LinkedIn: The Place to Establish Brand Trust in Your Industry
LinkedIn marketing is one of the most powerful and versatile marketing tools out there. However, many people assume it’s only for employers and job-seekers. This couldn’t be further from the truth. With more than 740 million users worldwide, LinkedIn is one of the top social platforms for business networking, growing sales, and increasing brand awareness.
Whether you are a job-seeker looking for a new position or an industry professional looking to learn more about current trends and ideas, or a founder trying to build brand awareness, LinkedIn is the place for you.
LinkedIn marketing, when done right, allows you to establish yourself as an expert in your industry and build trust in your brand.
How?
By creating valuable and quality content and sharing it with your growing network.
Here we will discuss ways in which you or your business can use LinkedIn marketing to build your network and grow a sustainable business.
Why LinkedIn Marketing is a Powerful Tool
Since 2002, LinkedIn has been the go-to job board for both employers and job-seekers. Initially, LinkedIn was a place where employers would post job descriptions and applicants would find work opportunities. However, since then, the job board has grown to become a social space where people can share business ideas and success stories, learn about industry news and trends, and network with others in their field.
LinkedIn has more than 97 million business decision-makers. With LinkedIn being used so heavily for business-related interactions, you can use this social channel as an opportunity to improve brand awareness and reach key stakeholders at every level. And with LinkedIn marketing, you can boost your brand image and help other employees and businesses understand what your business does and how they can benefit from it.
How You Can Leverage LinkedIn Marketing to Authentically Grow
LinkedIn offers a variety of features and tools that users and businesses can use to find new connections and grow within their industry. With these features, you can:
- Share your insights and expertise,
- Connect with other professionals in your industry,
- Identify talent and quality leads,
- And drive organic traffic to your website.
All by maintaining an active account and participating in the community.
Here we will outline the various methods and features you can use LinkedIn Marketing to:
- Make New Connections — reach more buyers and decision-makers in your industry,
- Strengthen Relationships — drive engagement and build trust,
- Generate Sales — find quality leads and increase sales.
1. Make New Connections
The main purpose of a platform like LinkedIn is to help people make valuable and relevant connections. The key here is to build a business profile that lets users know what you and your business do. Use your LinkedIn business profile to inform and educate possible connections about your business, its values and missions, successes, and more.
So, what can you do? LinkedIn offers many features to flesh out your individual or business profile. Let’s look at ways to build your profile and make new connections.
2. Strengthen Relationships
LinkedIn as a social channel gives brands the opportunity to share their experience and establish themselves as an expert in the field. And you can do this by creating valuable content through posts, newsletters, and webinars. Here are some ways to strengthen relationships on LinkedIn:
3. Generate Sales
So, how can all of this help you generate more sales and leads? By establishing yourself and your brand as a trusted resource.
You post valuable content. You participate in relevant group discussions and conversations. You ask insightful questions to learn more about your audience and prospects. And you continue networking and building relationships through referrals and common connections.
LinkedIn marketing is different from sales prospecting that includes cold-calling and cold-emailing. In the latter, prospects know you or your business only through the scripts in the email or phone conversation. But on LinkedIn, they get to see more. They get to see you interact with other industry professionals, offer insights and solutions, discuss their pain points and understand their needs. This can make your business more accessible and your solutions more real. And once you create meaningful relationships with your prospects, you can start selling your solutions.
Using Ad Targeting
LinkedIn has its own ad program that lets you target key demographics and even buyer personas for maximum reach. You can display ads based on geography, industry, job positions, and key segments. This ensures that while you are working hard on securing good leads, your ads are displayed in front of the right people.
Your 5-Step LinkedIn Marketing Plan
How do you get started with LinkedIn marketing? Here’s a 5-step plan to help you organize your marketing efforts.
Step 1: Plan
First, take time to create a LinkedIn marketing plan — What is the goal? What do you want to do? And how do you want to do it? For example, do you want to only find new leads (make connections and conduct events) or establish yourself as a valuable resource (create and post content)? Some questions to consider when planning:
- What LinkedIn groups should you or your business join?
- Do you want to run a newsletter? Who would write content for that newsletter?
- How often do you want to post? And what type of content do you want to post?
- Do you want to run ads on LinkedIn?
- How many events or webinars can you conduct? How would you find speakers for these events? And so on.
Your goals may change from time to time, so check in to see how your audience engages with your strategy and what you need to adjust.
Step 2: Create
Next, create content and campaigns that will help you meet your goals. This could include writing long-form content and linking back to your website, or creating targeted ads. The content and ads you create need to be valuable and relevant enough to catch your audience’s attention. Also, keep in mind that diverse marketing practices will ensure your brand reaches a broader audience and is accessible to more people.
Step 3: Publish
Create a schedule to publish content consistently and not haphazardly. Marketing teams use content and social media calendars to track how and when they are posting content. The general consensus is that posting in the middle of the week (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday) gets the most engagement. You might choose to follow this by posting longer content in the middle of the week and short-form content such as polls on Mondays and Fridays. Find a schedule that works for you and your team.
Step 4: Analyze Your LinkedIn Data
Besides merely looking at how many reactions and shares your posts get, look at your LinkedIn Post Analytics to study how your profile is doing. You can see stats such as:
- Impressions
- Click-through rate
- Engagement rate, and more.
You can use this data to gauge how your business profile and page perform and decide on your next marketing move.
Step 5: Reflect and Improve
Reflect on your LinkedIn marketing strategies and identify ways to improve. Pay attention to what your audience appreciates from your posts and which posts are ignored. How is your audience reacting to competitor posts? Is there a new angle you can use? If your strategy is working, don’t assume it will continue to work. Things change and people move between trends. Keep analyzing your data and listen to the voice of the customer — this will help you stay on their radar longer.
There is a reason why LinkedIn is a widely used platform for business communication and interaction. And the way the platform is set up lets your business explore new ways to make your customers understand who you are and what you do. Your LinkedIn profile should reflect the passion that your organization feels when doing the job, providing the service, making the product, and serving your customers.
