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Aug 30, 2023
LinkedIn is often looked at as the social media platform best used to share industry information and corporate news and updates. It’s rarely used as a place for showing parts of one’s life unrelated to their career. It is an online business networking platform. So, how can you use LinkedIn to build your brand and gain more exposure? This article will dive into what’s needed to build a solid LinkedIn marketing strategy.
A good marketing strategy starts with goals, specifically defining your target audience and mapping out a plan to reach them. In addition to peer-to-peer connection, one great opportunity with LinkedIn is B2B marketing. Businesses of all industries are active on LinkedIn daily and a collaboration, or your next great hire, could be waiting for you there. Just how much potential? Let’s look at the demographics and usage stats for LinkedIn to help you determine your most engaged audience there.
LinkedIn has more than 61 million businesses and 900 million users worldwide. Of this number, 199 million users are in the U.S. Men make up a majority of users, but not by a landslide. The LinkedIn audience is heavily populated with professional millennials, many of which have a college degree and have a household income higher than the national median.
These data points are just a starting point for identifying your LinkedIn target audience. As with all other social media platforms, the most reliable way to know who your audience is and what content they enjoy engaging with is to look at the analytics for your channel.
Once you know who you are trying to reach, set-up your LinkedIn page to be as powerful as possible. First, have a clear, recent, profile photo that shows your face, likely a headshot style photo. If you are building a company page, using your logo as your profile photo is fine. Next, select an eye-catching profile header image. If you have a lot you want to show off, this could be a good place for a simple collage of photos. Your headline should clearly define the industry you are in and succinctly say what you do. The details will come below in your summary which should be authentic and display your passion for your work. This is where you can inspire people to want to know more and stay connected with you.
Even if you are light on content in some areas, make sure to complete as many profile sections as you can so your profile is complete. If you are building a company page, utilize the page tabs available to help organize your content.
LinkedIn is not the place to show off your latest sales and drive hard sales. This is a networking platform where your primary focus will be filling the pipeline with new leads and nurturing professional relationships. You can show off your latest products in a creative, behind-the-scenes way, but don’t post a link to purchase. Utilize LinkedIn to educate your audience and make connections. Prioritize sharing over selling.
If you don’t have a clear vision for your LinkedIn page, browse other company profiles in the LinkedIn Directory and take notes. Looking at how other companies are utilizing LinkedIn can also fuel your creative thinking as you start to plan your content.
For example, Amazon’s company page lists its overview, including locations, open positions and employees (those who opt-in to create a profile and link to the company page). Amazon also utilizes LinkedIn to post company updates, share impact stories to build brand loyalty and feature employees which helps connect people to the brand.
Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts uses a “Life” tab on their LinkedIn profile where they post video content bringing the brand, and experiences, to life. In the dropdown menu on the “Life” tab, people can explore the company on LinkedIn similar to how they would on a website.
By browsing the millions of companies on LinkedIn, you will see many similarities in their profile structures and content types. Many focus on building a connection between their employees and customers, showcasing their positive impacts, inspiring future employees to apply and posting content that supports the company mission.
Similar to other social media platforms, PLANOLY has the ability for subscribers to auto-post their content to LinkedIn. LinkedIn posting frequency varies based on content type and audience. For example, if you are sharing long-form blog articles relevant to your industry, you probably don;t want to post more than one of those a day. However, if you are sharing a variety of content types, it is ok to post more than once a day, but generally no more than twice.
If you are posting content to multiple channels, having the PLANOLY dashboard will let you look at everything in a single view. This can help you plan and stagger the content to schedule for each channel at times when they are likely to reach the most people. PLANOLY helps you organize your content so you can be sure you are publishing a variety of content types, keeping your profiles fresh and relevant.
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