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Your Quick Guide to Marketing on LinkedIn

If you do business online, you see a lot of articles about the importance of marketing on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and so forth. We rarely hear about LinkedIn marketing which is a huge mistake.

Focusing your resources on LinkedIn marketing could do wonders for generating leads. LinkedIn is for B2B marketing, and it’s a terrific platform to build your brand, network with other professionals and grow your online community. According to LinkedIn, the platform generates more leads for B2B companies than Facebook, Twitter or blogging separately.

If that isn’t enough, a whopping 93% of B2B marketers consider LinkedIn the most effective lead generation site.

The numbers say it all. Marketing on LinkedIn should be a vital part of your digital marketing strategy. In this post, we’re going to show you how can start doing that.

Let’s get started.

Optimise your LinkedIn profile.

Your LinkedIn profile is an extension of your brand. It can help attract top talent, form new connections, and position you as a thought leader.

Believe it or not, certain SEO principles apply to your LinkedIn profile. People–including potential customers–could find you based on the keywords in your profile. Here are the sections you should put a lot of thought into:

Headline

Since users search for job titles on LinkedIn, your headline could lead a lot of potential customers to your profile.

Let’s say you’re a web developer in Sydney. If you use “Web Developer” as your headline, someone looking for web developers in Sydney could find you.

Utilise your headline properly. Consider it valuable real estate. Sure, you could use “Inspiration Seeker” or “Adventure Lover” in your headline, but they’re not going to lead new customers to your profile.

Summary

Like the headline, the summary is also valuable real estate.

When writing a resume, you mostly use the third-person point-of-view to talk about yourself. Don’t do that with your summary.

This is your chance to grab the attention of whoever’s visiting your profile. Using first-person point-of-view makes your summary more personal like you’re talking to the reader. Here are a few things your summary should cover:

Who You Are

Introduce yourself. Make sure to include your name, your job title and your niche. Drill down on who you’re catering to.

If you’re the managing director of a clothing company, don’t just say you sell clothing. Say you sell clothing for businessmen who like to look polished for all occasions.

The Problem Your Ideal Customer Experiences

Name at least three problems. Make your ideal customer feel that you’ve walked around in their shoes for a little while.

Let’s go back to our managing director of a clothing company example from earlier. You could say that your clients have to make a good impression when meeting employees and clients. They, however, don’t have the time to go, but they don’t want to risk looking unkempt.

How You Solve those Problems

Be specific. Explain how you’re different from competitors who offer the same products or services. What sets you apart? Do you offer a little extra something?

If your competitors boast about cheaper prices, you can emphasise how curated your store’s clothing selection is. Everything is made from high-quality material that will last years. Your store may have a higher price range, but each piece is definitely worth the price.

Your Experience

This is your chance to show you know your stuff. In this part, tell people why they should trust you. Did you attend special training? Do you have years of experience in this particular field?

A Call-to-Action

After reading your summary, what do you want people to do? You can ask them to send you an email, give you a call or download informational materials.

Avoid being too salesy in this section. At this point, you’re building awareness so shoving prices in a reader’s face won’t do you any good.

Know your target audience.

LinkedIn is a platform that allows you to search based on their job titles, industry and so much more. Optimised properly, the network could connect you with hundreds of prospects.

Knowing your target audience will help you write better posts, design better ads and pinpoint what type of people you should be targeting.

Before you start searching, define exactly who you’re looking for. Narrow down your search parameters. You can start doing this by answering the following questions:

• What industry does your ideal client belong to?
• What is your ideal client’s job title?
• Where are they located?

Once you’ve answered the above questions, you can begin connecting with people.

LinkedIn notifies sends users a notification whenever someone views their profile. If you’re hesitant about adding people, you can view their profiles first. You can then add them after they return the visit.

Don’t make the rookie mistake of pitching to people right away. Nothing will turn people off faster than sales pitches from people they’ve never heard of before.

Begin connecting by offering to help. Is there a problem you can solve for them? Do you have a free course or ebook to offer that’s relevant to them?

Position yourself as an authority.

Facebook is the place for vacation photos and sharing cat videos. LinkedIn is an entirely different story. It’s where you can show people you’re an expert in your field.

LinkedIn is often overlooked as a place to position yourself as an expert in your field. The truth is that LinkedIn can be one of the best ways to increase your exposure. It’s already the premier social network for business professionals, so if you are able to leverage it correctly, you can grow your connections extremely fast.

Experts say different things about posting on LinkedIn. Some recommend posting on weekdays while others recommend posting once a week. They all seem to agree on one thing.

If you post several times a day, LinkedIn will consider your posts spam. Concentrate instead on making sure each post contains valuable information.

You might think that posting quality content regularly will take up too much of your time. Not to worry. You can use existing content.

You need to create great content that will resonate with your specific audience for best results. While all of this is true, it doesn’t mean you have to start from scratch each and every time.

For example, if you’re blogging for your business, you can repost your blog posts on LinkedIn.

Go to the LinkedIn homepage. At the top of the page, you’ll see options that let you post a status, a photo or a video. Click on “Write an article.”

It will lead you to a blog post editor. At this point, you can choose to write an original blog post for LinkedIn or repurpose old content.

When posting old blog posts on LinkedIn, keep the following things in mind:

• You might have a lot of blog posts available so choose the one that showcases your expertise.
• Don’t post the entire thing. Select the most valuable section of your blog post and post that instead. Include a link to the original blog post at the bottom of the page.

Do this consistently at least once a week. You’ll soon have a plethora of content LinkedIn that tell people you’re an expert.

Conclusion

LinkedIn generates more leads for marketers than other social media platforms. Failing to utilise it would be a huge mistake.

LinkedIn is one of the few social media platforms that focus on business-to-business (B2B) networks rather than socialising with friends, family and ‘followers’. It’s also the most effective social network for generating leads. If you’re looking to grow your small business or start your own marketing campaign, it’s important to know how you can make the best use this powerful tool to generate contacts.

Start by optimising your profile. Explain who you are, what you do and how you help people in a clear, concise manner.

Know who you’re trying to reach. Don’t blindly add or message people. Narrow down which industry, job titles and locations you’re targeting.

Position yourself as an expert by posting valuable content. Do this at least once a week. If you’re short on time, you can repurpose the content you previously created.

Need help with your digital marketing strategy? Cornerstone Digital is a digital marketing agency in Sydney. We would be glad to create a five-star strategy for you. Call us on (02) 8211 0668 or email us at info@cornerstone-digital.com.au.

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Darlyn Herradura

A self-professed book and digital marketing nerd, Darlyn Herradura focuses on building trust between customers and businesses with the written word. She understands that creating valuable content is the best way to get found online and happily spends her time doing that.