The "mental skill" of commenting
This "3 Bucket" approach to writing LinkedIn comments will mentally simplify your engagement, and prevent you from getting overwhelmed:
❌ “Well what am I supposed to say, how do I know what to respond to, what if it’s not good enough…. AGH!”
Here’s a system instead, that is based on the strength of the post's resonance with you and what you're here to talk about.
1. Posts That Strongly Resonate With You (5-10%)
What to do?
Treat your own response like a mini-post. Spend 1-3 minutes writing something damn good. Think of this as "micro content" where you're really making an impression.
2. Posts That Medium Resonate With You (60-75%)
What to do?
Spend 10-20 seconds writing a normal "I picked out one thing and am responding casually to it" comment. Don't overthink. Part of the value of doing this is to support whoever you're commenting on.
3. Posts That Barely Resonate With You (15-35%)
What to do?
For posts that make you kind of annoyed/exhausted/you don't feel like I have anything at all good to contribute... basically, it's only tangentially relevant at best, or it's not written in a way or by a person you can really support…Spend <1 second hitting the Skip button (if you're using Aware), and consider removing that person from your Custom List.
Why do you need a framework for commenting?
If you approach social media with the idea that you're going to try to respond to everything, you'll burn out.
Practice discernment with what you engage with by being willing to make snap judgements to quickly, mentally, move on from even thinking you'll try to respond to a post if it has Weak resonant fit for you. Doing this will free up your energy for the posts that you DO really want to engage with.
In a bit of a paradox: by being highly willing to skip the wrong content, you'll have a much easier time doing more engagement with better-fitting content.
The mistake is to treat reacting to all posts as being in just one of those buckets.
The reality of social media posts is that they're hit or miss. So the skill to practice is this:
Can you spend 2-5 seconds skimming a post to decide which bucket it falls into, quickly?
Get good at moving on. Reserve your energy for what counts, and you'll find that you have "more in the tank" than you might previously have thought.