What to look for on LinkedIn Answers
Today I read a very good guest blog by Allen Mireles on Shelly Kramer’s V3 Integrated Marketing website regarding utilizing LinkedIn Answers to build your reputation as an expert in your niche or industry by answering questions.
Allen gave some great advice on how to share your expertise on LinkedIn Answers. I especially appreciated the information about using RSS feeds for each category of questions to keep track of what is being asked so you can answer in a timely manner.
In the article Allen recommended answering a couple of questions per day.
On Sunday, after investing 20 minutes answering 2 questions on Linkedin Answers, I asked a question of my own that received a large and interesting response.
The question:
If you have time to thoughtfully answer 400-500 questions on LinkedIn per week, how much business can you possibly be doing? Wouldn’t spending more time prospecting be a more fruitful use of your time?
I received 16 responses in 24 hours. Four of the responses were from one person who consistently answers 400+ questions per week.
Why did I ask the question?
Curiosity.
I enjoy reading LinkedIn Answers and occasionally answering those that I feel I have both experience with the subject of the specific question and a fairly high level of expertise in that industry or subject.
When I do answer a question posted on LinkedIn Answers, between reading the question, thinking about how I should respond and what type of information would best help the person posting the query and often research to provide links or other experts, I have typically spent 10-12 minutes on each answer I post.
Now I admit I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but I do attempt to always be thorough and careful with my answers.
To answer 400 + questions at even 2 minutes per question, certainly not long enough to answer thoughtfully, would take more than 13 hours. 1/3 of the work week. Answer carefully and thoroughly and your entire work week could be taken up JUST in answering questions.
If you are not taking at least that much time (2 minutes) to answer the question, as some of the answers to my question suggest, how much value should I place in your answer?
What I really wanted to know is:
- Why would you spend 13 to 60+ hours on LinkedIn Answers each week?
- Does it generate enough leads to justify the investment of time?
- If it does generate that many leads, how can you service those clients when you are spending that much of your time on LinkedIn Answers?
- If you run a business, how can you spend that much of your week answering questions? Do you delegate the task of answering questions? What are you delegating in order to spend the time personally?
I keep my client base at a set number that allows us to give each client personalized attention from myself and my staff. I don’t have the time available to spend 1/3 or more of my week on one single lead generation activity. So I wanted to know, how are they doing it.
When I posted the question on LinkedIn I simply did not, and still don’t, understand how someone could spend that many hours on a single lead generation avenue without the rest of the business suffering.
So what to do to weed out the chaff to find the real experts?
The bottom line is that if you are looking for an expert on LinkedIn, look for someone that answers a few key questions in select categories per week. If the persona answering your question also answers too many other questions or in a large number of categories, how much value can there be in their answers and would you want to have them work on your behalf?
When you ask a question, look for someone that thoroughly and thoughtfully answers the question and gives you more than just a line or two.
Better yet, read the answers and then contact the authors of the best two or three for a more complete understanding of their advice.
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