Stop Counting Likes. Count Who Walked Into the Shop.

How do you know if LinkedIn is working for your team? You know it’s working when the right buyers are visiting your people’s profiles and those visits are turning into conversations and booked calls, not when the posts are getting more likes.

Likes are the number everyone looks at first, and they are the number that tells you the least.

Here’s what I ask teams to track instead, and how to read it.

Likes tell you who clapped, not who’s buying

When I ask a leader how LinkedIn is going for their team, they usually tell me about likes and impressions. One post did really well, and another one sank without a trace.

The trouble is that most of the likes on a team’s posts come from colleagues and from other people in the same industry. They are kind, and they help a post travel, but they are rarely the people who sign the contract.

I also see people get thrown by impressions. One person on a team posts three times in a week, the posts feel much the same, and one of them reaches far more people than the other two. They want to work out which one “won”. I tell them not to pick a winner on impressions, because it tells you very little about whether a buyer is paying attention.

Profile views are people walking into your shop

The number I care about most is profile views.

I explain it like this. Your content is the shop window. Plenty of people walk past and glance at it, and that’s what an impression is. A profile view is different, because that person has stopped, opened the door and walked into your shop to see what you sell.

So when a salesperson’s profile views start climbing, and the viewers are the kind of people your company sells to, something is working. Those are the people who have gone beyond seeing a post and decided they want to know more about the person behind it.

Search appearances are worth watching too. They show whether LinkedIn now understands what each of your people does well enough to show them when buyers search.

Track what your people do, not just what they get

Results on LinkedIn lag behind the effort. That’s why I ask teams to keep a simple weekly record of what they actually did, alongside the numbers they got back.

In my programme, everyone uses a tracker for this. Each week it records the time spent posting and commenting, the conversations people are having and the people they’ve spoken to.

The point isn’t to create another admin task for your team. The point is that you can finally see where things are getting stuck, and who needs a follow-up before an opportunity quietly goes cold.

Use REACH to find the stage that’s stuck

This is where my REACH method helps, because each stage has its own sign that it’s working.

1/ Reposition. Profile views and search appearances go up, and the people viewing are your buyers.

2/ Educate. Your content earns trust even when nobody comments. Buyers mention a post on a call that they never reacted to.

3/ Amplify. Your people’s names start coming up in the right comment sections, and buyers recognise them before the first message.

4/ Converse. Comments and profile views turn into real conversations in the DMs.

5/ Handshake. Those conversations turn into short phone calls, and the calls turn into booked meetings.

When the numbers stall, you can now see which stage it is. A team with plenty of profile views and no conversations has a Converse problem. A team with lots of activity and almost no profile views has a Reposition problem, and more posting won’t fix it.

Don’t judge a post only by its comments

Leaders often worry when a post gets plenty of likes and hardly any comments. I understand why, but content builds credibility quietly.

Many buyers read every post your salesperson writes and never react once. Then, when that salesperson sends a message, it lands with someone who already feels they know them. That trust doesn’t show up on any post, and it’s still one of the most valuable things LinkedIn does for a team.

Success on LinkedIn isn’t about watching engagement all day. It’s about your people carving out time to be visible every week, then using the numbers to check that the effort is creating movement.

Your warmest leads may already be connected to you

When teams start tracking conversations, they often notice something useful. Some of their best opportunities are sitting in their existing connections.

These are people who knew your salesperson years ago and have no idea what they do now. I don’t ask anyone to pitch them. I ask them to reconnect, ask how the other person is going and let them know what they’re working on. Those conversations lead to opportunities and referrals far more often than people expect.

Where to start this week

Ask each person on your team to write down two numbers every Friday for the next four weeks: how many profile views they had, and how many real conversations they started. Ask them to reconnect with five people they haven’t spoken to in a while, too.

At the end of the month, you’ll know far more about whether LinkedIn is working than any like count could tell you. You’ll also know which stage of REACH your team needs help with.

That’s the work I do with sales, marketing and leadership teams, from a single keynote to training over a quarter. You can see how it works on my keynotes and training page, or book a call and tell me what your team’s numbers look like right now.