LinkedIn is an oasis in the desert for B2B businesses. Among all social platforms, it is not only the only one that focuses on doing business and maintaining professional relationships, but the people who are there, when they are there, strive to show their best side and behave in the best way possible. After all, here on LinkedIn are also my boss, my colleagues, my future employers, my suppliers and many of my most valued collaborators. My complaints, my hate, and my worst side I reserve for other spaces, like Facebook or Twitter.
Omnicore estimates certain LinkedIn data that make you think twice if you have a B2B business and are still not on LinkedIn, for example:
80% of LinkedIn users include themselves in business decisions (What)
80% of B2B leads come from LinkedIn (OMG)
The average income of LinkedIn users amounts to $46,644 (Not bad)
That and much more makes LinkedIn the great exception in the strange world of social networks. But well, as they say, nothing lasts 100 years, and oases tend not to last either, and although LinkedIn differs from other social platforms because it is currently owned by Mr Gates and because its business model from the beginning has been more sustainable than Facebook and friends, there is a good chance that sooner or later it will go through the same process as the rest of the Web2 platforms, which goes more or less like the graph I'm showing.
What this graph means is that the fewer users a social platform has, the less viable it is for the company to monetize it, and the more users (logically active) it has, the greater the reward can be when monetizing.
For users this means that the fewer active members we have, the more we are going to promote that their content has organic reach, because if I make a post that without much effort reaches many people, there is a good chance I will do it again, which is what is happening today on TikTok.
The thing is that when the fruit is sufficiently ripe, that is, when there is a certain number of users with a certain percentage of engagement, you can say that the platform matured, that people have already incorporated it into their daily lives, and therefore we can put more ads.
Now, LinkedIn as I said is different, for two reasons: First: because LinkedIn from the beginning has monetized certain users through different variations of its premium products.
Second: because it is part of a corporation with multiple businesses (Microsoft), which could mean that it is not as necessary to squeeze the fruit so fast.
In any case, a "slap" cannot be ruled out, and if right now your business lives and breathes in large part thanks to LinkedIn, you have to pay attention to be able to prevent and not regret.
HEY GERARDO, BUT WHAT IS A "SLAP"?
A "slap" is when the platform reaches the green line in the graph above, and decides that it is a good time to lower the quality of the user experience in order to monetize them more.
ARE WE SURE THERE WILL BE A LINKEDIN SLAP?
Logically we don't know, it's impossible to know. What we know is that it happened on, well, almost any free platform. MySpace, Hi5, Facebook, Instagram, Google… it will very likely happen on TikTok…
And very very likely it will also happen with LinkedIn.
WHEN WILL IT BE?
Impossible to predict. It could be in 5 years, but very easily it could be tomorrow.
HOW WILL IT BE?
The "Slap" is a change in policies or algorithm that radically changes the dynamics within the platform, and there are many things that can change, including:
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The organic reach of posts
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The ability to connect with certain users
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The limit of people you can have connected in total or in a certain time
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The reach of notifications that your users receive from the posts you make
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The number of people who find out about your lives
And many other things. Just like in the previous cases it is impossible to know, but we can get a clue by asking ourselves ¿What are the features or utilities we use most on LinkedIn?
That could give us a clue as to where the company might see the greatest potential for monetization.
HOW TO PREPARE?
Well, here is where things get interesting, because the only way to prepare your business for the LinkedIn Slap is to make sure you don't depend too much on the platform, or at least on certain tools.
I need you to note that if your entire business depends on your ability to reach your customers through LinkedIn through, say, a Newsletter or a Live, and one day the policy or algorithm that changes, affects your newsletter or your lives, you're going to be in a terrible position, and very likely it will be from one day to the next.
This is what you have to do to bulletproof your business.
First, your business model has to work if the lights go out. In other words, if they flip the LinkedIn switch on you.
If all or most of your prospects and clients come from LinkedIn ask yourself the question, How could I have met this person if LinkedIn didn't exist?
Second, you have to go back to business basics. I don't know if you know, but before the internet there were small, medium and large businesses, and they prospected using media that are still relevant today and are available to anyone, including:
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Cold prospecting
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Networking
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Business organizations
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Directories
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Resellers
And this is something that if you ask me you should do anyway, whether there is a "slap" or not.
Third: This for me is the most important of all: Turn your business into a recommendation machine. In other words, do your work so well that people want to recommend you. The best way to get a new customer is through a satisfied customer, because you don't even have to sell them anything, your satisfied customer already sold them for you.
Inverting the funnel is not easy, but it should be the norm in business.
If you think about it, it doesn't make sense that you have to prospect thousands of people so that a very small percentage become your customer.
In other words, you have to change your .01% conversion rate for a 200% conversion rate. Easy? of course not. Necessary? of course.
So well, in summary it is impossible to know when the LinkedIn Slap will be, the only thing we know is that every day it is closer, and if your business depends a lot on this platform, today is the best time to take action.
If you want to keep talking about the topic, I recommend you register for some of the masterclasses we have throughout the year. You can check out what's coming here.