LinkedIn is one of the top social media platforms for lead generation according to Hootsuite, so it’s important for marketers to consider LinkedIn as part of their social media marketing strategy. LinkedIn marketing, however, is not the right fit for every business. If the customers of your product or service are business owners and working professionals, then LinkedIn is the right spot for you. Additionally, LinkedIn marketing can serve the recruiting and higher education industries. If what you’re selling does not fit into any of these categories, reevaluate if LinkedIn marketing is the right fit. In other words, if your product or service has a business focus, also known as business-to-business marketing, it should be effective on LinkedIn. If what you’re selling has more of a personal focus, then Facebook and Twitter will be better social media platforms to focus on.
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions
Now that you’ve determined whether LinkedIn marketing will benefit your business, it’s time to create a company page. Sometimes, LinkedIn has already created a company page for your business if your employees have listed it as their workplace on their personal profiles. So, before you create a company page, check and see if LinkedIn hasn’t already created one. If they have, you’ll need to go through the process of claiming the page. Instructions on how to claim the page can be found in the LinkedIn Help Center.
When you are creating your company page, you’ll want to make it as detailed as possible. Pick a cover image that accurately portrays your business and use your company logo as the profile photo. LinkedIn data shows that company pages with logos get six times more traffic. Next, create a company description, fill in company details such as location, and then you can publish your company page! After publishing, remember to invite your employees, customers, and anyone else you think will have interest in your page!
LinkedIn Social Media Strategy
A big part of having an effective LinkedIn social media strategy is having engaging content to post. This is easier said than done, however, as it’s hard to determine what content is deemed engaging. If you read the following LinkedIn content marketing tips, you’ll learn how to create interesting content that will get users to follow your company page and share your content.
Things to share on LinkedIn include blogs, videos, infographics, case studies, and more. LinkedIn is a great way to build brand awareness but posting just about your brand isn’t going to get your company page “follows.”. To get those “follows,” you’ll need to be posting highly informative content that people want to see and engage with. One way to do this is to share your knowledge about your industry. No, this doesn’t have to be company secrets or complex solutions to problems. But share basic information that your followers may not know about your industry or share basic solutions to common problems that your customers are having. This will help create a varied and interesting feed that potential customers will want to engage with.
Additionally, take advantage of sharing others’ content. You’ll want your company page feed to be mostly original content you have created but sharing well-researched and informative content from another source will vary your feed even more and paves the way for your company page to become a trusted resource to find out industry information. A good thing to know when posting content on LinkedIn is that LinkedIn Bots rate your content as spam, clear, or low-quality. You’ll want to aim for that clear category, as clear posts get authority on newsfeeds. Additionally, you’ll want to be posting consistently. How consistently you should post depends on your industry, and it can be hard to come up with original and interesting things to post when you’re posting so often. Some great ways to find topics to post about include:
- Who are other influencers in your industry? What are they talking about?
- Listen to your audience. What are they commenting on your post? What are they posting and reposting?
- Survey. Ask your followers what they would like to see more of and if there are any topics they would like to hear about that you haven’t covered yet.
Additionally, knowing when to post can increase engagement on your posts. According to 14 different studies done by Hubspot, Forbes, and other influencers, the best days to post are midweek, or Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. The best times to post are the morning, lunchtime, and after work, or between 7-8AM, 12PM, and between 5-6PM. Posting at these times and days are a great place to start, and once you get your page established you can use LinkedIn Analytics to find the best times and days to post for your specific page.
LinkedIn Ads
In addition to creating content to post on your LinkedIn company page, LinkedIn offers paid advertising. There are three types of Ad Units available on LinkedIn: Text Ads, Sponsored Content, and Sponsored InMail.
Text Ads
These are located on the right rail of the page and can only been seen by desktop users. A .03% CTR is considered good for this ad, but that is a low CTR overall. Text ads are not advised if you have a small target.
Sponsored Content
This type of ad unit is the most recommended to about 95% of B2B advertisers on LinkedIn, as it is good for multiple goals. It is located on the newsfeed, and a .4% CTR is considered good. Approximately 70% of the people who see these ads are on a mobile device, so this is a great ad choice for those looking to reach mobile users.
Sponsored InMail
There is a cost every time an email is sent out, ranging between $0.35 and $0.85. An important thing to remember when using Sponsored InMail is that there is no guarantee that the email will be opened or even seen, the email is just sent to the user’s inbox. Sponsored InMail isn’t recommended for everybody, but has been successful when used in recruiting, for a live in-person free event, or a special-access sneak peek.
LinkedIn Marketing Strategy
Using LinkedIn as a marketing tool is a great way to promote products and services, as it has an array of social media and paid advertising opportunities that many different businesses can take advantage of. Using our guide to understand the basics of LinkedIn Social Media Strategy and LinkedIn Paid Advertising will help increase your lead generation. Remember, it’s always a good idea to switch up strategies if you find one isn’t working. Now, get started with your LinkedIn Marketing and good luck!
