Richard here, I wrote a post a week ago that has unexpectedly gone viral, at the time of writing it has tipped 4,000 ‘reactions’, 358 comments and a frankly terrifying 295,000 views. What is also surprising is that I only had one, maybe two negative comments.
I wasn’t going to write about it but it throws up a lot of interesting questions about the use of social media as a personal tool and as a tool for generating leads/income for businesses. As a coder and someone who is utterly obsessed with the Internet in all of its forms I’m interested in two things:
As we’re all chasing a reaction to posts like this (we are, let's be honest) what does it do for the business?
Why on Earth did this particular post resonate?
So, let’s look at the first point. We’re a very techy and nerdy service company and it typically takes a long time for us to come onto someone's radar and close a sale. What we do, as a rule, needs planning; whether that’s managing change in the business as we’re building some new internal processes or it’s more marketing based and it needs to tie into a wider marketing plan. With that in mind though, I would probably expect to see some impact on web traffic, so did we get any?
Well, we haven't had any signed orders yet but website traffic increased and is still up on normal levels:
I've also seen the number of views on my profile increase substantially, spiking over the last week or so:
What it has given me is a chance to engage with hundreds of people I hadn’t before and I’ve received a lot of connection requests so I’ve blanket accepted them. I try to run my company in a nice way and if you’ve connected with me on the back of this post then we will probably get on.
I think I can explain the lack of follow through to our website because the post wasn’t about work, it wasn’t about what we do and I’m cool with that (although you’re here now so have a look around).
Looking at why this post resonated with people is easily the most interesting for me. Now, I have a love/hate relationship with LinkedIn. I post a lot but I get turned off by the LinkedIn style posts that have obviously been curated and agonised over for far, far too long.
When I post I tend to get interactions that are usually in the single figures but occasionally get 50+. The previous ones were me talking about my friend’s new online shop. The previous one being about the first time my team had got together at our new offices since Covid hit.
I think this one struck a chord with people for a number of reasons.
Dogs/pets
People have shared dozens and dozens of images of their pets from dogs to guinea pigs. The post even has its own border terrier appreciation thread. People who have pets love their pets and want to tell them world about them...and rightly so.
Lockdown
Following on from the point above I think we’ve all struggled to strike up a genuine connection with people and long for everyday relaxed conversations. The number of people posting and commenting generated that; I tried to interact with every single post, people needed it.
LinkedIn Anxiety
The biggy, I think.
I mentioned LinkedIn anxiety because I have people who follow me on other networks and I didn’t want them to get puppy overload. There was also a part of me that thought it’s stretching what LinkedIn is for a little so I deleted my original post.
There is a split in the LinkedIn community at the minute and we’re all seeing people commenting that LinkedIn isn’t Facebook. I get where both sides are coming from actually but for me it isn’t the type of content that is the problem, it’s how it's framed. I dislike polls designed for pure engagement (love for a hybrid work environment or like for a full return to the office, anyone?) as much as I dislike funny videos taken from Facebook without the user's genuine thoughts - that’s what’s missing.
Short, honest and humorous
The whole post probably displays for everyone who sees it. I wrote it in five seconds, posted it and didn’t think anything of it. It doesn’t try to entice people in, it isn’t embellished, it doesn’t pretend to offer something profound, it doesn’t give a value proposition and I don’t care that people may take from it that I’m anxious, look down on remote working or be aghast I used the word 'sod'. A person wrote it. The same post could’ve been:
I’ve got a friend for life, they don’t know it yet but having a dog is a lot like running a business. You have to nurture it, sometimes you wish you could take a break from it…..bleurgh
The last bit “someone to talk at” made me laugh and was the reason I decided to post it. It wasn’t just “look at my dog”, it allowed me to make all the points of the fictional version in four words.
But I didn’t set out for it to go viral or generate business, that would be bonkers. I wrote it to share a joke with my friends. We need more of that on LinkedIn I think...I might start a poll.