Should you boost your best-performing LinkedIn posts with paid?

LinkedIn authority increasingly belongs to executives, not brands. Adam Rich, CEO of Known For and founder of Thrillist, explains how professional networks drive B2B marketing success. Rich discusses using expert-in-the-loop AI systems to scale executive content creation and strategic approaches to LinkedIn paid promotion that maintain authenticity while expanding reach to first-party audiences. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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  The Martech Podcast is a proud member of the I Hear Everything Podcast Network. Looking to launch or scale your podcast? I Hear Everything delivers podcast production, growth, and monetization solutions that transform your words into profit. Ready to give your brand a voice? Then visit iHereEverything.com.

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  From advertising to software as a service to data, across all of our programs and clients, we've seen a 55% to 65% open rate.

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  Getting brands authentically integrated into content performs better than TV advertising.

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  Typical lifespan of an article is about 24 to 36 hours.

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  If we're reaching out to the right person with the right message and a clear call to action, then it's just a matter of timing.

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  Welcome to the Martech Podcast, a member of the I Hear Everything Podcast Network. In this podcast, you'll hear the stories of world-class marketers that use technology to drive business results and achieve career success. Here's the host of the Martech Podcast, Benjamin Shapiro.

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  I'm Benjamin Shapiro, and today I'm joined by Adam Rich, the CEO of Known For, which turns professional expertise into consistent executive content using an expert-in-the-loop editorial system. Adam was also the founder of Thrillist, which he scaled to 300 million monthly users before its acquisition by Vox Media. And today, Adam is going to explain why LinkedIn Authority and B2B marketing is shifting from brands more to people. All right, I want to move on to our lightning round, where I'm going to ask you a couple of Martech-related questions about activating your professional network and some of your previous experience. Are you ready?

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  Let's go.

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  All right, first question. We're gonna start off with a little bit of LinkedIn. Should you boost your best performing LinkedIn post with paid or let organic do the work entirely?

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  I think that that is another brand question. I think it's not a great look to have your post coming out with like a little promoted thing there. But I think that it's sort of expected for certain kinds of professionals, depending on what they're doing. And, you know, I think also take it with a grain of salt because again, people are very distracted. And I would bet you that most people miss the little promoted tag, especially if they're on mobile. But, um, you know, I think that if you at all feel like you have your brand to protect, boosting is a little bit of a sleazy look.

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  You know, it's funny, I think of it a little differently on LinkedIn as opposed to other platforms like YouTube. YouTube, you give them a dollar, they take away all your organic. It seems like with LinkedIn, when you start promoting your content, they actually give it more visibility. And maybe it's, I boosted this, somebody engaged and that engagement then goes and drives more organic traffic. I don't have a problem seeing promoted posts. What I do have a problem with is seeing the promoted post 27 times. I think there is a time duration or a frequency that really matters. So you can take a post and you could push it and make sure it gets out there. But I don't want to see your same post for three weeks in a row.

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  Now you're just cluttering my feed and then I start to be more aware of the posting. And that's my personal opinion.

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  Well, and I think that there's also a little bit of an intent thing where, you know, if we're talking about the CEO of some company with a thought on an important issue, I mean, that's sort of an organic message. If I saw that boosted, that would feel kind of weird. And I would wonder what his handlers are trying to do with his, with his profile. Whereas if it's somebody basically talking about like, hey, we're gonna help you with your. With financing your small business, that's a message where I see that that's promoted. And it's like, well, yeah, of course it is.

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  Yeah, I don't know. I promote a lot of my personal posts, mostly because when I don't, I get 600 impressions. And I'm promoting it to my first party audience, right, people I already have connections with. But if I give LinkedIn 50 bucks, then all of a sudden I get six times the amount of impressions to the audience that I want to reach. I don't care if it has the promoted tag, "Call me shameless." I told you, I do cringe-worthy things on LinkedIn. I'm not proud. All right, Adam, great to have you on the podcast. Thanks for coming on and being my guest. And that wraps up this episode of the MarTech Podcast. Thanks to Adam Rich, the CEO of Known For, for joining us. If you'd like to get in touch with Adam, you can find a link to his LinkedIn profile in our show notes or on martechpod.com. You can always visit his website,

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  which is getknownfor.com. And if you haven't subscribed yet and you want a daily stream of marketing and technology knowledge in your podcast feed, hit the subscribe button in your podcast app or on YouTube, and we'll be back in your feed next week. All right, that's it for today. But until next time, my advice is to just focus on keeping your customers happy.

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  Thanks for listening to the MarTech Podcast and I Hear Everything production. Looking to launch or scale a podcast like this one for your brand? Then visit ihereverything.com.