​​​​​​Most marketers are well aware of the power of social media and the importance it plays in a marketing strategy. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, snapchat and so on. But rarely does LinkedIn feature in the plan.

“Yes, I have a LinkedIn account, but I don’t use it as much as I do Facebook or Twitter”
“Our company posts updates to our business page, the same way we do on our other platforms”
“We don’t get much response from LinkedIn”
“It’s not a main focus for our strategy”
“I don’t really understand how it works”

LinkedIn is not marketed as a social networking site. Rather, it is presented as a professional networking site. When someone logs in, their mind is in business mode. Unlike other social networks, LinkedIn has no other competitors, everyone who wants to network professionally will have a profile. It has served its corner of the social media market place well, and is constantly developing to ensure it is the only site for professionals. With over 500 million users and the opportunity to connect with all of them, it is a mystery why business owners are reluctant to give LinkedIn the same attention they would give to Twitter or Facebook. Here are my top 5 reasons why you should be utilising LinkedIn.

 

Connecting and Generating Leads

This one sounds obvious, but it’s remarkable how much this is misinterpreted. LinkedIn is a database of professionals from entry level employees all the way up to business leaders. Connections on LinkedIn really are about quality, not quantity. You wouldn’t want your news feed filled with irrelevant content from someone you would never do business with, would you?
 

Now that you have the connections, lets generate some leads! You have the opportunity to build a professional relationship with the people you want to work with, so when it’s time to campaign, they will want to work with you!

 

LinkedIn Ads

LinkedIn has a history of selecting the most successful features from other social networking sites and building on them. LinkedIn's ad tool works in a similar way to Facebook, where you can tailor who you would want the Ad to be seen by. In the world of social media, LinkedIn Ads have proven to be a better investment for B2B marketing. Essentially your ad can be viewed by the decision makers and power influencers in your selected market place, and as we mentioned earlier, everyone on LinkedIn has their business mode on. This is THE place to pitch your business and services.

 

Blogging

The blogging feature on LinkedIn, via the Pulse app, allows the user to create and upload blog content directly onto the site, much like the platforms WordPress and Tumblr. As anyone who has started a blog will know, the most challenging aspect its success is gaining a following. LinkedIn have eliminated that problem by having your blog posts link directly to your profile, therefore sharing it with all your existing connections. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, your content will then become part of the LinkedIn blog databases and can be viewed by anyone on the platform. The Pulse app is integrated into the LinkedIn website to provide users content based on a user’s professional interests. LinkedIn says it encourages users to write about things they are passionate about, which will bring real value to other users.

 

Thought Leadership

One of the greatest tools on LinkedIn is the ability to share industry knowledge with other professionals. If done correctly, you can establish yourself as a trusted influencer amongst others in your sector by doing the following:

  • Joining industry related groups and sharing your knowledge and content with others directly in your niche. If you really want to establish yourself as a leader, you could create your own group.
  • Sharing external articles or blog posts introduced by a commentary by yourself. Therefore, whatever the article says, it will be compared to what you have to say about it.
  • Optimising your personal profile. Ensure you have completed as many fields on the profile as possible, going into detail about your experience. Also, according to LinkedIn, a completed profile and its content are 40 times more likely to show up to other users.

Once you have established yourself as a leader, your businesses can gain more credibility, attention and generate more leads as people will want to work with you.

 

Recruiting

Recruiting a new team member is always hard. Recruiting the RIGHT team member is even harder.

The largest demographic currently signing up to LinkedIn are young professionals and recent graduates, each with a personalised profile you can view prior to even approaching them. You can access more talent by buying the Business LinkedIn version, but you can still reach a huge demographic using the free version. When creating an ad, you can tailor the demographic you are looking for in the search tool. LinkedIn gives you the chance to seek out your perfect candidate so rather than waiting for them to come to you, you can go to them!

Alternatively, you can post job listings directly onto LinkedIn as it is a lot easier to sieve through candidate profiles than CVs. Remember to make sure your profile and your company page are up to date, so people will want to come and work for your company.

My bonus piece of advice would be to treat the platform as you would a face-to-face networking event. If you continuously talk about yourself and your company, nobody will listen to you. Engage in conversation, share content which will help people and connect with people you genuinely would like to do business with. It’s called social media for a reason; be social!

If you need some help with your LinkedIn, or you like some more information, get in touch!