Social Selling Bad Advice: Commenting on influencers posts.

TL;DR: Commenting on influencer posts gives you unfocused attention if your lucky. It encourages you to chase vanity metrics and takes time away from connecting with the people you actually want to do business with.

The theory is that if you leave good comments on posts with a large audience, more people will see your name, visit your profile and potentially become prospects.

That can happen.

But for a real-world business owner or salesperson, there is a more important question. Is this actually the best use of your time?

Why is commenting on influencer posts bad advice?

I've had people tell me they spend 30–45 minutes every day commenting on other people's posts. When I ask them how many prospects they've connected with, or how many conversations they've started - it's zero.

They spent all their time engaging.

For most people this strategy is a distraction, from what matters - having conversations. If you want to become an influencer - knock yourself out. 

But for a business owner or salesperson is this the most important activity?

No.

LinkedIn wants you to keep commenting

LinkedIn wants you to stay on LinkedIn - that's how you make money. It's in LinkedIn's interest to show you that your comment got 1,842 impressions - it gives you a reward to keep spending time on the platform.

That visibility stat gives you a little hit of validation - It feels like something productive happened. The question is whether it moved you any closer to a client.

For creators and influencers, visibility itself can be valuable because building an audience is part of the commercial model.

It's a luck strategy

If a post has 150 comments, you're hoping your ideal client happens to see that post, decides to read the comments, notices yours, clicks your profile and then decides they want to know more about you.

• How many are in your target market?
• How many are decision makers?
• How many have a problem you can actually solve?

That's a lot resting on a comment.

I'm not a fan of pitching people, but I'm a huge fan of starting conversations.

If you've got 45 mins you can start 10 conversations a day - I prefer that over luck.