The Top 10 Tips for Successful Marketing on LinkedIn

(Updated: 26 July 2022)

Most people know of LinkedIn as the largest professional network in the world. It is a powerful platform that business professionals can use to source potential candidates or look for new job opportunities. LinkedIn also provides businesses with multiple options to research and engage with their target audiences, increase product or service visibility, and expand on their B2B connections.

LinkedIn has helped millions of professionals and jobseekers access opportunities and grow their careers and networks, but it can just-as-easily help businesses market themselves and their offerings. The connections, networks, and markets formed on LinkedIn can provide the space and exposure needed to build and promote your brand.

Unfortunately, too many businesses and individuals have, do not make use of the incredible marketing possibilities afforded by the platform.

Here are 10 tips, features, and strategies to help you make better use of marketing opportunities on LinkedIn:

1. Make valuable connections and identify target audiences
   The targeting capabilities afforded to LinkedIn users is unparalleled in the world of digital marketing. Businesses can utilize this advanced feature to research and identify their target audience in terms of location, industry, company size, and even job role. By incorporating these insights into your overall marketing strategy, you can build stronger, more accurate connections and increase your customer base, you can also identify who is visiting your page, which followers are engaging with your content and what they are looking for.
2. Create and share high-quality and valuable content
   Once you’ve connected with the right target audience, you should maintain communication with them by means of regular status updates, blog posts, carousel image ads, video ads and so much more. Being consistent with your posts is a way your brand stays in front of their network. However, it’s important that the content you share is relevant to their needs. You can also directly engage with your target audience and invite them to join your mailing list to share information on industry related problems that your company can solve, for example, a case study which demonstrates the problem, your company’s solution, and the results achieved for customers in a similar field.
3. Grow your email marketing list as well as your strategy
   Once you’ve engaged with your target audience, you can provide them with an enticing offer such as sharing relevant industry information, case studies, white papers, or in some cases you can even offer to review something of theirs free of charge. These offers can persuade them to join your network and provide you with the opportunity to start building a long-lasting client relationship.
4. Utilise the LinkedIn Ads services
   Much like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social media platforms, LinkedIn offers unique, platform-based advertising opportunities to boost your engagement on their site. LinkedIn has a ‘pay-per-click’ and ‘pay-per-1000 impressions’ service that make use of various demographic features to identify potential leads. These features allow you to customize your ads to target individuals or companies based on company name, job title, job function, skills, type of education and groups. Their ad functionalities range from Sponsored Posts to Text Ads and Sponsored InMail to LinkedIn Video Ads – which is their newest and, conceivably, most powerful advertising format yet.
5. Create business and professional profiles that matter
   It’s incredibly important to have an updated and consistent presence for your brand through its own company profile page. As many professionals prefer to engage with people, they do often review the social media profiles before engaging with the website. Therefore, your company profile should have up-to-date contact information, a detailed bio of your business and its services and of course regular posts to show that your brand is active. Another important thing to consider is getting your employees involved, if possible, by getting them to create and complete their profile setups on LinkedIn. Ensure they use professional photos as this provides your audience the opportunity to show who you are, what you do and how you can help your connections. Your profile should matter to those who visit it, while celebrating your brand and what it stands for.
   
   Consistency means up to date:

• • Biography, Summary, and Pages
  • Status Updates
  • Articles, Videos and Shareable Content
  • Recommendations
  • Projects and Expertise
  • Patents, Certifications, and Awards

6. Put a face to your employees and teams
   Getting to know the people behind the business, is another way for your target audience to connect with your brand. By having your team create or complete the setup of their LinkedIn profiles, they can showcase their individual skills, provide a description of what they do for the company, and introduce their connections to your brand. These profiles can be an opportunity for your business to celebrate its employees’ professional histories, project experience and industry expertise – and for your customers to get to know them more personally.
7. Stay visible to the potential leads and connections around you
   Every business and professional on LinkedIn is a potential customer until they have shown a specific lack of interest. Maintaining your exposure and activity on social media is key to any good digital marketing strategy. Stay in touch with connections who have expressed interest and show other ways you could benefit them. Utilise location services and LinkedIn Ads functions to help find interested users and remain visible within your industry and its online communities.
8. Be part of the LinkedIn community and join relevant groups
   LinkedIn offers multiple community features and resources that can help you conveniently and actively communicate with clients, partners, and other users in the industry. Groups are the best community feature for businesses to stay active, meet likeminded professionals and engage your community. Join groups that are relevant to your industry and interact with thousands of potential leads and build a rich network of contacts. Your company can even create a group of its own. This is a brilliant way to expand your influence and engagement on the LinkedIn platform and your pages on it.
9. Optimise your page performance
   SEO is vital to any business conducted in the digital age. This is no different for social media platforms, such as LinkedIn, which use keywords, trends and other digital indicators of what content is highly engaged with and often shared. Claiming your custom URL and other platform benefits, sharing high-quality content, and updating your business profile will raise your interest and shareability in their algorithm and help optimise your page’s performance.
10. Start with connections, then build real relationships
    The key takeaways from this list are that LinkedIn is a social network for professionals and businesses to connect with other professionals and other businesses. As a marketing tool, it is an amazing way to increase your business’s exposure while sharing important information and building valuable connections. Connections that, when fostered, can become your future strategic partners, business partners and customers. Over time, these are built into real, lasting relationships that will benefit you and your company for years to come.

Are you interested in building your LinkedIn profile and connecting with your target audience? Contact us for Content Marketing discussion today.

We have expert consultants who can help you optimise and expand your social media advertising campaigns to help grow your business online. For more information, visit Cognite Marketing.