With over 800 million users worldwide, LinkedIn has become an invaluable platform for business marketing and networking. Unlike other social networks that focus on sharing personal life moments, LinkedIn is centered around professional connections and career development.
This makes it a prime channel for companies looking to boost their marketing efforts and connect with potential customers. Here are some tips on how to effectively leverage LinkedIn for marketing your business:
Optimize Your Company Profile
Your LinkedIn company page functions as an online brochure and hub for your brand. Make sure it’s filled out completely with a description of your business, products/services, photos, videos, employee lists with bios, and any other relevant information.
This helps people understand what your company does at a glance. Include links to your website, blog, and other social profiles so visitors can learn more about your brand.
Build an Employee Roster
Encourage all employees to create detailed LinkedIn profiles listing their roles, skills, experience, and accomplishments at your company.
This gives your business a human element while showcasing your expertise. Moreover, your employees’ large networks expand the number of people who can discover your brand.
Attract Followers
Post regular updates about your company’s news, achievements, events, job openings, and industry insights. Share content like articles, images, infographics, and videos that your target audience would find interesting.
Engage with other brands and influencers in your niche. This valuable material and interaction will organically attract more followers.
Join Industry-Related Groups
LinkedIn’s huge group community presents opportunities to connect with those in your profession or industry.
Join relevant groups to share content, participate in discussions, and stay on top of the latest developments. Group members are ideal targets for your products or services.
Utilize LinkedIn Ads
LinkedIn’s advertising platform enables you to target users by location, job role, skills, interests, and more.
Create customized campaigns with different objectives like sending traffic to your website, generating leads, or increasing brand awareness. Take advantage of LinkedIn’s detailed demographic data for better ad targeting.
Partner With Influencers
Research key influencers in your industry who create lots of high quality content and have ample followers.
Reach out to ones that are a strategic fit to see if they would be interested in collaborating. Offer to write guest posts for their blogs, or interview them for your own content. Influencer partnerships expand your audience reach.
Focus on Relationships
At its heart, LinkedIn is about relationship building. Regularly like and share content from your connections.
Take time to congratulate them on work anniversaries, career achievements, new jobs, etc. Maintain open communication channels to build familiarity and trust that can eventually turn into business opportunities.
Prioritize Content Sharing
Don’t just post content on your company page and leave it at that.
Actively share blog posts, articles, ebooks, case studies, and webinars across your personal LinkedIn profile and employees’ profiles. This spreads the reach to all your collective connections for greater visibility.
Analyze Your LinkedIn Insights
Under the “Analytics” section of your LinkedIn page, you can access detailed data on your followers, post reach, engagement, clicks, impressions and more.
Study these metrics to gain valuable intelligence that will help refine your LinkedIn marketing approach.
Promote Your LinkedIn Presence
Let website visitors, email subscribers, social media followers, and customers know about your LinkedIn presence through links and call-to-action buttons.
This drives additional traffic to your company page and keeps LinkedIn at top of mind.
Showcase Company Culture
Leverage LinkedIn to provide a window into your company’s culture, values, and work environment.
Share photos and videos from company events, employee volunteer programs, office spaces, and team building activities. Talented candidates will be attracted to not just your job openings, but the culture you promote.
Make Connections at Events
When attending or exhibiting at industry conferences and trade shows, encourage your team to actively network and connect with fellow attendees on LinkedIn.
This facilitates post-event communication and represents a major opportunity to find potential partners, affiliates, and clients in one place.
Integrate With Email Marketing
Many email service providers like MailChimp allow you to match your email lists with LinkedIn profiles.
This lets you craft targeted campaigns promoting relevant content to leads based on their LinkedIn data. Powerful integrations unlock LinkedIn’s marketing potential.
Recruit Top Talent
LinkedIn is used by around 70% of professionals to look for job openings.
Use LinkedIn Jobs and specialized Hiring packages to post openings, search the database of candidates, filter by myriad criteria, and contact applicants. Your employer brand presence attracts great candidates beyond job ads.
Offer Recommendations
The peer recommendations featured on LinkedIn profiles hugely impact personal brands.
Recommend clients, partners, or outstanding employees by endorsing their skills and leaving an online reference. In turn, request a recommendation from satisfied stakeholders who know your business inside and out.
In Summary:
With LinkedIn continuing to expand its scope beyond networking into a versatile marketing channel, businesses cannot afford to ignore its possibilities.
Dedicate sufficient resources into building an optimized, engaged company presence on LinkedIn. Consistently posting content, interacting strategically, and leveraging opportunities for outreach are key to making the most of its marketing and lead generation potential.
Treat LinkedIn not just as an occasional supplement, but as a core component of your digital marketing strategy.