Are you a regular on LinkedIn? If so, you will likely have noticed that it resembles a social media platform for professionals, businesses, and people looking for their next big career opportunity.
So should you have a LinkedIn marketing strategy? And if so, what should it look like? This post answers these questions and more so that you can utilise this platform alongside your other marketing systems, expanding your reach and audience.
Is a LinkedIn marketing strategy worthwhile?
The answer to this question depends on what your business offers, your budget, and your goals. It also depends on what you’re looking for from this marketing technique. If you wish to sell your products, you may choose to use LinkedIn paid ads. If you want to boost your brand image and show who you are as a business, you can create a great platform and post regular, excellent, on-brand content. LinkedIn, much like Facebook and Instagram, offers plenty of options and opportunities.
There are five main goals that marketing on LinkedIn can strive for. These include:
- Building brand awareness
- Strengthening brand reputation and trustworthiness
- Engaging with your target audience
- Generating leads
- Selling your product or service
And as a bonus, if you build a great platform, you can use your brand awareness and reputation to entice top talent, making excellent hires as your business grows.
This is an excellent platform to utilise if you target professionals, starting with LinkedIn ads.
How to create a LinkedIn strategy
As previously mentioned, your strategy will depend on your goals. However, let us assume that you would like to achieve all of the goals mentioned above and create a LinkedIn business strategy to cover them all.
Here are nine steps to creating a great LinkedIn marketing strategy:
1. Define your goals
Knowing your objectives and goals will dictate what and how you post on your LinkedIn business account and is a crucial starting point.
2. Research and understand your audience
Once you have your goals, you can define your target audience, utilising your existing audience and what you’re aiming for. Tailor your LinkedIn marketing efforts to your audience.
3. Analyse competitor's company pages
It can be incredibly useful to analyse what has worked for your competitors. It can be assumed that they will have a similar target audience, so they will also help you understand what your target audience wants to see.
4. Create a fantastic, engaging company page
This step is critical, as this will be the face of your company on this platform. Since this page is likely the first interaction your target audience will have with your brand, it should be captivating and expressive of who you are as a company.
5. Create relevant, high-quality content
If your business sells baby shoes, there is no point in posting about your favourite furniture polish. Instead, you will want to answer any questions that one might have about baby shoes. You will simultaneously improve your brand reliability if you post high-quality, informative content.
6. Post images and videos
Long blocks of text are simply not enticing and can quickly turn your audience away from your page. Post relevant, attractive images and videos will make your page more visually appealing, and they can often be just as useful as long informative posts.
7. Create a content calendar
It can be difficult to remember when and what to post. Create a content calendar to keep yourself on track, and post regularly.
8. Promote your company page
Now that you have an attractive, engaging page with a decent amount of high-quality content, it is time to promote your company page. The easiest way to do this is to ask all your employees and colleagues to become followers of your Company Page. in addition to this, you can add a “Follow” button to your emails, newsletter, blog and website so that people can become followers with just an easy click.
9. Encourage your employees to help
Your workforce can be extremely beneficial in promoting your page beyond simply following it. Encourage them to like and share your updates. On their personal LinkedIn profiles, they can also add your company as their employer, linking to your page.
Know how to use LinkedIn for business?
Using LinkedIn for business is sure to produce positive results, and generally offers a great return on investment. Keep in mind your particular goals, follow the nine steps of our LinkedIn strategy, and you’ll quickly be utilising a whole new marketing platform.
