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011 Digital

The Beginner’s Guide to LinkedIn Marketing: 2021


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Table of Contents

This article will give you a complete beginner’s guide to LinkedIn marketing. That will help you to increase your conversions x13, sales & your profits x3

History of LinkedIn

LinkedIn was launched in May 2003 as a professional networking site. Over the years, it has transformed into not only a platform that connects skilled job seekers to appropriate employers, it is now an incredibly useful business marketing tool. LinkedIn is home to about over 40 million B2B (business to business) influencers.

Unlike other social networking sites such as Facebook and Instagram, which would most likely work faster for B2Cs (business to consumers), LinkedIn offers a goldmine of opportunities for B2B marketers. This is because the main goal of a LinkedIn user is to network, gather and engage with information solely for commercial purposes. Therefore, your employees, prospective influencers, and others who can affect your business get an opportunity to interact with your marketing without other distractions.

LinkedIn marketing statistics

Statistics also agree that LinkedIn is a great social media marketing tool. For example, 91 percent of marketing executives rate LinkedIn as the best place to find high-quality content. More than 50 percent of all B2B social traffic comes from LinkedIn. 94 percent of B2B marketers say LinkedIn is their best distribution channel. About 45 percent of people who read LinkedIn articles are managers, directors, VPs or C-suite.

With these figures in mind, it’s clear that B2B marketers who aren’t running strong LinkedIn campaigns are leaving qualified leads on the table.

LinkedIn pages

LinkedIn pages are the best way for social media marketing while LinkedIn groups work best for networking. There are personal and company pages that work simultaneously. You can create a company profile from a personal one but not the other way round.

You can generate sales from people visiting your Company Pages. LinkedIn also makes Company Pages personal by providing available information about the people working at your company.

You can post news, updates, videos, articles, and pictures, which ‘Followers’ of the page will then see on their own LinkedIn feeds.

The uses of a LinkedIn page are to:

  •  Join conversations that matter by editing your profile via the LinkedIn app.
  • Follow hashtags that are in line with your business.
  • Share PDFs, PowerPoints, and articles in order to engage and gain followers
  • Interact with your employees, ask them to tag the company profile in their most active mentions and contributions.

If you’re aiming for your stories and posts to be shared widely by professionals on the network and aiming to build a following of like-minded people, then a Page is best. You may see little discussion on Page posts, but they are more likely to be seen by a bigger audience.

LinkedIn Groups

If your goal is to cultivate a small community of people and facilitate discussion, then a Group may be best. Content from groups can’t be shared outside of that Group network, but this may encourage people to comment and post more within that space.
A great social feature on LinkedIn is the ability to start a group that revolves around a specific interest.
By creating or joining an existing group, you can:

  • become part of a discussion on topics that influence your company
  • engage people who might do business with you
  • make sure members get to know about your business

However, it is important to not spam groups with marketing your business activity. You need to generate interest by discussing important issues so that you can showcase your knowledge. This will go a long way in building your brand, brand awareness, and trust in future clients as they know how knowledgeable you are in your area.

Unfortunately, for the time being, LinkedIn does not allow company profiles to join groups. You would have to do it from the professional personal profile. This is not all bad as it puts a human face to the company. Human interaction is important in raising user engagement when it comes to social media marketing. You can appoint individuals on your team, employees, or your most influential group members to join you in running your group. It might even be valuable for you to have certain members play as the experts for different discussion topics.

Remember to:

  • join groups that pertain to your industry
  • be a helpful group member by posting quality over quantity contributions which will make you a top influencer
  • start a discussion too which you can share with other social media platforms.
  • be consistent in your contributions to the group.

Benefits of LinkedIn Marketing for your business

1. Combine the power of social media with the utility of professional networking.

LinkedIn combines the power of social media in a professional capacity. Unlike other social media platforms which have a combination, you are guaranteed that your every interaction on LinkedIn will be directed to your company and growing your brand. It is like LinkedIn helps you to develop a marketing strategy. And by simply using the tools that it provides, you are implementing a sure-proof plan.

2. Increases your discover-ability in the marketplace

LinkedIn increases your discover-ability because it puts you directly in the line of your market. Furthermore, your LinkedIn page will show up in searches on the Internet and helps make it easy for future customers to locate you and learn more about what you have to offer.

3. Connect with other industry professionals

You get an opportunity to connect with other industry professionals through LinkedIn Groups and LinkedIn Answers. The discussions will keep you upbeat about strides in your industry. You can also connect with potential employees with a great experience.

4. Monitor your brand, your competitor’s brand, and news within your industry

Posts and updates are shown much like on Facebook and you can customize what you see and don’t see. Through Polls and discussions in the Groups, you can get instant feedback on which direction to go. LinkedIn has immediate insights and analytics! You can also increase your exposure on the LinkedIn Company Page for your products and services.

5. Increase Credibility and Attract New Business- LinkedIn offers a great opportunity to receive recommendations from past employees, clients, etc.

As mentioned before, LinkedIn has the advantage of almost immediate feedback. You can get recommendations from your current and past employees to further increase your credibility within the market. This also quickens the conversion rate as potential customers can get instant referrals through these recommendations.

LinkedIn marketing: content strategy

It is important to note that unlike Facebook, LinkedIn users aren’t on the hunt for content that helps pass the time or clickbait that’s mildly entertaining. These are B2B professionals wanting their workdays to be more efficient and their companies more successful. They want to use social media to network and reach out to suitable stakeholders quickly and efficiently.
Therefore LinkedIn content must be educational, research-driven, graphical, collaborative, motivational, and interactive.

Sure, LinkedIn’s a B2B platform, but audience engagement is audience engagement. Most companies now take leaves from other social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. However, when doing this, it is imperative to remember the tone. Maintain a professional tone as you would want to be taken seriously. Short auto-play videos, images, and motivational gifs can work too as long as the tone is adhered to. Successful use of this technique will be professional yet cheerful. You can even share your researched facts in the form of a short video, thus making that information available yet engaging.

The use of PowerPoint presentations is also engaging especially in LinkedIn Groups. They also make use of polls so as to engage fellow group members. Your polls must show your expertise in your area of profession. LinkedIn is not only about sales and business, it is also about education. Elaborating and making use of the latest technology puts you at an advantage.

Sharing articles is also a great LinkedIn content strategy. However, remember to make the article well-researched and informative. Do not tell professionals what they already know. Also, reference other innovators and leaders, add quotations. Make sure your articles have good visual aids in the form of accompanying images which you can put either as a header or within the article. LinkedIn is great because it suggests relating hashtags when you share your article. That way, users who are following those particular hashtags get to see your contribution on their timelines.

You can also share links to articles you would have read elsewhere and found interesting.

LinkedIn marketing: LinkedIn Ads

LinkedIn Ads can also add to your content for the page. As the numbers show, social ads for targeted audiences can generate stronger ROI than even some forms of organic content. So is the nature of operating on a more niche platform with user groups that concentrate mostly and who are there for business which they specifically desire.

By scanning the company’s LinkedIn content, a user can immediately get the idea if a profile or company is abreast of business trends, predictions for the future, and knowledge in their area of expertise through the content they post. Therefore a conversion rate is higher if you have a well-thought-out content strategy. Your employees can also contribute to the content although you have to be careful to go over it before sharing as it has to be in line with the mission and goals of the business.

How to grow your following on LinkedIn

  1. Make sure your company’s LinkedIn Page is complete and distinctly appealing to the target audience you want to attract. Pages with complete information get 30% more views.
  2. Optimize your page for SEO. That way, it will rank highly in the search engines.
  3. Engage your employees so that they can share on their profiles. They can also participate in keeping the company profile up to date.
  4. Post relevant content regularly.
  5. Mention influencers and companies you admire in Page updates.
  6. Launch a follower ad campaign. LinkedIn has several tools which promote LinkedIn adverts. You can use these to gain more followers.
  7. Share job postings on your company profile. A lot of people are on LinkedIn to find employment hence will follow your company profile in hope of staying informed on future opportunities.

LinkedIn marketing strategy

1· Define your goals

You can choose a few or all of these goals for your LinkedIn marketing strategy:
Build brand awareness
Generate qualified leads
Strengthen brand reputation
Engage with your target audience
Sell your product or service

2· Define your target audience

Follow the appropriate hashtags which are in line with your line of business. Also, join groups in which you can participate fully in. Creating a group of your own and inviting profiles you want to be associated with is also a way of defining your target audience.
You can outline your audience on the basis of different parameters such as job title, geographic location, industry, etc.
Remember that a successful LinkedIn marketing strategy focuses on understanding who your audience is and what they like.

3· Maintain a captivating Company profile

Your target audience is going to interact with your profile therefore make it as captivating as possible. Add all relevant information including your information about your products/services, employees, and headquarters, company logo, website URL, industry, company size, and other details. Your cover photo must also highlight a link to your brand at a glance.

4· Optimize the page

It cannot be stressed how important this strategy is because LinkedIn posts appear in the Google search engine. Therefore by using carefully chosen keywords, a link to your company website as well as well-researched articles, you will be well on your way to success in the search engine.

5· Use Images and Videos

In social media marketing, engagement is engagement. Do not be carried away by articles and forget to make your company page friendly. More about this strategy is in the LinkedIn content strategy above. Put your facts and research into videos, add motivational images and also use PowerPoint presentations to show your expertise.

6· Get help from your workforce

Create a content calendar with your workforce. They can help you to post and come up with interesting material for your company page. They can also be helpful in managing the Groups, whether you would have joined some or created your own.

7· Use LinkedIn marketing tools like Canva and Slideshare.

Slideshare allows you to upload your PowerPoint slides with a link to your company page. This increases your ranking in SEO and also adds traffic to your page.

LinkedIn Analytics

These will help you regularly to improve your LinkedIn marketing strategy. They will help you to keep track of post metrics to see what people engaged with most, what drove the most action, and what flopped. You can therefore adjust your content calendar accordingly.

The Analytics Dashboard is the main area to monitor LinkedIn page performance. You can monitor:
Visitors (data on people who visit your page)
Updates (engagement metrics for content posted on LinkedIn)
Followers (numerical and demographic information about people who subscribe to your page)

To check how your page is performing compared to your competitors, check the Companies to Track table. This section lets you compare where your page ranks when it comes to total followers and new followers.

Hootsuite Analytics is a recommended insights tool. From the Hootsuite dashboard, you’ll get a big picture view of how your LinkedIn marketing efforts measure up against your other social channels.

Step by step Guide

The Importance of a LinkedIn Marketing Strategy cannot be undermined. LinkedIn can be a sure-fire way of promoting your company’s reputation and growing its credibility. However, it requires you to put the best foot forward.

  1. Define Your Goals and use them to find the right target audience.
  2. Create a Captivating Company Page by ensuring that you have completed it and that all necessary information is available.
  3. Optimize and promote your Company Page. Engage your employees so that they can help you in this area.
  4. Create a well-thought-out and thorough content calendar which you should stick to. Use Insights and Analytics to make changes to content accordingly.
  5. Create Relevant and Engaging Content. Use Images and Videos to make your page more engaging and interesting. Just because it is professional does not mean that it should be boring. Follow relevant hashtags as well.
  6. Use Analytics to make necessary changes. Use them to also check your competitors’ pages and adjust in order to fit with market trends.

LinkedIn marketing checklist

Set up a professional profile

  • Choose a relevant category for your company
  • All company details
  • Upload company logo
  • Add tagline
 
LinkedIn Pages

  • Company description
  • Company location
  • Follow relevant hashtags
  • Custom CTA button
  • Share pages with employees etc.
 
Content Strategy

  • Articles
  • PowerPoint presentations
  • Polls
  • Video and Image content
  • Links to other articles
 
Marketing strategy

  • Groups
  • Content calendar
  • Rich media
  • Tag people and pages mentioned
 

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