As a business owner, are you still asking yourself, what is the point of Linkedin? Or how do I use Linkedin in growing my business? Many people think that Linkedin is only used for job seekers or employers who are looking for job applicants.
Well, that was actually true way back 2003, the year it was launched. Where it serves as an online version of your resume. But that era is long gone. People nowadays are using Linkedin to build relationships with like-minded professionals and stay up to date with industry trends to uncover leads who could be a potential customer.
Fact is, all 500 of the fortune 500 business have established a presence on Linkedin. As of February 2014, there are over 3 million company pages on Linkedin. Like any other social media channel, setting up a business page and leave it, is not enough. Engagement is the key factor. One sure way to get the most out of Linkedin for your business is to optimise your business page, connect with your target audience and start engaging by joining business groups relevant to your business.
Follow these LinkedIn marketing hacks to help you see success:
Be familiar with the Linkedin algorithm
Similar to Facebook and Instagram, the Linkedin algorithm’s goal is to deliver the most relevant content to each user’s newsfeed. By having such an algorithm, it enables Linked to stop irrelevant and low-quality content from showing on the newsfeed to keep the traffic on their website.
LinkedIn is a platform based on relevancy, not recency. It only wanted you to see posts on your newsfeed which are relevant with your connections posts which have the largest reach and have generated the most engagement. To make this possible, Linkedin looks at likes, clicks, comments, and shares. Then, feed contents that are most relevant to the action taken by each user to newsfeeds.
The write post edit method
Posting on Linkedin with links directing to your website is a great way to generate traffic and engage with your audience. But do you know that posting on Linkedin with external links will most likely less visible to your audience? And probably won’t be seen by most of your connections and followers.
If the Linkedin algorithm doesn’t like external links, that would be bad news for people who want to share their website contents or blogs to Linkedin. Luckily, there’s a workaround and it’s just a matter of writing, posting and editing. Yes, that’s right! The first is to write the post without the link. Publish the post, then go back and edit it, now you can add the link and save.
Another issue with this method is after you edited your post and inserting a link, a preview to your webpage won’t be displayed in people’s feed. So it is wise to include an engaging image to your post. Keep in mind that the feature image for your post should be 1200×630 pixels. Obviously, this graphic won’t be a clickable link.
The benefit of Linkedin groups
Do you know that 81% of users on Linkedin belongs to one group? It is the perfect place to generate more prospects. The question is, how can you find the best groups and how can you maximise your marketing efforts in those groups?
Joining Linkedin groups will enable you to connect with the most influential people and big companies in your industry. And will give you an opportunity to engage in thoughtful conversation. You will learn from them and it gives you an opportunity to share your own insight.
After joining a group relevant to your industry, start sharing valuable content and create conversation. You can share your blogs and videos. Be sure to share and comment on other posts and articles to start making connections and relationships with professionals in your industry.
Connect with people and stop talking about yourself instead. You can start following your people of interests and comments or likes on their posts. By giving them compliments on their content or on what they do, you are building a unique relationship with your connections. But be sure not to make comments that are not genuine. The truer you are on Linkedin, the bigger the loyal audience you’ll find on the platform.
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Effective ads for your business
Linkedin has always been an odd duck among big social media networks. Unlike Instagram and Facebook, It is primarily a paid platform. But it does have an advertising product.
It has over 450 million professional members, the reason why it provides a very interesting platform for advertisers and marketers. To refine your targeting, personas can be helpful.
Linkedin offers access to a coveted demographic. Depending on the type of product or service you offer, Linkedin can be a very effective advertising platform for your business.
Running a campaign is pretty straight forward in Linkedin. It all starts with setting your desired campaign goal. Your goals are going to define which advertising solution is best for your business. Your goal can be a lead generation, drive traffic to your website or build brand awareness. Then you have to set up your desired budget for your campaign. Based on your budget, you can decide how many individual campaigns you would like to run daily. You will manage your ad spend on Linkedin by creating daily maximum and total budget for your campaigns.
Bid types, this ad feature enables you to bid on a cost per click or cost per mil or CPM basis. In that way, you can have a clear view of which bid type is most useful for your business. With cost per click bidding, you are paying each time a user clicks on your ad. While in CPM bidding, you are paying each time every time your ads show across Linkedin.
Every day, thousands of advertisements are being viewed by users across many different social media platforms. You have to convey value throughout your advertisement to stand out and get the recognition and results you deserve. You have to come up with a catchy headline, body, and call to action. Targeting is also essential for running a successful campaign. The trick is to ensure that you are serving your ads to the most relevant audience possible. The good news is, Linkedin provides a robust range of different criteria. You have an option to segment your target audience by job title, job function, location, industry, age and company size.
Your business may have a presence on Linkedin already, at the end of the day, it is important for you to determine if your presence is strong enough and whether you could be doing more. This is where testing becomes more important.
Do test some of the above strategies to determine the effects on your leads and engagement with your prospect and review those results.
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