How to stay top-of-mind (without trying)

So you fancy people thinking about yourself, eh?

Well, well, well. Aren't you self-centered...

Or smart? ;)

Staying top-of-mind means you're tip of tongue.

I didn't believe this at first but thankfully was proven wrong.

Because of my network and staying top-of-mind, I was able to do these 4 things:

1. Start my marketing agency, Traffic Is Currency.

2. Find talented people to work with.

3. Find clients that I enjoy working for.

4. Have the flexibility to work wherever and whenever I want.

It's a dream come true for me.

It didn't happen overnight, though.

I started running experiments on LinkedIn over a year ago and am only starting to see some of the benefits.

By the end of this article, you'll easily be able to stay top-of-mind for your connections and hopefully make new ones.

Don't like, comment

When you like your friend's post on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, your other friends will rarely notice with the exception of the person who created the post.

On LinkedIn, it's a different kind of snack.

Almost every post you like or comment will show up in your connection's feed. Why?

LinkedIn has a content deficit.

So treat it like an unofficial status update.

Instead of just showing your connections what content you like, try to start a conversation through commenting.

You'll be surprised by how many of your connections will comment after you do if it's an interesting topic.

This creates a snowball effect for LinkedIn's algorithm.

LinkedIn loves you if you do this and will reward you handsomely if you're willing to strike up a conversation.

So, moral of the story, don't be shy and say things that push people's buttons.

Just kidding about the last part. ;)

On another note, if you engage with other people's content, you'll be surprised by how many people start interacting with your content.

Reciprocity is a beautiful snack, friend.

Manufacture comments like snacks

Given that LinkedIn has a content deficit and they need to drive up user engagement, they're willing to give posts that start conversations a lot of free of distribution.

This means you can get thousands of eyeballs on your content if you ask good questions.

Case in point...

I've found that posts, where I ask questions, get between 20-40k views.

Not too shabby if you don't mind me saying so.

Find a content sidekick

Having a content sidekick will make staying top-of-mind easy.

Content sidekicks are people that do the following:

1) They love and post the same content you do.

2) They have a lot of the same interests.

3) They have high standards when it comes to content.

4) They actively engage with your content.

You'll probably find that you already have some people that you regularly engage with because you genuinely find what they post interesting.

One of my favorite content sidekicks is Kamil. I didn't tell him I was going to talk about him in this article, but knowing him, I'm sure he'll check out the post and comment. :)

I love this guy's content and regularly keep in touch with him through both Twitter and LinkedIn.

I also regularly share his stuff and find myself commenting on his posts all the time.

We make each other look less like a lone nut online because we're often the first to comment on each other's posts.

If you haven't seen this video before, the psychology of social media posts gaining traction isn't that different.

Define your cream of the crop

I'm terrible at analogies and hungry.

But I told myself I'd finish this article before eating so that's why there are lots of references to snacks and other food related items... Sorry!

Needless to say, you should always skim the cream of the crop online.

Not all connections are equal. 

Some are going to be instrumental in your life and others aren't.

That's life.

However, it's important to dedicate more "love" to those who are going to be instrumental in your life.

Or who you genuinely enjoy being around! Like me, for instance. :)

You don't want to be a walled off Wally with no one who's super close in your network.

Nor do you want to be a Phony Phoebe that tries to be everyone's best friend and ends up just pissing people off.

I stole these chart from one of my favorite posts on Waitbutwhy, but I couldn't agree more with how to go about finding and maintaining relationships that make sense.

Whether it's regarding business or personal relationships, you NEED to spend lots of time with the healthy and enjoyable ones and filter out the rest.

To make this process a lot easier on LinkedIn, I use a Chrome plugin called Dux-Soup to help segment my LinkedIn connections.

All you have to do is add a tag to the people that you want to keep in touch with and it'll make it a lot easier to stay up-to-date with this crowd.

I use this feature religiously to tag other people named Wes Bush on LinkedIn when I have some spare time. :)

But if you care for useful ideas for tags, you can use them to do the following:

• To label mentors and advisors
• To keep in touch with thought leaders in your space
• To nurture potential clients
• To stay on an investor's radar
• To identify early adopters for your product

The goal here is to make this process a piece of cake so that you do it on a regular basis, not all at once.

If you try to do it all at once, you're going to have a headache. Trust me.

The thousand pound snack in the room

Staying top-of-mind means you're tip of tongue for your connections.

By commenting regularly, you can own LinkedIn's alogorithm.

By asking questions, you can manufacture comments.

By finding a content sidekick, you can make curating top content easy.

By spending more time with the cream of the crop, you're going to get 10x more value from your current network.

The purpose of this isn't to "hack" LinkedIn but to build deeper relationships with your connections.

If you found anything particularly useful in this post or have another strategy you recommend, I'd love to hear it in the comments below. :)

Also, if you liked this post, I write one actionable blog post (just like it) once a month on Traffic Is Currency. If you want to get notified the next time I publish a post, you can subscribe here.

I promise I'll eat just one snack to celebrate every new subscriber. You have my word. <3