I’ve said it before,
LinkedIn is my social media channel of choice. With over 300 million members, LinkedIn is a fantastic opportunity for both the individual and company to grow your audience and generate business. But how do you know what features to use or what best practices to follow? We taught a little seminar to help get people confident on which tools to use. But no worries if you didn’t get to attend
Linking Up with LinkedIn, here are the four key takeaways to help you grow your brand and your business.
Polish up your own profile and include your personality and keywords
Your LinkedIn profile is more than just your resume online. It’s your opportunity to reflect on who you are as a person and how that matches your profession. How do you want to be known? Complete your profile using keywords you want to recognition for (and that you to show up in search for). Give your profile a hint of your personality. Combine SEO and your personal brand and you will stand out both with search engines and individuals.
Set goals around your LinkedIn marketing to set yourself up for success
If you don’t define what success looks like, how do you know when you’ve gotten there? Defining your goals is a great way to set up a successful social media marketing plan. Get out a pen and paper and write down what you want to achieve through marketing with LinkedIn. And think numbers, don’t just set a vague goal of “I want to grow my company audience.” What does that even mean. How much effort does that take? Give it some real power by adding a value. “I want to grow my company page following my 15% in October.” Now we’re talking turkey. You now have something to track against and can structure your marketing engagement to get you there.
Create snackable content with links and images to excite your audience
An individual only has .07 seconds of attention span. Look, squirrel! With such a small window to catch someone’s attention before they move on, keeping your LinkedIn updates short and sweet is vital to connecting with your audience. Social media is a visual platform, its audience loves images and is more likely to share or engage with your content if it includes images. Create content that includes links and images that both catch their attention and inspire them to share it.
Test and try out different approaches! Don’t just set it and forget it
LinkedIn marketing is like a lot like high school science- you have to try out different approaches to get to the result you are looking for. Remember when we had to breed fruit flies and get to a specific variety? Yeah, it took a few tries and combinations to get there (and a lot of rotten banana peels). If something isn’t working, isn’t being shared by your audience or growing your company page following then change it. Testing out variations of ads or sponsored updates to see which get’s the most attention or work on calls to action that your buyer personas respond favorably to. Don’t just set it and walk away, you have to analyze the results and make changes to get the best results.
Growing your audience on LinkedIn takes time. Following best practices will get you to the goals you've set for both your business and professional growth. Remember to be deliberate and impactful when creating your LinkedIn presence. Leverage the power of industry keywords and the panache of your own personal brand to grow your following. Remember, people buy from humans. Be helpful and personable to generate real relationships to keep your audience engaged, interested, and interacting with you.
