129,311. That’s how many impressions my most successful LinkedIn post has received so far this year.

And while the ride was fun and the numbers stoked my ego, they’re almost useless.

The post (you can see it by clicking here) was a video of Rory Sutherland talking about why McDonald’s introducing self-serve screens might save money in the short term but cost sales in the long run.

So far, it has 680 engagements, including 438 reactions and 161 saves. LinkedIn users have also spent a total of 13 days watching the video; an astonishing amount of time given it’s only 25 seconds long!

On the surface, the post is a huge success.

Dig deeper, and the gloss starts to fade:

• Only 2% of members reached were in my network
• Only 8% of all members reached were in financial services
• The post only drove two people (out of 84,580 who’ve seen it) to view my profile.

And that’s the lesson: reach without relevance is just a vanity metric.

I want my posts to be seen by my connections or others in financial services; however, most interactions came from people outside those groups.  Consequently, the post is unlikely to take me closer to achieving my LinkedIn goals.

So that begs the question: if a post generated nearly 130,000 impressions and reached more than 90,000 people, but mostly the wrong people, was it really successful?

The answer has to be “no”.

So, how do we measure success?

Here are three better ways to judge your posts.

#1. The proportion of impressions from the right people

If we assume your LinkedIn connections and followers are the people you want to speak to, then how many of the right people your posts reach matters far more than the headline impression count.

For example, I’d rather have a recent LinkedIn poll generate 6,040 impressions, with 90% coming from the people I want to reach, than have nearly 130,000 impressions generated largely by people outside my target audience.

The smaller number might not stroke my ego as much, but it’s far more likely to help me achieve my goals.

Put another way, reaching your ideal target audience on LinkedIn matters far more than reaching thousands of random people.

#2. How your posts perform against your own benchmark

Relevance is one measure of success. Relative performance is another.

In his newsletter last week, LinkedIn expert Richard Van Der Blom shared advice from Ivana Todorovic, his research partner at AuthoredUp. She suggested judging your posts “against your own median” and, if you beat it, “you wrote a good post, even at 600 impressions”.

I really like that.

One problem with LinkedIn is that we all compare our posts with other people’s (go on, admit it).  We see someone getting hundreds of likes and wonder why our own posts aren’t performing as well.

But it’s usually a pointless comparison.

They might have a bigger network, a different audience, have been posting for longer, or simply published something that travelled well beyond the people they actually want to reach.

As my Rory Sutherland post shows, the outward signs of “success”, such as impressions, reactions, and comments, are largely vanity metrics.

So, instead of comparing your results with someone else’s, compare them with your own. If a post performs better than your normal post, that tells you something useful.

Work out why. Then do more of it.

#3. Focus on the members reached v the time taken

Finally, try looking at things differently.

Instead of focusing on impressions or engagement, look at how many members you reached compared with the time you invested.

Even a post with a modest 300 impressions probably reached 150 members. Now tell me another way to reach so many people in the 20 to 30 minutes it took you to write that post.

There isn’t one that’s a practical option for most people reading this blog.

It’s as simple as that.

We’re here to help

If this blog has helped you see LinkedIn a little differently and view your efforts more kindly, I’m glad.

And remember, only a tiny percentage of LinkedIn users post regularly. If you’re one of them, pat yourself on the back.

Finally, if you’d like our help with LinkedIn, all you need to do is ask.

Email abi@theyardstickagency.co.uk or call 0115 8965 300, and we’ll set up a call to discuss your goals and how we can help.