LinkedIn is a social media platform specifically geared towards businesses and professionals that want to network and promote their personal or professional brands.
This article will explore LinkedIn marketing, including best practices and specific ways to use LinkedIn to reach your audience.
What Is LinkedIn Marketing?
LinkedIn marketing encompasses all the ways you can get visibility for your brand through the LinkedIn platform.
Whether your goal is to increase brand visibility, drive traffic to your website, generate leads, or make sales, LinkedIn has the tools to help.
Is LinkedIn Good For Marketing?
Absolutely! LinkedIn is home to over 900 million users in 200 countries.
This makes LinkedIn one of the best places to connect with executives, decision-makers, respected names in your industry, and B2B influencers.
LinkedIn Marketing Best Practices
Before we dive into the details of using LinkedIn for marketing, consider some best practices to ensure you always make a profitable first impression.
Build A Strong Network
Networking is key to building an audience on LinkedIn.
Start by defining the audience you want to reach on LinkedIn. This will help you identify the best people to connect with to achieve your LinkedIn marketing goals.
If you’re new to LinkedIn, work colleagues (past and present) and alumni are the easiest connections to make. LinkedIn will recommend more people to connect with as you grow your audience based on common connections and interests.
Keep It Professional
LinkedIn caters to people who are serious about making professional connections. As you engage on LinkedIn, keep the focus on your work and the goals you are trying to achieve with LinkedIn marketing.
Save updates about what you cook for dinner, how you feel about sensitive topics, or your collection of NSFW (not safe for work) memes for your private Facebook profile or a Messenger group with your friends.
Provide Value
Providing value consistently on LinkedIn will increase your brand visibility and help you grow your audience. Make it a part of your daily routine to review your messages, new posts from your network, and updates from industry experts you follow.
As you browse, look for ways to add value to conversations. When people see and like your comments, it will increase your visibility amongst the followers of the profile or page you are engaged with.
What Are The Best Ways To Use LinkedIn For Marketing?
The following are specific ways you can utilize LinkedIn for marketing your brand or business.
Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile
You will use your LinkedIn professional profile to build your network. Before you start making connections, be sure to create a profile that is geared toward the goal you want to achieve.
When adding text to your profile, think of it like a webpage. Optimize it with the keywords you want to be discovered for in LinkedIn search results.
- Start with a professional headshot. Use the same photo for all of your social profiles to ensure that people can easily recognize and remember you.
- Write the best headline possible. It appears below your name in search results, posts, and comments. Make it something that will entice people to want to learn more about you and what you have to offer. Include the keywords you want to be found on LinkedIn, like SEO consultant or SEO services.
- Add your contact information so that people can connect with you outside of LinkedIn as well. This can include your email, website, or other social accounts.
- Write the best elevator pitch possible for your LinkedIn profile summary. This should entice people to want to connect with you and talk about the products or services you have to offer. Again, include the main and related keywords you want to be found on LinkedIn.
- Use the experience section to describe your best achievements for each job title you’ve held. Tailor those results to impress the audience you want to network with and sell to.
- Build up your profile recommendations. Think of them as testimonials for the skills and experience you need to impress your target audience.
- Utilize additional sections in your LinkedIn profile to further optimize it for your target keywords and demonstrate your expertise. You can add licenses and certifications, publications, projects, awards, and causes you support.
- Post regular updates that relate to the goal you are trying to achieve. They may include links to your latest blog post or news about your company and its products or services.
Once your profile is complete, use it to start making connections.
To increase your visibility on LinkedIn, follow influencers and companies that your target audience engages with so you can get to know them in post comments.
Create A Company Page
In addition to a LinkedIn profile for yourself, you can create LinkedIn company pages to showcase your business, products, and services.
Like your LinkedIn profile, consider your company page a webpage you want to optimize for specific keywords. Include those keywords throughout your company page.
Specifically, ensure target keywords appear in your company tagline, description, and updates.
Also, be sure to use the same company image/logo on your social media pages. This will ensure that your audience can easily recognize and remember your brand.
Once your company page is completed and optimized, you can build your company’s audience by inviting people you have connected with on your LinkedIn profile to your page.
Post regular updates about company news, products, or services to engage with your target audience. Be sure to reply to the comments you receive.
You can see how your LinkedIn company page performs using LinkedIn analytics. There, you can see how quickly your audience grows and what content your audience engages with most.
Participate In LinkedIn Groups
Another way to grow your network and increase visibility for your brand is to participate in LinkedIn groups.
LinkedIn groups are home to professionals who want to discuss a particular industry or interests related to your industry.
To see actual results from LinkedIn groups, you should focus on groups with high engagement and low spam. Once you have joined a group, get a feel for how many posts members of the group make each day and how many comments those posts receive.
If you see that a group has a high volume of link posts with no comments, it’s a sign that you may not get the results you want.
Another way to get value from LinkedIn is to start a group around a topic that will attract your target audience. For example, a company that sells a WordPress plugin may want to run a group for people who run WordPress websites.
Publish In-Depth Content
LinkedIn Publishing allows you to publish in-depth content on your LinkedIn profile. Utilizing this feature allows you to establish yourself as an authority on topics your target audience wants to explore.
While not as advanced as what you would get from a WordPress SEO plugin, LinkedIn Publishing allows you to optimize your posts for discoverability in LinkedIn and Google search results.
Conclusion
LinkedIn is one of the best platforms to utilize to achieve your business goals.
Optimize your profile and page for the goal you want to achieve and keep that goal and your target audience in mind when posting updates, participating in groups, and publishing in-depth content.
More Resources;
- LinkedIn Announces 7 Updates Coming In 2023
- Collaborate On LinkedIn With AI-Driven Articles
- LinkedIn: Top 25 Fastest Growing Jobs
Featured Image: BongkarnGraphic/Shutterstock
