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Although the first social network began in 1987 with the National Science Foundation’s first nationwide digital network NSFNET, social media truly started gaining momentum from 2004 onwards. Since then, if we go by the latest statistics, the number of users of the platforms has grown to an aggregate of about 3.78 billion, which is approximately 48% of the total world population.
This also means that as far as marketing goes, this is now a significant source of earning both attention and sales.
Furthermore, there isn’t just one but several social media networks that are available in different regions of the world, and using them wisely is of utmost importance. Seeing as LinkedIn is one of the few which is banned in just a handful of countries as compared to its peers, using this site for marketing can turn out to be quite beneficial.
Why LinkedIn?
There can be numerous reasons listed by many different parties as to why LinkedIn is an ideal platform for marketing activities. However, for your reference, we have brought forth the four prime factors that can convince you of the same.
Widespread Reach and Networking
For any promotional activity to actually succeed, one of the most important elements is the audience receiving it. And the wider your reach, the higher are the opportunities for getting qualified leads and conversions.
More often than not, SEO or search engine optimization techniques are used for increasing this range and becoming visible to a larger group of people. The notable thing here is that the same can be applied on LinkedIn as well. And the platform’s own algorithm is all set to help you reach out and network, the two of these together can provide a major boost to your efforts.
Higher Credibility
Admittedly, LinkedIn has been the recipient of the ‘#1 Most Trusted Social Media Platform’ for three consecutive years. According to a study by Nielsen, this trust positively impacted the brands on the network as well. When seen through LinkedIn ads, they were perceived as being more professional by 92% of people, while 59% saw it as a mark of high quality.
And as we all know, higher credibility among customers is quintessential for any brand and company in order to continue its growth.
Targeted Audience
Targeting the right audience when promoting or advertising a product or service is by no means a new concept. In fact, it is an option provided to marketing professionals by every social media platform. This is because it would not make sense to share a message with people who cannot or would not be willing to avail themselves of the same. After all, what will a 65-year old, male author do with pepper spray, right?
Therefore, as mentioned above, many platforms allow marketers to carefully choose their target groups to run a campaign. And while Facebook shares the most number of filters, LinkedIn provides filters as per job title, industry, employer, etc as well. This means that if I wish to promote a new event management software, LinkedIn would be the network that could help me more by connecting me to the people in the industry. It is the ideal network for B2B marketing.
More Advertising Options
There are many digital media networks today that extend the option of running ads on their platform to business owners. However, LinkedIn offers more than just the standard kind of advertisement.
Apart from a sponsored post, you can also make use of InMail or Display and Text ads — where Sponsored InMail lets you send an email style message to any of LinkedIn’s users, display and text ads appear in places like the inbox and on the bottom of one’s profile page. This enhances the visibility of the brand considerably.
You might want to use a good LinkedIn ads reporting tool to help you create ad reports. This will help you see how effective your Inmail, Display, and text ads are doing. You can then make modifications to get the highest CTR and ROAS.
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Must-Try LinkedIn Marketing Strategies
Now that you’ve been through the importance of marketing through LinkedIn and still stuck around, we’re sure that you’re interested in knowing exactly how to make it work.
And so, without further ado, let’s begin.
Complete your Profile
Simply creating a profile or a page for your business is not going to be enough on LinkedIn. An important step alongside this creation is filling it out in its entirety. Leaving out details on your business’s profile can negatively impact your image and reputation with your audiences. This is because when interacting with a new company, buyers like to find out as much information about them as they can.
If your page is completely filled out with all important information, it boosts the customers’ confidence in you and they are more likely to engage with your efforts.
Use Multi-lingual Tools
Oftentimes, a company has users spread around different regions of a country or world. This means equally often is the chance that not all of them speak the language you primarily interact in. Thus, putting up a post in just that single language can rule out all the people who don’t understand it, out of the audience.
To rectify this situation, LinkedIn provides you the ability to post content in 24 major languages. All you need to do is simply select the additional language you wish your material to be viewed in. This way, when the non-speaker of your native tongue opens the post, they can view it in their own language. This will make them feel cared for as well as ensure that your message reaches all.
Customize your URL
A customized URL is an extremely important aspect of any LinkedIn profile. If you look closely, you will notice that both your personal and business pages have long strings of alphanumerics that make up the address to your profile. But is that easy to remember or find?
A simple guess would say, definitely not. Hence, once again, the platform extends you a helping hand by letting you custom design your URL. You can shorten it or write something completely unique to be used as your identifying address. By using your enterprise’s name as your URL, you also support the SEO efforts which help you rank higher on search engine result pages.
Post Consistently
By regularly posting content on LinkedIn, you not only exhibit your business’s active nature. You simultaneously also keep your audiences engaged with one informational, insightful, or promotional post after the other.
Additionally, since you keep popping up on your followers’ news feed, your name becomes familiar to them, thus increasing the recall value of your brand. They are more likely to interact with your business when they come across your brand regularly.
Incorporate Rich Media
High-quality photos, high-resolution videos, and funny gifs are all that come under the rich media bracket. It is only when you stand out of the crowd through extensive use of these mediums is that audiences would want to engage with you more.
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In fact, LinkedIn’s own figures revealed during an analysis, that both images and videos can drive up your rate of engagement by 98% and 75% respectively.
Reuse your Most Popular Content
It often happens that you create a certain piece of content that turns out to be a major hit. Though subsequent material may not get you the same level of interaction and attention like that.
In such cases, it is absolutely acceptable if you wish to repost the same piece once again. This time, however, you can use it as a throwback post which gets you eyeballs for both the new post as well as the original one. Ultimately what happens is that your page gets more traffic and engagement owing to the same. Isn’t that what you want?
Stay Active on Groups
Similar to how other social media platforms allow you to create groups based on common likes or interests, LinkedIn offers the option as well. You can create a group from scratch if you wish, or join an existing one — it is absolutely your call. But the key point to remember in either case is that if you wish to use these groups for your marketing or networking purposes successfully, you need to stay active on them.
Never posting, never responding, and never commenting on anything in there can lead you to become invisible amongst the community of your peers. They may end up forgetting all about your business as a result and that is something we wish to avoid for sure.
Thus to ensure the situation doesn’t arise in the future, you must take action now. Post consistently not only on your personal profile but also on these groups to increase your visibility.
Try LinkedIn Plugin
A ‘Share on LinkedIn’ plugin is an absolutely amazing tool that the platform provides. Instead of writing long pieces of content on your profile every time, you can use a shortcut. The plugin lets you publish anything that you’re posting on your website or blog with the click of a single button.
Since we’ve already established how important regular posting is, this comes in handy by relieving you from the tedious work of posting again.
Automate InMails
Sending InMails, quite like e-mails, can be a tiring and mundane task, especially when the number of receivers is high. To alleviate you of the same, LinkedIn offers you the option of automating them.
All you need to do is create a template under LinkedIn Recruiter that can be later used to send a standardized message to several users simultaneously. There are also a few browser-based tools that you can use to send InMails in bulk.
Establish Rapport before Pitching Sale
A major mistake that many professionals make through their LinkedIn profiles is trying to sell right off the bat. While some attach their sales pitch with the connection request itself, some share the same soon as the request is accepted.
What you need to understand here, however, is that there is a much lower chance of you getting a successful sale through this practice. Instead what you should do is first create a friendship and a rapport with the prospect. Only once they are comfortable with you should you begin with the sales pitch.
This helps you in two ways. Firstly, the chances that your pitch is even being read increases multifold. This can directly result in higher sales. And secondly, this way, even if the other party is not interested in your product or service, you have created a cordial relationship with them which can help you out in the future.
Monitor LinkedIn Analytics
Analysis of any strategy is one of the pillars on which the entire marketing sector stands. And when LinkedIn has its own tool to help you with the analysis of your efforts thereon, why look anywhere else?
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With the free LinkedIn analytics tool, you can measure the effectiveness of your campaign while also keeping an eye on your regular performance. Additionally, you can also observe various other important aspects like the age group and geographical location of people viewing your campaign, how successful each post was, and so on.
Closing Thoughts
As we mentioned beforehand, each individual can have numerous personal reasons to use LinkedIn as their marketing platform. Similarly, they may also have their own tactics that they use to ensure optimal results.
What we shared here is a list of some of the most-used strategies that have been tried and tested by experts around the globe, over and over.
Do you also know any that we missed here? Let us know in the comment section below.
About Hazel Raoult
Hazel Raoult is a freelance marketing writer and works with PRmention. She has 6+ years of experience in writing about business, entrepreneurship, marketing and all things SaaS. Hazel loves to split her time between writing, editing, and hanging out with her family.