Mastering Your Marketing with LinkedIn

Although it’s raved about as the business world’s biggest social media platform, LinkedIn is still relatively unused by organisations to promote themselves and their services. Like most marketing strategies you’ll need to make a long-term commitment as it will require ongoing management, but used efficiently it can really spark sales and interest in your business.
In this article we consider four ways to master LinkedIn marketing and make it a valuable part of your social media marketing strategy.

1. Build a Business Presence

Before you start conquering the world of LinkedIn, you will need to build a presence for your business. Visibility is vital in this kind of strategy as you need to be accessible to your customers.
Look at your LinkedIn company page as an extension of your website. Information like your contact details and a list of the services you provide need to be available for users. Keep all visual aspects of your profile as similar to your website homepage as you can. Graphics, colour schemes and brand logos should remain consistent throughout all your online platforms to make your business identifiable and easily recognisable.

2. Launch a LinkedIn Group

LinkedIn groups are becoming a powerful tool for marketing a business and its services. With the same qualities as an online forum, a LinkedIn group works as a way for fellow, like-minded people to connect with each other and discuss topics relevant to your business.
The ability to have a featured website for the forum enables you to help it work to your business’ advantage. With a URL on show, your connections may find themselves searching your website out of curiosity, or who knows, even purpose. This is a sure-fire way of driving traffic and maybe picking up customers in the process. 

3. Connect with Other Users

A social media site is nothing without its users and that’s why it’s important to connect with as many people that share your passions. Consider inviting clients, customers, vendors, even partners to follow your LinkedIn exploits. Increasing relationships beyond the office is a great way to build a solid customer service reputation and connecting with them allows you to carry on helping them with any queries past your initial dealings.
Don’t forget to invite your employees. It’s been found that employees are 70% more likely to like/comment/share your content and they might be the difference between being found by a potential client and not.

4. Provide Compelling Content

Don’t think that because of its standing as a business-centric social media site LinkedIn is only for boring, serious stuff! Like any other user focused site, you need to have compelling content that will make them want to return again and again.
Keep your content as exciting and informative as possible. Consider sharing up to date news from within the industry or clever tips that may help users achieve a specific goal, whether that’s increasing site traffic or choosing a colour scheme for their kitchen. All engagement is good engagement so give your users something to share!
Apart from regular status updates, use your LinkedIn profile to deliver news and promotions from your own organisation. Have you got an offer on during the month of November? Have you just celebrated your business’ fifth birthday? Tell people about it! Not only are you promoting your services but creating a talking point. With LinkedIn’s corporate reputation, don’t forget to post any available career vacancies. Who knows? The perfect candidate might just be following your activity.

To Wrap Up…

LinkedIn is the perfect platform for advertising your organisation and its services. Engaging users with sharable content and connecting with them on a one to one basis is a useful way to promote your business and build your reputation quickly.

Do you use LinkedIn as part of your Social Media Marketing Strategy? Do you have any tips for amplifying your presence? Please share your comments below…