LinkedIn is a unique business-oriented site that is increasingly growing in popularity with a whopping 350 million global members. LinkedIn offers tremendous opportunities for marketers and businesses are all the time thinking of ways and means of exploiting LinkedIn to enlarge their sales and acquire new customers. Here are 20 proven ways to use LinkedIn for marketing purposes:
1. LinkedIn recently launched LinkedIn Lead Accelerator – a new lead generation vehicle, and you must learn to exploit this new facility.
2. Build a personal profile that has been optimized with related keywords to enhance lead generation.
3. Create rich media content with crisp videos presentations.
4. Try to showcase a rich portfolio using Slideshare decks, infographics, videos, eBooks, etc. This is known as “building your treasury,
5. Create a solid foundation for your LinkedIn Company Page and build on top of that. Invest time to ensure that your profile page is visually appealing.
6. LinkedIn is fast becoming the favorite haunt for business professionals to educate themselves on industry-related topics. Establish yourself as a thought-leader in your industry
7. Whenever you post a [SlideShare] presentation on LinkedIn, share it as a status update in both your personal profile and company page.
8. It’s time you used LinkedIn like a live networking event and make new friends, and start helping more people to connect.
9. The more connections you have, the larger your expanded network grows which helps create a more new customer in the long run.
10. Remember that when you publish on LinkedIn, your content is open for all LinkedIn users to read. That means it can spread quickly through the platform and enlarge your following.
11. Create longer posts between 1,900 and 2,000 words as they perform the best and gain the greatest number of post views on LinkedIn
12. Create high-quality content. Publish only something that you want to attach to your name forever.
13. Offer business advice as that would be read most often and will generate the most engagement
14. Know that popular articles published on LinkedIn get promoted to LinkedIn’s online magazine, called PULSE. So find the most appropriate category for the type of content you’ll be publishing.
15. Remember that sponsored updates provide a better way to put your content in front of key influencers and decision makers on LinkedIn.
16. When it comes to setting up the actual content, be concise and mobile-friendly. More than half of sponsored engagement comes from mobile devices and hence keep content under 150 characters.
17. LinkedIn’s ads program holds the key—particularly for B2B marketers. The platform lets you target audiences based on location (down to the city), gender, age, etc.
18. One of LinkedIn’s outstanding marketing features is InMail. InMail allows you to send a direct message to any user on LinkedIn. Use this feature effectively
19. LinkedIn groups are by far the most powerful aspect of LinkedIn. Join relevant groups and create your groups.
20. If you share a link on your LinkedIn profile, it is expected to be seen by only your connections. But if you share a link on your LinkedIn profile and within relevant groups, it will be seen by your connections and members of the group.