LinkedIn has had its fair share of ups and downs. But, it looks like the social network is growing, and growing for the better. More people are becoming active and engaging with content, and there are a lot more opportunities to find than ever before. If you’re not using LinkedIn as part of your marketing strategy, then you’re surely missing out.
HubSpot reports that LinkedIn is up to 280% more effective at generating leads than any other social network. That’s also going to be your primary metric to use whenever you engage other users of the platform. There’s something about having so many business-minded people in one place that makes this social network a powerhouse for lead generation.
Alright. Let’s take a look at the best tips for getting the most out of LinkedIn. If your plan is to maximize growth, increase revenue, or establish new business connections — then this article is most definitely for you.
What makes LinkedIn so appealing for marketing?
For the most part, it’s the ease at which you can establish new and relevant connections. The search function in particular helps you find and narrow down specific people or groups within a few clicks.
After you find what you’re looking for, you can engage in conversations, participate in groups, or simply pitch your ideas to other people.
How does LinkedIn work as a social network?
LinkedIn’s primary social function is based on connections, groups, and jobs. Whenever you connect with someone new, their content will automatically appear in your news feed.
If you’re looking for jobs, you’ll get thousands of listings presented in a very convenient user interface. From here, you can either apply directly (with your LinkedIn profile nonetheless) or you can check out the company individually. LinkedIn lists details like ‘people who work here’ quite openly, so you can scout for potential work-together opportunities this way.
How important is engagement with content?
Similarly to Facebook, the LinkedIn platform also employs the ‘News Feed’ approach. Meaning, whenever your connections publish new content, it is naturally going to appear in your news feed. And this is a great place to foster new relationships, or focus on publishing your own content.
The most creative LinkedIn users can easily garner thousands of likes, comments, and views in a matter of hours. If you’re someone who has the resources to create interactive content, you should absolutely think about implementing those resources in your marketing strategy.
Create a page for your company/brand.
A brand page is where other users can come and explore what your business is all about. LinkedIn makes it extremely easy for others to follow brand pages. On top of that, you have a lot of flexibility in talking about your brand. For example, by adding an extensive About page.
All your employees can tag themselves within your page to verify that they are indeed working with you. And last but not least, a brand page can also be used to publish content. This might expose you to new opportunities if you’re being consistent and determined with your content efforts.
Check what other brands are doing.
It’s highly recommended to spend your time learning about other brand pages, and understanding the kind of content they publish. E.g. The Twitch brand page has some 67,000 followers. And a lot of their content is based on statistics, interesting happenings within the company, but also promotions.
The more you understand how other brands use LinkedIn, the more comfortable you are going to feel to apply such practices in your own marketing strategy.
I’d recommend looking into your competitor pages first. Analyze the engagement, understand the publishing schedule, and see whether you can do better!
Get talking with other LinkedIn users.
I have had people reach out to me for the most random and bizarre things. But at the same time, I have landed many great opportunities because people have been interested in my services. LinkedIn is a social network, so try and use it as one.
You do need to establish a “connection” with a person before you can message them, but that’s more the reason to look up interesting people.
Think outside of the box. Look for opportunities to connect with other people and collaborate on something together. Don’t think that just because someone is a “CEO” of a company that they don’t have time for you.
With the right approach and attitude, you could quickly expand your existing network of connections to something that’s going to greatly benefit your business.
Create a detailed personal profile.
As a business-based social network, LinkedIn gives you ample freedom to create an extremely detailed user profile. And this is precisely what you should do. By having an extensive and thorough profile, you’re more likely to convey a certain message to any people interested in your services.
Apart from the default profile description, focus on adding things like your expertise and experience. LinkedIn has a wonderful tool which helps you list all your previous and current work experience. On top of that, you can directly connect your working experience with active brand pages.
You can choose interests, and you can select skills in which you are qualified. Afterward, people coming to your profile will also be able to endorse you for those skills.
Something that has worked great personally has been related to the profile description. Basically, if you include all the names of people and companies you have worked within the past — LinkedIn will actually use that as a source of information for its search algorithm. Meaning, people are much more likely to find your profile if you talk about your work experience extensively.
Be original and unique.
Sounds easy enough, right? But it’s much harder to put in practice. To be original means to do something that others either won’t do or don’t have time to do. One example would be to focus on producing interesting content. This can be infographics or videos, or even slideshows.
The platform has recently implemented “Trending Content & Hashtags” feature. So, you’re able to capitalize on this by creating content that’s both trending, but also relevant within the scope of trending hashtags.
In this example, you can see how LinkedIn recommends trending news. For each trending news piece, there’s a separate page which lists the news with a short summary. But, the most important feature is that LinkedIn editors will also pick and choose postings from the networks’ members.
Meaning, you can participate in discussions for trending news using hashtags and you might just land a huge score. Getting exposed to thousands of LinkedIn users can greatly enhance the visibility of your profile but also your brand.
Expand your connections outside of LinkedIn.
Connecting with people inside the platform is just one piece of the puzzle. We’re living in a time where it’s getting more and more important to connect with people on a deeper level. This is especially true for business-related opportunities as well.
People are getting friendlier, but also more open to the idea of establishing real-life connections. Such connections can spark ideas like working together on a startup or even starting a separate business together.
So, for this “trick” — you ought to create connections outside of LinkedIn. The easiest way to do this would be to message people directly. But if you feel that this approach is too intrusive, you can also create meetups by using either your news feed or by posting within LinkedIn groups.
Make your intentions clear. Figure out who are the people you want to create a long-lasting bond with, and follow that vision through.
Are there any LinkedIn tools you need?
It’s not that you need to go out of your own way to use tools. The fact of the matter is, tools help to improve your productivity. Sometimes two or even more times than before. And as far as LinkedIn goes, there are several tools on the market that help you get more refined results.
So, this following, and last, segment is dedicated to interesting LinkedIn tools. I’d also recommend looking into Chrome extensions for LinkedIn, or Mozilla Add-ons if that’s your browser of choice.
#1: Octopus
Getting the most out of LinkedIn manually can be a painful process. The site is home to so many different, and each profile is rich with details. But thanks to Octopus, you can simplify the entire marketing process to just a few steps. This new and powerful marketing software for LinkedIn is going to elevate your strategy to the next level.
Here’s how it can help your cause:
- Send connection requests to LinkedIn users automatically.
- Send bulk personal messages to your direct connections.
- Preview people’s profiles automatically to generate buzz around your profile.
- Automatically endorse certain skills for your connections to (hopefully) get endorsements back.
- Create extensive marketing funnels. For example, send someone a new connection request. Then, endorse their profile for certain skills, and finally send a pre-written message. If they don’t respond, you can send several follow-ups on a timed basis.
- Collect and preview the analytics of your LinkedIn profile.
As you can tell, this is a powerful automation machine. The pricing starts at $10 per month which I think is more than a fair investment. No other tool will give you this level of marketing tools for such a nominal price. And you can also take Octopus for a spin with the 7-day trial offer.
#2: Crystal
Crystal is a very interesting AI-based app which provides personality types for social media users. It works for LinkedIn, but also for other sites like Salesforce and Gmail for example. Now, you might be wondering, how is knowing a person’s personality useful?
Well, for one, it could help you craft much better introductory emails. It could also help you respond in a far more refined manner than usually. Not only that, but you could also save yourself time by connecting with people that truly represent the values of your brand and ideas.
Crystal uses Personality AI to accurately identify anyone’s behavioral patterns by analyzing text samples, assessment responses, and other attributes. It then uses that information to facilitate more effective communication, stronger one-on-one relationships, and better decision-making.
All in all, Crystal exemplifies the possibilities of AI-driven data management, and we should see even more similar tools in the future. Until then, try and experiment with Crystal in your daily workflow. You might find it more useful than it looks!
#3: Datanyze
Datanyze focuses on Technographics, which is a field within which you analyze different businesses for their usability amongst a tech stack. If you’re heavily invested in your personal brand and generally work with B2B customers, then you’re going to need a way to find new clients.
The platform will look at your existing business profile and perform thorough analytics to help you find new prospects. The different graphs and analytical reports you get from this product will also boost your overall presence amongst different business types.
Certainly, this is a more business-oriented tool with a technical side to it. But it’s simple enough to use that you shouldn’t experience any real problems with it. Test out the Free Demo to see if it’s a fit for you.
#4: Discoverly
Discoverly is a universal Chrome extension which provides in-depth information about people’s profiles. Whenever someone emails you, the extension will look up their profile on several social media sites.
Those sites include Gmail, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Once the extension builds a profile, it will report back their links, email address, other social network sites, and more relevant information.
It’s like having access to all four of those social sites in one go. It will help you gather information about people much quicker, and you’ll be able to find critical contact details whenever you need them.
Conclusion
Looking past LinkedIn is like looking past a piece of gold on the ground. The platform might be “business only”. But it certainly holds a lot of ground when it comes to creating new connections with interesting people.
I think the more you look at the platform as a social network, the easier it becomes to weed out all the spam and low-quality content. Fact of the matter is, there are a lot of people using LinkedIn daily. And many of those people are interested in opportunities just like you are.
So with that said, hopefully this guide inspired you to take action. We’d love to hear from you and your personal stories on how you use LinkedIn to maximize the growth of your business.
