Making the Most of LinkedIn for Social Media Marketing

There are a lot of digital marketing techniques to choose from, one of which is social media marketing. This is the process of using social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn to promote your brand, product, or service. It tends to involve creating and sharing content on social media channels, engaging with the audience, and building relationships with potential and existing customers. You can use various tactics as part of your social media marketing strategy such as creating and sharing blog posts, images, videos, infographics that resonate with your audience. In this blog, we are focusing on making the most of LinkedIn for social media marketing.

The goal of social media marketing is to build brand awareness, drive traffic to a website, increase sales and build customer loyalty. This is the case regardless of which platform you are using, but it works in a different way on LinkedIn. Using LinkedIn for social media marketing means focusing on connecting with others in your industry or business community, and spreading the word about what you do, without outrightly selling a product or service. It’s not something that will happen overnight, and social media marketing results take time, but hard work really does pay off. Here are four ways that you can make the most out of LinkedIn for social media marketing.

Optimise Your Company Page

Though you might have a company page on LinkedIn, you need to make sure that it’s properly optimised. The page needs to represent your brand and your business values, and it should clearly showcase who you are and what you do to the world. There are a range of page features on LinkedIn for you to use, so take advantage of these and make your page stand out. Not only will this engage and attract the right kind of people, but it shows that you are taking your digital marketing seriously.

Optimising your company page means adding a profile picture, writing a compelling tagline, adding a detailed description and engaging with others. Give as much information about the company as you can, and highlight what makes your business different from your competitors. Even small details such as providing some company history or connecting with employees can make a big difference to how professional, legitimate and established your business appears online.

Focus on Building Connections

A lot of other social media networks put a large focus on sales and a broad reach, and this is something that you are likely to notice when using Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as a business. However, LinkedIn puts a heavier focus on making stronger individual connections. It’s not so much about selling a product or service on LinkedIn, it’s about networking and solidifying yourself within a business community. You can certainly mention your products and services on LinkedIn, your main focus shouldn’t be getting leads and sales.

Your time on LinkedIn is more likely to be spent connecting with other business owners in your industry, rather than engaging with potential customers. This can be daunting at first, especially as it’s likely to be very different to what you are used to on social media, but this shouldn’t be the case. Everyone is on LinkedIn to build their network, so don’t be shy about messaging.

Share from a Range of Sources

It’s important to share content on LinkedIn, and you should vary this as much as possible. Instead of posting the same type of content, share from a wide range of sources, and share the content of others. Of course, everything you share should be relevant and interesting to your readers. Sharing content will help you to get high engagement on LinkedIn, including on other websites. This engagement comes from people reading, liking, commenting on and sharing the post. The LinkedIn algorithm encourages external linking – which is a unique feature, as the likes of Instagram do not put any weight on external linking – and from influencers on the platform.

A lot of people make the mistake of only linking to their own company’s articles, research and website, but this can get stale quickly. There is nothing wrong with doing this occasionally, as it’s a good way to drive traffic to your website, but it shouldn’t be the only type of content you post. To ensure that followers are continually engaged in what you are posting, mix things up and incorporate sharing from other websites and accounts.

Check Analytics and Refine

One of the best things about social media is that you can use analytics to track how well your marketing efforts are doing, and LinkedIn is no exception. LinkedIn has a rich analytics platform, which lets you work out exactly what and when to post to get the best engagement. Instead of posting as and when you want to, and hoping for the best, you can post knowing that you have a good chance of engaging your followers. If something isn’t working – for example, if you aren’t getting the engagement you need – you can use the analytics to adjust things accordingly. This ensures that you will get the most out of your time on LinkedIn.

At Profici, we are firm believers that every business should be doing social media marketing for their business. It doesn’t matter what your business does or the industry that you are in, social media marketing can make a huge difference to your online success. There are a range of platforms to choose from including Facebook and Instagram, but LinkedIn is often the ideal choice for businesses large and small. To find out more about using LinkedIn for social media marketing, get in touch with our talented team of experts.