While millions of professionals use LinkedIn everyday to advance their careers and grow their business networks, LinkedIn offers marketers so much more. It's a common misconception that LinkedIn is solely for job seekers and those that hire them, but the fact is, with a little work,LinkedIn can be a lead generating machine!
At its core, LinkedIn is a social media site geared toward business professionals. It's about career advancement and development, making professional connections, engaging in industry related discussions and other business related activities.
Other social networks like Facebook, Twitter or Instagram are consumer based and businesses use those platforms to sell their products or services. Brand followers on these networks are aware that companies use them to sell their products or services. On LinkedIn, blatant selling, pushing your business and spamming are heavily frowned upon. Because of the completely different audience on LinkedIn a different approach to marketing is needed to get the results you seek, without violating the unwritten rules (and the TOS!) on the site.
Here are 12 LinkedIn tips, tricks and hacks to help you use LinkedIn as a source of new customers, new contact, and ultimately to grow your business!
First, The Basics
In order to maximize the marketing potential of LinkedIn, you need to start with the basics. Some of these LinkedIn tips might seem like common sense (and some of them are) but they are also the fastest way to begin marketing effectively on this powerful business platform!
1. Complete Your Profile!
Your LinkedIn profile is the heart of your efforts on the site. It usually ranks top five on Google when a prospect searches for your name. When you've met a prospect and they are doing their due diligence, searching to learn more about you, your product or service, company and previous experience, you need to have a rock solid profile or your first impression can be your last contact! Start by completing your profile, then work to beef it up.
2. Connect With Everyone You Can
LinkedIn purists believe that you should stick to who you actually know when building your contacts. LinkedIn is a huge resource for potential business associates. Of course start with everyone you know, but don't be afraid to expand your network. Introduce yourself to others, make new friends and help others to connect. Accept invitation from others who wish to add you to their contact list. The larger your network, the more new connections you'll make.
3. Use CTAs to Customize Your Websites
This one of the most basic, simple and effective LinkedIn tips! Creating a call to action creates more attention that a generic link that simply says, “my website”.” Make it look interesting so that when people come to your LinkedIn profile, they'll feel inspired to click your links and learn more about you and your business.
4. Make Your Profile Compelling
LinkedIn profiles can be boring affairs that showcase zero personality or interesting attributes of their owners. Add some interesting stories, have a video recommendation pop-up, or at least tell visitors who you are, who you help, and how you do it, to give them some insight and direction. Let your personality shine through your profile!
5. Add A Company Profile
A newer feature on LinkedIn is the company page section. The Company Profile is a great place to add a video, share information about your products or services and give people more information about your company the the people who work there!
6. Optimize For Search
People are constantly searching LinkedIn for employee candidates, industry experts, freelancers and more. Optimize your profile to help you get found on the site. There are five places to add keywords to optimize your profile for search, they are:
- Your Headline
- Your Current Work Experience
- Your Past Work Experience
- The Summary
- The Specialties Section
By optimizing these sections using keywords and phrases, you're more likely to rank high on the site and drive more traffic.
Beyond the Basics
The first six LinkedIn tips have helped you to get the basics covered, it's time to dig into the site a bit more. The following LinkedIn tips can help you to optimize your use of LinkedIn for driving traffic, increasing contacts and growing your business online and off!
7. Find Targeted Customers and Connections
LinkedIn offers unparalleled opportunities in the realm of digital advertising. You can pinpoint exactly the industries, company size, and job role of your ideal prospects. For example, you can target businesses with under 100 employees, based in the U.S. and withing that list, only target employees who are decision makers.
8. Stay Top-of-Mind with Customers
If you know the criteria for your selling your product or service, introduce yourself and stay in touch with those that express interest. Do weekly status updates, create LinkedIn blog posts and keep your name in front of prospects. Consider inviting high-quality prospects to a webinar, or offer them a white paper. It's simple to take a systematic approach for keeping your business front-of-mind on LinkedIn.
9. Use Sponsored Updates
This is a pay service for pushing your posts onto an individual's LinkedIn fee. This is a pay-per-click feature similar to other sites in terms of demographic targeting (location, gender, age) but offers deeper abilities for customization. You can target you campaign using company names, job titles, skills, schools, job functions and groups.This is an excellent way to promote thought leadership content, targeted to the audience with a strong call to action. By promoting premium content using Sponsored Updates you can effectively target a niche audience and if your content is relevant, generate leads.
10. Post High-Quality Content
High quality content should educate, inform, or entertain your readers. By providing high quality information you can begin to establish yourself as a thought leader in that space. This naturally leads to more business as prospects will recognize the value that your insights offer. It's basic, but it gets results.
11. Join Groups, Create Groups and Stay Active
Groups that are relevant to your business and target demographic are a great way to engage and gain information. Creating groups can help you to have prospects and contacts finding you! More importantly, you can message members of groups you belong to, even if you aren't directly connected. This is a great way to build contacts and build relationships with potential clients.
12. Avoid The Hard Sell
Keep your engagement positive and valuable by sharing relevant content and engaging in groups. Don't be intrusive. People don't want to be interrupted so do your best to be “discovered” on the site. There are lots of people acting like hard selling old school traditional marketers on LinkedIn. Don't Do It!
Properly used, linkedIn can be an invaluable resource for growing your contact list, gaining thought leadership in your industry and growing your business. These twelve LinkedIn tips can help you to get started maximizing LinkedIn as a new valuable source for generating leads and closing sales. Remember to offer value, make your profile interesting and be genuine and you'll do just fine!
Rob Steffens
I am the Director of Marketing here at Bluleadz. I'm a huge baseball fan (Go Yankees!). I love spending time with friends and getting some exercise on the Racquetball court.