Developing one’s notoriety thanks to social networks has become essential for most companies. Whether it’s Instagram, Facebook, Linkedin or even TikTok, there are ways for all industry leaders to make the most of their algorithms and features to maximize their digital performance. Among these, we find the Pods that are used on LinkedIn. Discover in this article all there is to know about this practice.
What are LinkedIn pods?
LinkedIn pods are also known as engagement groups.
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Manual Engagement Pods
Originally they were manual groups, that is to say that it was necessary to create groups (on WhatsApp or Slack for example) in which the members committed themselves to liking and commenting the Linkedin publications of each of the other members. All that was then needed was to send the link to allow the people in the group to react to the post.
- Benefits
They allow quality comments, a credibility of the engagement of Linkedin members for the algorithm.
- Disadvantages
It is a time consuming tool (commenting on a large number of publications depending on the size of the group), sometimes not sufficient and non-reciprocity of the commitment of some group members.
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Automated Engagement Pods
Manual pods have been very successful, but to limit their drawbacks, there are new tools that have been created to make these groups automated. The most famous are Podawaa or Lempod. Their functioning is simple, they allow you to join a group of people who commit to liking and commenting on each other’s posts.
The main difference is that this “commitment” is automatic.
When you publish your post, you share the link in question in the pod and the likes and comments will be automatic. You only need to define which comments you want to have under your post.
- Benefits
They save time and have a very high engagement rate by joining many groups.
- Disadvantages
Comments are not very qualitative, the profile of the people involved in the pods are sometimes not very qualitative and the algorithm of LinkedIn identifies after a while the profiles that are part of a pod and gives them less visibility.
LinkedIn Pods: how does it work?
Pods come into play early in the life cycle of your post. So here’s what happens when you publish content and how it is analyzed by LinkedIn.
Upon publication, your post is first offered to a sample of your network. The size of this sample is determined by the level of optimization of your post and your latest statistics. Depending on how the people in this sample react in the first moments after the publication, the algorithm will promote the post more or less.
Then, depending on how other people who see the post react, it will again be promoted more and more by the algorithm.
Linkedin Pods: LinkedIn best practices to maximize their impact
To fully understand how pods work and how they can help you maximize the reach of your posts, you need to know the key workings of the LinkedIn algorithm. LinkedIn’s goal is to deliver the most relevant information for you in your news feed.
Here are the important things to consider for the Linkedin algorithm:
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Create engaging content
The main thing that is studied by the algorithm is the engagement, so you have to create interactions thanks to your post, that is to say that likes are important, but it is the comments that have the most impact. You will get a good rate of engagement if you manage to create content with high added value or that responds to one of the problems of your target.
It is on these aspects that pods are effective, because they will create in a controlled way an important engagement for your post.
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Publish at the right time
To get the most engagement around your post, it should be done within the first 2 hours after publication. Make sure you have interesting content to have interactions, but above all post at the time when your community is most present on the network. According to observations, it seems that Tuesday and Thursday morning are the best days to publish on
LinkedIn but it depends on the criteria.
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Do not spam
LinkedIn’s algorithm is able to detect spamming behavior.
LinkedIn Pods: how to choose a good pod?
There are several things to consider when choosing which LinkedIn pods to belong to:
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Relevant and exclusive pods
Reactions to your posts will have even more impact if they come from people who belong to the same industry as you. This will be appreciated by all the people who will see your post, but also by the algorithm.
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The quality of the pods
It is important to evaluate the quality of the members who make up the pod before joining. Indeed, if some members are classified as undesirable by LinkedIn’s algorithm, this can be penalizing.
Also, it is important to make sure that the automatic comments that will be posted on your behalf have enough added value so that they are not devalued by LinkedIn.
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The investment of pod members
With automated pods you are guaranteed to get feedback but the real value of pods also lies in the opportunities you can get by belonging to a group of like-minded people. So, be sure to belong to pods where members are invested and engaged rather than being in groups that are too large and where members are very distant from your content.
Linkedin Pods: the best tools to use
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Lempod
Google extension to access a marketplace and
find pods using keywords and filters- Features:
- Discover the best pods of the week
- Possibility to join pods with a secret code
- Enter the comments you want to have under your post to have under your post
- Pricing:
Marketplace: 5 dollars per pod
(1 post per day + possibility to create your own pod with
max 50 members)Private Business: to create an internal pod with your
members of your company 2 dollars per user and per pod.
and per pod. - Features:
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Podawaa
Automated pod that connects you with other Linkedin users based on the audience you want to reach
- Features:
- Ability to choose the exact audience: “marketing manager in luxury goods” for example
- Pod comments and behaviors that mimic human behavior
- Pricing:
Freemium offer: free to have unlimited access to pods and make as many posts as you want, to use pre-recorded comments based on your profile and use 100 credits per month
Pro Offer: Same options but with a credit of 500 for 9,99€ per month
Advance Offer: Same options, but with 2000 credits and the possibility to stop the
- Features:
Pods can be interesting if they are well used, if the members of the groups are qualitative and have the same objectives as you. It is important to try to exploit the algorithm in the best possible way for your digital strategy and pods can be an easy and concrete solution. It remains a short-term solution and is generally used as a springboard. In the long term, you need to put in place a real strategy in addition to pods to retain other users who are not part of these pods.
