want to cover, based on my own experiences – and frustration - over the last couple of months. One is the changes to the LinkedIn algorithm, and why the feed still sucks. It’s not as bad as it was – but it’s not as good as it could be. I also want to talk about the importance of narrowing down to a niche; and why everyone needs a product to sell.

Let’s start off with LinkedIn. I’ve personally been frustrated with the quality in my feed over the last few months. And I’ve been seeing commentary from others that they feel the same. Both John Barrows and Tim Peter – two people who share a lot of valuable insights on the platform - posted something recently that got a lot of attention on this exact subject.

Now, this isn’t going to be a diatribe against Linkedin, because I do think they are trying to do the right thing. Which I can’t say about the other social platforms.

There’s an interesting article in the Economist this week called “The end of the social network,” looking at how the social platforms, and facebook in particular have changed. To quote the article “

apps like Facebook increasingly serve a diet of clips selected by artificial intelligence according to a user’s viewing behavior, not their social connections. Meanwhile, people are posting less. The share of Americans who say they enjoy documenting their life online has fallen from 40% to 28% since 2020

So this is the good news about Linkedin. I find it interesting that Linkedin is out of step with a lot of the other social platforms -in a good way. Where facebook, TikTok and others are based around things going viral, LinkedIn recently changed their algorithm to limit the virality of posts. They do pay attention to engagement, but it has to be the right sort of engagement, and it has to be a quality post – at least in theory. They look at things like connections, relevance, expertise of the poster, meaningful engagements via the comments and so on. Supposedly, the ”thumbs up” reactions, video views and so on really don’t play into it. And that seems to be heading in the right direction.

I just don’t feel, at least in my feed, that they’ve achieved the goal yet. I see a lot of self-promotional posts, or people teaching the basics – presumably to satisfy the “expertise” quotient, or bragging. A lot of trite story telling. Any time I see a post that stats “Unpopular Opinion,” I now keep scrolling. Because chances are it’s actually quite a mainstream opinion – but that hook clearly proves to be successful.

Weirdly, some days I find the items in my feed interesting and engaging, and I find myself commenting on several of them. Then the next day, it’s back to the same dross of “how I made $100k in 3 days from my hammock.” I can only guess that the algorithm as with all algorithms, is constantly being tweaked.

 I don’t have a solution for this. And I really don’t want to turn this into a rant.

So here’s what I’ve have been doing. I actively cull my network every day. If I see a connection or someone I follow posting or sharing poor quality or irritating posts, I unfollow them. Let’s say it ‘s an informal three strikes and out type of rule.

If – or when – I find myself scrolling in the hope that I’ll stumble on one decent article. I stop, close the tab, and move on to something else,

And I refuse to play the games that will make the algorithm happy. I know there are things I could do – like claim that Unpopular Opinion. Or break my posts into multiple lines so it reads like a poem. Or explain to people in basic terms how marketing works. But that’s not what I would want to read. So I don’t want to pollute the waters and become part of the problem.

 And all I can hope is that over time, LinkedIn will continue to improve. After all, with almost a billion users, their best way to realize revenue is through engagement with quality content. Which keeps people on the platform for longer, and therefore makes premium memberships valuable to users, and allows for advertising that converts.

I’m still net positive on LinkedIn. It is valuable, and I do learn and keep up to date from the content on it. And way more productive than the other social platforms.

On the subject of sharing expertise, and keeping your skill sharp, I’ve realized that I wasn’t practicing what I preach. While I talk all the time about the need to Productize offerings – whether it’s hardware, software, or a service – I really haven’t taken the time to create a product around my own consulting work. So that lead me to launch the Marketing Mentor Program last month. And here’s why:

Many of the business owners I talk to have a common theme when they talk about marketing. It goes something like this. “My Marketing Manager is great. Good attitude, gets stuff done. But they’re inexperienced. They still have a lot to learn” And of course, in a small growth business, Marketing is often a team of one. And that one person is often a couple of years out of college – or has moved into the role from sales or operations, without having a marketing background. And there’s no one in the organization with the experience to help them out.

That’s where the Marketing Mentor Program comes in. I work with the inhouse marketer for an hour or two a week - to coach them on tactical issues, help them keep bigger projects on track, and provide resources to develop their own marketing skills. It’s providing that marketing guidance and mentorship that in a larger company would come from a VP of Marketing or a CMO. But for a small business, has to come from the outside. If you want more details on the program, go to my website under “services” to find the Marketing Mentor tab. And I’ll put a link in the shownotes.

 Now, let’s talk about Positioning. If you’re familiar with the PADE model that I’ve talked about in previous episodes, you’ll know that I look at four main pillars of a marketing strategy – Positioning, Awareness, Demand Gen and Enablement. It can be one of the hardest parts of running marketing in a growth business, trying to narrow down your offering, and your target markets to a very specific niche. Not that you can’t sell to people outside of that niche. But you want to put all of your marketing and prospecting resources into attracting that very specific niche. That can often be a real headscratcher for founders – they want to sell to everyone, and they struggle to limit the universe. But it’s the problem with trying to be all things to all people – you end up talking to no-one in particular. And having a very indistinct, undifferentiated message.

This is often a problem that can only be solved by someone with an outside perspective. Who isn’t attached to original positioning, or blinkered by an existing customer base. Because this should be driven largely by the data. Things like which segment is most profitable; has the highest lifetime value; the shortest sales cycle; and the lowest use of customer success teams or tech support. You need to look at where your competitors are focused. And if there’s anything about your product or service that actually is a differentiator only for specific applications or industries.

I was working recently with a small, ambitious company who help businesses with their own outreach via print and digital methods. Theoretically, their target market could be anyone who runs email and direct mail campaigns. Now the good news is that they had already narrowed down their target to three specific customer segments. But those segments were still too broad to manage with very limited resources. After talking with various team members and going through the data, I was able to narrow it even further. Two of the three segments will still be important to the company’s growth – but certain characteristics lead very nicely to those being driven largely by referrals, and by direct outreach by the sales team. 

That then leaves us with marketing focusing on one of the three segments - the one with the largest untapped potential. This segment is Non-Profit organizations. Effectively anyone who is a 501c3. But you can imagine, that’s a very broad category. They could range anywhere from a pet shelter to awareness of a disease, to a religious or social outreach organization. And each of those is effectively their own segment, with their own pain points, demographics and so on. So we rolled up our sleeves, dug into the data again, and narrowed the marketing focus down to just two sub-segments of the Non-Profit community. Which then allowed me to create a very targeted Ideal Customer Profile that clearly defines who they are trying to appeal to.

Again, that’s not to say they’ll ignore the other parts of the market. This is all about where do we focus their limited marketing resources – where do we want to focus on getting new customers from. And I bring it up here, because it’s one of the most common challenges that growth businesses face – really understanding who their Ideal Customer is, and how to go and find them.

Now, you may be wondering what Season 2 is going to bring? Well, I’m following the same theme as the first Season – having conversations with smart people to share their experience and viewpoints. You’ve probably heard me talk about the PADE Framework that I use with small businesses, which looks at Four Pillars – Positioning, Awareness, Demand Gen and Enablement. So this season, I’ll be talking to guests on each one of these four key areas, and digging in to the details. As well as looking at some core areas such as PR and SEO. But I will also be expanding the viewpoint by bringing in founders and business leaders to talk about their experiences of building and managing marketing as part of the overall business. How do they juggle marketing responsibilities with everything else they have to handle, And How does marketing fit into their overall strategy.

If you know of anyone who could be a good guest, please send them my way. And as always, I appreciate you investing part of your day in listening to the Marketing Mix.