EP #092: Your Posts With 40 Likes Are Reaching 400 People You Don't Know About

Even if your posts get only a few dozen likes, they’re reaching hundreds of people you can't see.

I tell this to almost every new EP client around month two, when the initial excitement fades and the numbers may feel disappointing.

What these clients are experiencing is called “dark social.” The term was coined to describe a specific tracking problem - when someone reads something online and shares it privately via text, email, or Slack, there's no pixel that follows it. Because there's no attribution data, it just disappears into what looks like "direct" traffic or nothing at all.

But dark social describes more than sharing behavior. It also describes how most people consume content, full stop.

Think about your own LinkedIn habits. When you scroll and read something that genuinely makes you think, do you like it? Comment? Share it? For most people, most of the time, the answer is no. You read it, and you keep scrolling.

Depending on the study, research shows that between 70 and 90 percent of online content consumption happens without any visible engagement. Which means that for every person who likes your post, somewhere between seven and nine other people read it and leave no trace.

The Audience I Didn't Know I Had

About eighteen months into building Executive Presence, I got a message from a guy named Matt. Matt was a year behind me at the Naval Academy. A good guy - but I genuinely hadn't thought about him in over fifteen years.

His message went something like: "I'd like to introduce you to my CEO. I think she needs to work with you."

He'd never liked a post or left a comment. But he'd joined a company that was a perfect fit for what we do, and for eighteen months, he'd been watching what I was building on LinkedIn. When the right moment arrived, he reached out.

Long story short: our team got on a call with his CEO, and she signed within two weeks.

When Readers Come Out of the Dark

Dark social readers usually don’t surface on LinkedIn's engagement dashboard, but that doesn’t mean they stay invisible forever.

Instead, they surface in sales conversations, when a prospect mentions offhandedly that they've been following you for almost a year. 

Or in hiring interviews, when a candidate says they specifically wanted to work for you after reading your posts.

Or in check-ins with old colleagues who already know what you've been working on, even though you haven't spoken in months.

I've watched exchanges like these happen with enough clients that I can confidently tell you: these moments are not coincidences. They are dark social readers showing themselves, and every single one of them represents dozens more who are still in the background, reading and forming opinions.

Start Shining a Light on Readers

The tricky part about attribution is that most dark social readers won't volunteer information about how they found you. Instead, you have to create the conditions to bring that information to light.

I used to start sales calls with, "How did you hear about us?" Most people answered, "I'm not really sure" or "I don't remember how we got connected." If I accepted those answers and moved on, I’d walk away with an unknown source.

But I've learned to ask, "Had you come across my content before this call?" Give people a little bit of context, and you'll be surprised how often LinkedIn is the answer they didn't think to give, because they didn’t experience it as a referral source. 

They experienced it as just...getting to know me. Which is actually a far stronger outcome than a click-through.

My advice: build that specific question into every sales conversation, recruiting call, and new introduction. Each time someone references your content in a conversation, log it. Date, who it was, what they mentioned. At the end of six months, that list is your attribution data.

You're building a reputation on LinkedIn, and what seems invisible today shapes the light you’re seen in tomorrow.

— Justin

Justin M. Nassiri | Founder & CEO
M: 650.353.1138 | E: [email protected]
250 Fillmore St Suite 150, Denver, CO 80206
www.ExecutivePresence.io

Executive Presence specializes in helping top-tier executives boost their visibility, activate their network, and position themselves as thought leaders via our premium, fully-managed LinkedIn service.

Our unique process involves ex-McKinsey, BCG, and Bain consultants conducting monthly hour-long interviews with our clients, and turning them into impactful daily LinkedIn posts to establish their unique voice and authority. On average, our clients see a 500% bump in engagement in their first 30 days with us. Data is continuously analyzed to improve engagement and identify impactful messaging that you can use for conferences, podcasts, and internal communications.