Overview: Learn how to use LinkedIn as a successful marketing initiative to boost your business
LinkedIn is arguably one of the top social networks for businesses, marketers, job-hunters, and general professionals. If you don’t have a LinkedIn account, you should probably make one. Otherwise you’ll be losing out on loads of business opportunities. (We’re not kidding.)
Related: Creative 7 Design’s Fun Yet Informative LinkedIn Profile
The business- and employment-oriented online service published 10 tips to help businesses engage their audience and experience growth. With additional research, our team has put together a practical list of 7 tips that you can start implementing today to boost your LinkedIn marketing initiatives.
TIPS WHEN GETTING STARTED ON LINKEDIN:
1. Define your audience and goals. – LinkedIn Business
One of the biggest points we stress as a marketing agency is understanding your target demographic. This applies to every platform you’re using to market your brand. LinkedIn is no exception.
LinkedIn Business writes: “Whether raising awareness or generating leads, targeting is key. Once you know what you want to accomplish, it’s easier to define your audience. If your company sells a productivity tool for social media, your goal may be to raise brand awareness among LinkedIn members with job titles like “social media manager” or “social media lead”. Better-defined audiences lead to better lead generation.”
If you don’t know how to determine your target audience, don’t worry. Plenty of marketing agencies, contract marketers, and more can help. It’s just a matter of reaching out and asking for help.
2. Customize your public profile URL. – Hubspot Blog
One way to make your LinkedIn profile look more professional (and shareable as a result) is through customizations, specifically customizing your public profile URL.
Try to avoid the default URL that’s composed of random numbers at the end and, instead, customize it to your name and/or business. You can accomplish this with the following steps:
» Sign in to Your LinkedIn Account
» Click View Profile
» Clicking Edit Public Profile and URL
» Change your URL
Think of your LinkedIn URL as the name tags of the digital world; a name tag lets people know who you are at in-person events, but it also shows that you want to be known. No name tag indicates that you don’t really want to be known. Get that name in that URL.
3. Optimize your profile. – Sprout Social
Optimize is just a fancy word for enhancing. So if you want to enhance your LinkedIn profile to increase networking opportunities, do the following:
Add a Headshot to Your Profile
Include a Background Photo to Your Profile
Include Your Current Position
Include Your Location
Include at Least Five Relevant Skills
Sprout Social provides statistics regarding how these pieces of information benefit profiles: “A photo on your profile gives you 21 times more profile views. While company pages can use the brand logo as a profile picture, high-resolution professional headshots are ideal for personal profiles. […] Other ways to optimize your LinkedIn profile include adding your current position, which can get you up to five times more connection requests. And don’t forget to include at least five relevant skills, as this might help you get 31 times more messages from recruiters and other LinkedIn members alike.”
The numbers don’t lie. If you’re missing any of this information, it only takes a few minutes to fill it in.
TIPS TO START CONNECTING ON LINKEDIN:
4. Customize your Connections to grow your professional network. – Hubspot Blog
Below are some examples of LinkedIn features that can help you grow your professional network and make valuable connections:
Add, view, and remove connections depending on their level of value to your business.
Control who can see your connections — maybe you do or don’t want your competitors to see that list of people.
Leverage your second and third-degree connections to grow your network and build new relationships.
Import and sync your contacts from your email and other sources to stay in touch with colleagues, partners, leads, and customers across the board. These connections will see your content in multiple places so they learn more about who you are as a business, deepening their relationship with your brand.
52. Leverage groups. – Niel Patel
Another way to make connections on LinkedIn is by searching for groups in your specific industry. LinkedIn Groups help you interact with like-minded professionals in your industry. You can create conversations about what’s happening in your world with people who will actually appreciate it (interacting with your target businesses can be just as helpful as attracting your target demographic).
Here are some highlights about joining LinkedIn Groups:
You can see which conversations in your groups have been the most active and join them.
You can also discover new groups in your industry and request to join them.
Once in a group, you can have conversations with specific professionals in that circle.
You’ll be able to share ideas, insights, or ask questions of other individuals in your industry.
In short, you’re given a catered group of professionals to build relationships with. For free. Niel puts it nicely: “It’s as easy as talking about a big project with a friend over lunch.”
He also goes into talks about how to start your own groups if you can’t find a community that’s for your industry, or if you want to provide a curated window for your audience to communicate about what you’re doing.
LINKEDIN FEATURES TO HELP BOOST YOUR PROFILE:
6. Share posts with rich media. – Hoot Suite
Research shows that posts with photos and videos typically perform better across social media. The same holds true for LinkedIn. And, according to LinkedIn, “posts with images receive 98% more comments than those without.” LinkedIn also finds that “custom collages that include 3-4 images in one post perform well for pages.”
What can we say? We’re visual creatures! Here are some pro tips to keep in mind:
– Try to avoid stock imagery if you can, as custom images tend to see more engagement. You can also upload PDFs, PowerPoint, or SlideShare presentations to support your posts.
– Videos see five times more engagement on LinkedIn than any other content type. An advantage of LinkedIn native video is that it auto-plays when someone scrolls by it. As a result, it does a better job at catching someone’s attention. Plus, videos hosted on the platform are prioritized by the LinkedIn algorithm.
– Don’t forget to add closed captions for hearing impaired and sound-off viewers. All video posted by a LinkedIn page is showcased in a Video tab.
7. Use hashtags. – Social Insider
But don’t use too many hashtags. And definitely don’t use the wrong hashtags. Doing either can hinder your reach significantly (if I find a grilled cheese under my hashtag search for #italiandinner you’ve just lost a bunch of credibility).
You have to strike a balance between relevant and popular hashtags by conducting hashtag research on LinkedIn.
Type a broad hashtag in the search bar first. For example, if you work in web design, start by searching #webdesign to see how many people are following the hashtag, and how often it is being used.
Some of our personal favorite hashtags are #marketingtips #webdevelopment and #wordpresscommunity.
LINKEDIN FEATURES TO HELP BOOST YOUR PROFILE:
The influence LinkedIn has had on the modern workforce is a direct result of the platform’s business-centric approach to social media and networking. Referring to it “social media” feels like a disservice or inaccuracy considering people use it for professional networking more than leisure socializing.
Since it’s been established for networking and career development, LinkedIn gives job seekers the opportunity to post their CVs and employers to post jobs. So it’s a win-win for everyone in the workforce!
Have you created your LinkedIn Profile? What do you enjoy most about using LinkedIn? Or, if you haven’t created an account, why not?
As the workforce continues to develop, digital seems to be the priority for many businesses. Knowing how to market yourself digitally is crucial, and LinkedIn is a great platform to jumpstart your business initiatives!
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