“LinkedIn is all set to become the Facebook for professionals.”
Doesn’t sound far-fetched, isn’t it? LinkedIn’s growing popularity has made it necessary for most marketers, especially digital marketers, to take more than a cursory look at their company pages and professional profiles.
This social media channel is one of the largest community of professionals worldwide with more than 414 million professional users. You will find global leaders, decision makers, senior influencers, opinion leaders make up this user base.
So, the question here is, how do you capitalise on your opportunities and engage with these users effectively using various marketing options. Have you ever noticed there are a few brands and users on LinkedIn who have managed to achieve the kind of popularity that you aspire to have?
If you look at how they engage with their followers, you will notice they all follow similar patterns and tactics. Content plays a major role in their engagement and here’s why it should play an important role in your LinkedIn marketing strategy.
There are many who use social media channels to de-stress and spend time while they capitalise their time on LinkedIn. According to Alex Rynne, 96.1 percent of business marketers use LinkedIn as their content marketing channel and more than 60 percent find it highly effective.
Not just this, more than 80 percent business leads are from LinkedIn, which clearly shows how important engaging on this channel is to your business. In another study, Hub Spot says 43 percent marketers believe they have found a customer through this professional network.
Influencer Neil Patel says, “The real value on LinkedIn is not the number of people in the network, but the influence that you possess within your network.”
To make the best out of this opportunity, here are a few strategies you should employ to increase your influence and engagement on LinkedIn.
Build up a strong LinkedIn presence: To build up a strong presence, start with your profile. Use a good, preferably a clear headshot, as a profile photo. Then work on your profile, this is your reputation online so stay focussed and be honest. Don’t embellish your achievements just to look cool. Next add relevant people to your network as much as possible.
Don’t add people just like that. Add those you know or those who know you. Lastly, be consistent and share links, posts, and articles that are relevant to your target audience. This may take some time to build-up, but the results you get will be worth the time you spend on it.
Invest as little as 10 minutes a day to build a strong profile and get the results of it within a month
“Measure your influence – Not just the first level but the second and the third level followers to know the right measure of your influence on LinkedIn.” ------Neil Patel
Build a company page/s: If you have different brands, you can create a separate company page for each brand. The target audience for different brands would also be different. Share content that is specific to your audience to build a strong relation with them. Allow users on LinkedIn to follow the company pages for your business they are interested in.
Here’s an example of what you can share on your page
“Think of your LinkedIn network as a mastermind of trusted friends. The group consists of mentors, mentees, influencers, professionals, people of high net worth and power. Post about issues that are relevant to your network.” -------Neil Patel
LinkedIn slide share: Another way to engage with like-minded people is to use SlideShare to put up company videos and presentations, industry related infographics and webinar slide decks.
Spend as little as 30 minutes on slide share and you are done.
Here’s why LinkedIn SlideShare is important to your content strategy for LinkedIn
“Post about real problems that people are facing. For example, these two problems are killing social media, here’s how we fix them.” ----Neil Patel
LinkedIn publishing: The latest tool from LinkedIn to help you become a thought influencer is the option to publish within LinkedIn. You can share articles and links about your professional expertise and experiences. Keep your followers abreast of industry trends and lessons you have learnt over the years.
“Use the first-person when you post. It means use me, my, and I wherever possible.” --- Neil Patel
Here’s what makes LinkedIn Publishing an ideal choice
“Post your own articles. To become an influencer whenever possible, write your own articles.” ---- Neil Patel
Linked sponsored content: Gaining influence organically can only help you so much. But how do you reach people beyond organic reach? The answer is sponsored content on LinkedIn. You can use the paid option to share new about your company, publish blogs, industry research and news, case studies you have done, webinars as well as visual representations and statistics.
“Use an image of a face. Human psychology teaches us that we are instinctively drawn to look at human faces.” ----Neil Patel
Here’s why you should try it
When you put together all these options and the actions you will find the levels of engagement rise instantly. Does this mean the engagement level will rise as much as 80 percent instantly? Probably not, but eventually you may find it does if you have a consistent and solid presence on LinkedIn to garner better engagement levels.
*Images and statistics courtesy LinkedIn Marketing Solutions
The thoughts and opinions shared here are of the author.
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