Join a LinkedIn Referral Circle

Expand Your LinkedIn Reach with a Referral Circle

If your target customers are other business owners, there is a good chance you are spending time on LinkedIn. As you browse through your feed you have probably noticed some people seem to get lots of interaction on their posts, while others don’t. So how do they get people to notice, like, share, and talk about their content?

It starts with good content. But there’s lots of good content which is ignored in the rushing river of the news feed. You need a strategy to get the LinkedIn algorithm to pay attention to your content, serving it up in the news feed on a regular basis. That’s where a LinkedIn Referral Circle  can add value to your social media strategy.

Look closely at people whose posts regularly seem to show up with lots of engagement and you may notice the same people commenting, liking, and sharing. This is an example of a LinkedIn referral circle. The concept is simple. It is a group of people who agree to work together to like, share, and comment on each other’s stuff on a regular basis.

In a way, it is like moving your best referral circle or networking group online. It works best if the members of the circle have a common audiences  so it makes sense to interact and engage.

Improve the Quality of the Time Spent on LinkedIn

A nice side benefit is having a referral circle will make your LinkedIn feed more interesting as you interact instead of mindlessly scrolling, But the real payoff is comes as your audience sees when you like, share, or comment on content of other members of your group.  This cross promotion helps each member reach more people, but the value extends beyond your communities.

Just like all the other social media platforms, LinkedIn uses an algorithm to identify content people are interested in. So as you like, share, or comment on content, the LinkedIn algorithm notices that a piece of content is getting a little more traction. As a result, it is more likely to be presented to a wider community, which then comments, likes, and interacts and the cycle begins again.

It may seem as if these referral circles are gaming the system. And it is true some people will always find a way to abuse an idea to spam everyone else.  People who join groups with no common interests just to push their content will end up randomly sharing irrelevant content. Eventually their audience will tune them out.

But if you join the right groups they will help you facilitate positive activity on LinkedIn. So the trick is to find (or create) a good group and work it.