How To Use Linkedin As A Marketing Tool

What if we told you there is a platform that almost 25% of American adults¹ are using every single day to discover businesses like yours?

The marketing platform is LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is the leading platform for businesses that are looking to grow their target audience. The reason? LinkedIn helps businesses specifically reach new clients, build relationships, gain advice, and increase credibility. If your business is not active on LinkedIn, you are missing out on engagement opportunities, knowledge, and market insights.

The most active and successful businesses on LinkedIn utilize the platform to expand and interact with their target audience and establish their brand authority through a series of important steps.

We’ve outlined critical steps that will help your business strengthen its marketing plan by utilizing LinkedIn as an effective tool.

Create a strong first impression.

Chances are you have already determined your target audience. However, millions of other companies have as well. It is essential to make your business stand out amongst the competition as users only spend a few critical seconds viewing a business before forming a lasting opinion. This can be accomplished by establishing a completed company profile page which sets your business up for success.

A completed business profile page on LinkedIn includes your logo, contact information including your website, any critical key terms, and phrases that viewers can quickly search for and find as well as a call-to-action contact button. According to Linkedln², pages with completed information get 30% more weekly views.

Pro Tip: Be sure to fill out the hashtags portion on your company page to ensure you have access to the topics that matter the most to your business. Each business/user can select up to three hashtag topics to see and respond to trending posts inside a specific hashtag feed.

Get your employees involved.

Establish authenticity for your business by inviting your employees to connect and interact with your company page. Under the updated “My Company” tab on LinkedIn, you can increase the reach of your business by giving your employees access to post pictures, polls, videos, and other interactives that showcase your company’s culture. Employees can interact and reshare company posts on their own personal feeds increasing visibility for the company.

Establish a following.

You have created a company profile, prompted your employees to engage with your page, and ensured your business is in alignment with your target audience. What’s next? Establishing a following for your business through creating actual content.

You need to show your target audience your business expertise by crafting informative content that is also relevant. Doing so will entice your current following to engage and share your posts with their audience creating the potential for more followers. This is often the hardest part of marketing your business on LinkedIn.

While considering your business’s goals on LinkedIn, it is important to consider internal questions such as:

• What is the purpose of your business page?
  • Lead generation
  • Marketing Insights
  • Recruiting
  • Advertisement

• What is your business’s overall goal specifically for Linkedln?
  • Building brand awareness
  • Lead generation
  • Community engagement
  • Increased website traffic
  • Boost conversions or sales

• What are your competitors posting on LinkedIn?
  • Are there any techniques your business could implement for your own LinkedIn strategy?

• How frequently will your business post on Linkedln?
  • Daily
  • Weekly
  • Predetermined days of the month 

• What kind of content will your business create?
  • Educational content
  • Interactive content
  • Entertaining content
  • Promotional content

Pro Tip: After determining the key components of your social media plan, your business can utilize a scheduling tool to stay on a consistent posting timeframe.

 Optimize your content.

LinkedIn’s algorithm strives to share only relevant content with their viewers tailored to their niche and preferences. Therefore, it is important to repurpose your content specifically for each marketing channel you are utilizing to reach the largest possible target audience. For example, LinkedIn allows for direct link sharing inside a post, unlike Instagram. You can use this to your advantage by adding call-to-action inside your posts and captions that will link directly to your business’s website. This can lead to an increase in website traffic for your company.

A few approaches to optimize your content include:

• Adding an image or an element to each post. Studies have shown that posts that include them have a much larger frequency of comments and engagement.
• Keep your posts short and to the point.
• Include a clear call to action.
• Create questions to prompt responses.
• Utilize LinkedIn polls.
• Respond to comments quickly.

Become a leader, using thought leadership.

Thought leadership is the sharing of ideas or insights with an intended target audience. LinkedIn is an exceptional platform for thought leadership as most viewers are comprised of business professionals looking to gain insights.

A few methods for using thought leadership tactics on LinkedIn include:

• Discover your niche on LinkedIn
• Optimize your business page to include case studies, eBooks, whitepapers, and other forms of content to showcase your knowledge inside your industry.
• Engage with others as frequently as possible.
• Determine consumer pain points.

Take advantage of LinkedIn analytics.

Analytics provide an often-free avenue to discovering what your business is doing right and wrong when it comes to social media. The LinkedIn analytics tool helps provide key insights into your most engaging content, page views, and page traffic and helps to determine the demographic of your audience.

Our team of marketing professionals can assist your business in growing your presence on LinkedIn and other social media platforms. Contact us today to set up a free consultation.