9 Tips to Craft the Perfect LinkedIn Marketing Strategy

One popular social network for business is LinkedIn. Although it may not receive as much attention as Facebook or Instagram for business marketing, numerous companies have a presence on the platform. Not to mention, many professionals and forward-thinking thinkers use the forum. Businesses involved in business-to-business transactions especially cherish it.

There are over 610 million users on LinkedIn. Of them, 303 million have signed up as active monthly users, with 40% of them coming daily. LinkedIn is used by 63 million decision-makers and 90 million senior influencers/thought leaders, which is significant for many businesses. LinkedIn is where 97% of B2B marketers distribute their content, generating 80% of all B2B leads generated by social media.

LinkedIn is the preferred social network for thought leaders, senior executives, and management. Although serious decision-makers have little interest in Facebook status updates, Twitter tweets, YouTube videos, or Instagram photos, they frequently read thoughtful posts shared on LinkedIn with great interest.

As a result, most businesses should be active on LinkedIn and incorporate it into their whole online marketing plan. However, companies that sell to other businesses should ensure that LinkedIn is a key component of their marketing plan.

How the LinkedIn Algorithm Works

LinkedIn has been relatively open about how its algorithm works.

• An AI bot examines your content to ensure it is not spam. If your content does not pass this test, it is unlikely to appear in many people's feeds. Share only top-notch content on LinkedIn.

• A trial audience will be the first to see your post. After that, the algorithm will look at how those first few people interacted. LinkedIn will likely show your post to many more people if they don't seem interested.

• If the post was well-liked and shared by your initial audience, the LinkedIn algorithm will verify that the results are reliable for your audience network and that the position is not spam. The group of accounts they feed the post to will grow.

• Human editors will eventually get involved, assuming your post still performs well. After reading the post, they will determine whether it should be promoted to a larger audience.

Define Your LinkedIn Marketing Goals

LinkedIn marketing is just like any other social media marketing. Every campaign should start with the definition and setting of your objectives. It would help to ask yourself why you are running this LinkedIn marketing campaign. What do you want to get out of it?

Your objectives should be Timely, Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, or SMART. Specifically, you must ensure you can gauge the campaign's effectiveness using appropriate metrics.

Some common goals (expressed generally here, not fully SMART) include:

• Increasing brand awareness (most likely best assessed with information from the analytics on your LinkedIn page)

• Generating leads (since LinkedIn is the network where you are most likely to find prospective clients or decision-makers in business)

• Interacting with your intended audience (again, you can get information about this from the analytics on your LinkedIn page and less obviously from your involvement in LinkedIn groups)

• Though they may need to become more familiar with the platform, direct product sales are still possible on LinkedIn.

1. Know Your Target Audience

A vital element of a successful social media marketing strategy is thoroughly understanding your target audience's preferences and areas of interest. Investing time and money in marketing to consumers who will never be interested in your offering makes little sense. For example, you would only do a little marketing on LinkedIn if your product was aimed at teenagers still in school.

If prospective clients are active on LinkedIn, you should provide more specific demographic information.

It would help if you ascertained the fundamental attributes of the individuals most likely to purchase your product before the organization they work for. Although you may sell business-to-business (B2B) products, the decision to buy your product is not made by a business; instead, it is caused by a specific manager within each company. Therefore, it is essential to consider which manager would make the choice or who is most likely to recommend purchases within a company.

If your LinkedIn company page is already reasonably well-designed, you can use your analytics to get a good sense of the people interested in it. Do people who like and share your posts tend to behave in any particular way?

2. Perfect Your Company Page

Similar to many other social networks, LinkedIn features two sorts of pages: company pages and personal pages, where users list their previous positions and accomplishments. LinkedIn will create a company page for you when a manager or employee adds your company as a place of employment. But if you don't update and fill in the blanks, your company page will appear abandoned and neglected.

Any business on LinkedIn needs a visually appealing and informative company page. It'll be among the LinkedIn locations where members of your target audience are most likely to visit. If you sell products or use LinkedIn to increase brand recognition, consider it a virtual store.

You can showcase your company's great stories on your LinkedIn company page. It can be used to showcase your group and any honors you've received. Since LinkedIn is primarily a people network, you should highlight the public faces of your company on your LinkedIn company page.

Anyone looking to learn more about your company will look for your company page on LinkedIn. This is a widely used method of researching your business, including what you do, what you produce, where your offices are located, and the identities of your executives and senior management.

Your LinkedIn company page should reflect all of your other brandings. It should have links to your website URL, official logo, colors, and fonts. Consider prospective clients' questions and be prepared by providing the answers on your company page. You should carefully consider the copy you use on your LinkedIn page, including relevant keywords in your text, just like you should with all your online assets.

But make sure you keep your company page updated. You must consistently post pertinent, educational, and engaging content if you want to be taken seriously on LinkedIn.

3. Promote Your Company Page

Although your company page may appear in LinkedIn searches if you use keywords wisely, you need to promote it if you want people to visit your website. If not, you might only be able to attract one or two new visitors every month.

Promote your page whenever you have the chance. To encourage people to follow you on LinkedIn, all it takes is a LinkedIn logo linked to your website and other social media platforms. Your chances of success on LinkedIn increase with the visibility of your page.

Once someone follows your page, you will remain in their mind as they continue to see your posts and updates in their feed.

Asking your managers and staff to follow your company page is an excellent place to start this process, as it should provide you with enough initial data to look credible. Links to your LinkedIn profile can be added to newsletters and email signatures, among other things. Invite your current clientele to visit and follow your redesigned LinkedIn business page.

4. Create and Share Useful, Engaging Content

LinkedIn requires social interaction, just like any other social media. It cannot be regarded as set-and-forget advertising. Having people follow your account is only helpful if they get something in return. Over time, they would add you to a long list of ignored and followed reports and eventually forget about you.

It's crucial to remember that LinkedIn is a more "grown-up" and mature social network than many others, so sharing your cat memes there is probably not the best idea. Still, it's an ideal platform for writing and disseminating blog entries that appeal to your intended audience. LinkedIn is great for Thought Leadership articles because it lets you show off your industry knowledge.

While you can share links to posts you've published on your blog, research indicates that LinkedIn's algorithm prefers content published on the network over links from offsite sources.

You can write blog posts on LinkedIn directly from the platform. Although it isn't currently accessible through their mobile app, members can write, edit, and share articles on LinkedIn using the LinkedIn Publishing Platform.

It's okay for you to write unique content for each LinkedIn post. If you come across any other articles that your target audience would find valuable, you can share them. Recall that the main objective of your LinkedIn profile is to assist your intended audience, and gathering pertinent content from others can help you accomplish this just as much as creating original content.

5. Use Images and Other Media in Your Content

LinkedIn is still significant even though it is less dependent on visual media than YouTube or Instagram. An abundance of text will never result in greater engagement than a strong visual. Instead of sharing the image or text alone, you should include it in a text-based article.

You should use visual media to enhance your shared post, even though the text is its main component. Most of the time, the images or videos will draw someone in to read your article. Hopefully, they will follow your page if they enjoy your posts overall.

Instead of sharing YouTube videos, LinkedIn now encourages you to upload videos directly to the platforms. You can include multimedia in your posts for the LinkedIn Publishing Platform anywhere in the content, including tweets, slides, podcasts, videos, and images.

6. Be Active in LinkedIn Groups

Engaging in conversations on LinkedIn Groups is another way to project a social media persona on LinkedIn. This is an excellent approach to connecting with other business experts through networking. If you are picky about the groups you join, you should have more time to concentrate on communicating with your target audience. LinkedIn's search bar allows you to look for relevant groups.

You could start and run a group that specifically targets your desired demographic. It goes without saying that you will need to invest time in maintaining the discussion and encouraging people to join.

7. Include LinkedIn Ads in Your Campaign

Similar to most social networks, you can purchase ads on LinkedIn to improve your brand's performance. With LinkedIn's powerful targeting tools, you can ensure that your ads are seen by the people you want them to be.

8. Ads that you can purchase consist of:

• With sponsored content, you can amplify the content you share by paying for it. This implies that your posts reach a far wider audience compared to what you could accomplish naturally.

• PPC advertisements, known as text ads, can be found on various LinkedIn pages, including the group, profile, search results, and home pages.

• Sponsored InMails: Similar to email marketing but conducted through LinkedIn, sponsored emails let you send personalized messages to LinkedIn members.

9. Study Your LinkedIn Analytics

You ought to choose SMART objectives for your LinkedIn marketing campaign. Your goals must be measurable to meet one of these requirements. As a result, you should assess your progress in achieving those objectives.

Most of the time, LinkedIn Analytics has pertinent information for your company page. It provides helpful information about who visits your page and how they interact with your content.

Frequently Asked Questions

What should I include on my LinkedIn company page?

For any business, having an informative LinkedIn company page is essential. Consider your company's LinkedIn profile a virtual store, regardless of whether your business sells goods or uses it to build brand awareness. Here, you can highlight your team, share success stories about your business, and discuss the accolades you have received. Put it briefly, you should use it to draw attention to your company's public face. Answers to queries that your target audience is likely to have are also available.

How do I promote my company on LinkedIn?

In addition to using keywords, you can do a few other things to promote your company page on LinkedIn. First, request that all your managers and staff members follow your company page on LinkedIn. You may also invite your current clientele to attend. Secondly, ensure that your website, other social media accounts, and email signature all include a link to your LinkedIn page. Your company's chances of success on the platform will rise as more people see your LinkedIn page.

How do LinkedIn ads work?

LinkedIn ads can be purchased to boost brand performance. Sponsored content, text ads, and sponsored InMail are among the advertisements that you can buy. Sponsored content allows you to increase the reach of your posts by paying to amplify the content you share. PPC advertisements are on several LinkedIn pages, including the company homepage, profile pages, and search results pages. Lastly, you can send customized messages to LinkedIn members using Sponsored InMail, which functions similarly to email marketing.

Should I use images in the content that I share on LinkedIn?

Although visual media platforms like YouTube and Instagram are less critical to LinkedIn, images are still important. Adding an image will undoubtedly increase engagement. Using LinkedIn, you can add photos to text-based articles rather than share ideas. Your article's text will still be its primary focus, and an image will be added to add interest. Fortunately, adding multimedia to your article is simple and can be done anywhere.

What is the best content for LinkedIn?

Compared to many other social media platforms, LinkedIn is a more serious and mature platform. Here, you can write and publish blog entries that appeal to your intended readership. It works particularly well for thought leadership articles that demonstrate your industry knowledge. Although posts published on the LinkedIn platform have been shown to yield better results, you can still share links to blog posts that you have uploaded to your blog.