Beginners Guide to Social Media: LinkedIn

There’s no better place to connect with business decision makers and business professionals than on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional social network and you may use the platform for your personal profiles but it is much more than just an online resume.

LinkedIn is the ideal platform for professionals looking to make industry connections but it is also a powerful marketing platform. Through LinkedIn, you can connect, learn, educate and inspire while generating leads for your business.

Before we dive into how you can use LinkedIn to market your business, let’s take a look at why you should be using LinkedIn for marketing, employer branding and lead generation purposes.

According to statistics released by Hootsuite:

LinkedIn content creation increased by 60% in 2020: Businesses and individual LinkedIn members have increased their LinkedIn content to stay in touch and reach their right audience.
LinkedIn has 722 million members: Social networking app Instagram currently has 1 billion users, and Facebook has 2.74 billion. LinkedIn is clearly not the largest of the social networks, but with a specific business focus, it’s a highly targeted audience especially when it comes to B2B marketing.
LinkedIn has 15x more content impressions than job postings: The social networking site is no longer used for recruitment alone, it is a place to inform industry professionals, reach decision-makers and promote thought leadership in business.
A LinkedIn Ad can reach 13% of the global population: This stat speaks for itself. This may not be the highest reach amongst social networks but the advantage is that you can self-select users you want to reach through the social media platform and these are usually industry decision-makers.
LinkedIn ads provide over 200 targeting options/characteristics: The targeting capabilities of LinkedIn are almost unmatched. When it comes to marketing, you are able to select your target audience based on a variety of factors ensuring you reach the right audience, with the right message, at the right time.
LinkedIn Ads can increase purchase intent by 33%: Ads on the platform have the power to boost purchase intent which leads to greater sales down the road.

As per the stats above it is clear to see that LinkedIn is no longer a social media network designed simply for recruitment purposes. The platform has grown to become one of the most powerful B2B marketing tools available today.

Now that we understand why LinkedIn is important, let’s take a look at how you can use LinkedIn to better your business reach.

How to Leverage LinkedIn to Market your Business

LinkedIn is one of the fastest-growing social media platforms and is known for its strong B2B marketing capabilities. LinkedIn has the power to build a strong professional network for businesses and it is important you use the platform to power your B2B marketing efforts.

Let’s take a look at how you should use LinkedIn to market your business better.

1. Informative Company Page

Your LinkedIn Page is the ideal place to tell your brand story and highlight your business values. It is a place to showcase specific information about what you offer as a business and it is important you build a page that is helpful to your connections and target audience.

The important content of your page includes your banner image, list of products and services, status updates and of course career opportunities within your business. Essentially, turn your LinkedIn profile from simply a place to find employees to a platform where you can get massive brand exposure.

Your LinkedIn business page allows you 200 characters to describe your business, what your business offers and why people should follow your company page. Work closely with your content team to craft the ideal brand description for your business.

2. Optimize your LinkedIn Business Profile

A great LinkedIn Business page image and cover photo are, of course, vital but there are ways you can enhance your profile for greater visibility.

Status Updates: Posting consistently to your business page is one of the best ways to develop and retain a connection with industry professionals and decision-makers in your target market. It is vital you update your page with useful and informative content such as blog articles that link to your website. This establishes you as an industry expert and creates a conversation with those you are trying to connect with on the platform.
Thought Leadership Articles: Publish articles to your LinkedIn profile that highlight your company’s industry knowledge and educate your audience on your vision and mission as a business.
Videos: Video content is on the up-and-up and it is important you create engaging videos or presentations that you can share on your LinkedIn profile. These videos should be created to highlight your expertise and draw attention to your business profile.
Expertise: List your expertise on your page as this is a great way to inform users about your business, expertise and offerings.

3. Optimize your Business Page Performance

Your business requires a complete profile to ensure presence on the platform. By creating a compelling profile you help your target audience and connections gain greater insight into what you do as a business. With this in mind, it is vital you fully optimize your LinkedIn page.

There are a variety of ways to optimize your profile, some of the most critical include:

High-quality photos and videos
Employee details
Logos and headers
Informative and thought-leadership content

Then, of course, search engine optimization. Get your SEO team to make sure your LinkedIn page is completely optimized for the search engines by using the right keywords in the page’s description. This will help the Search Engines understand what your page is about, helping you rank in the search engine results when users are actively searching your services.

4. Know your Audience

Understanding your target audience is one of the most important factors for any marketing strategy - and this includes your LinkedIn marketing strategy. LinkedIn offers Website Demographics, making it easier for you to get into your audience’s insights and capture their behaviours and traits.

The LinkedIn Website Demographics tool informs you about the types of page visitors you are receiving and what content they are engaging with on your page. You are able to use this data to target your content to the right audience and measure the impact and better your return on investment.

LinkedIn also offers a variety of automation tools that will help you target your audience based on a variety of demographics in order to generate high quality leads to your business. If you want to connect your sales team to LinkedIn, you are also able to log into the LinkedIn Sales Navigator and use tools to generate leads directly through LinkedIn.

5. Schedule your Posts

Just like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, it is important you keep your LinkedIn page active and engaging at all times. This is why it is important to put together a posting schedule. According to statistics, LinkedIn pages with the most engagement post 3-4 status updates a week and 1 - 2 thought-leadership articles every month.

Make sure to focus on what time you schedule your posts in order to reach your audience when they are active on the platform. It is also important to engage with users when they interact with your posts - this establishes trust and provides a great place for lead nurturing.

6. LinkedIn Ads

LinkedIn offers a variety of ad types designed to drive brand awareness or propel lead generation. The social media platform offers a diverse range of opportunities for marketers with the top ad formats being Sponsored InMail, Text Ads and Sponsored Content. Let’s take a deeper look:

Sponsored InMail: This enables you to send customized and personalized messages to your audience through a private messaging system on the LinkedIn platform. This means that your content is able to directly reach decision-makers in your target audience.
Text Ads: These eye-catching ads appear at the top right of a LinkedIn user's feed. The short text is used to drive leads and promote business offers.
Sponsored Content: This is native LinkedIn advertising and is a regular post that has been boosted using an ad budget, similar to boosted posts on Facebook.

However, one of the latest and most powerful ad options is LinkedIn Video Ads.

Video content is becoming increasingly important and if you want to leverage your LinkedIn profile significantly, and gain high-quality leads, then it's time to invest in video marketing.

Bonus Tip: Always Analyze and Test

LinkedIn offers great analytics and you are able to track the success of your page and your ads through the app itself. It is also important that you define your tactics and strategies and understand which advertising model is working best for your business. Consider performing an A/B test to figure out the ideal marketing strategy for your business.

This will ensure that your campaigns are optimized for your ideal audience and that you will reach the highest quality leads at all times.

The Wrap Up

Today, LinkedIn is no longer a place to simply find employees, it is vital for business marketing success. If you are beginning your LinkedIn marketing journey, the above tips will help you reach your goals and objectives.

Today, Social media continues to evolve at a rapid speed, heavily influencing how businesses communicate and engage with their customers. When used correctly, it can positively affect your brand's perceptions and be the driver of generating more revenue.

How We Can Help

Whether you're a B2C or B2B business, social media is a radical part of digital marketing. At Nexa, we offer a full range of social media services with a proven track record spanning 15 years, which marked the start of these pivotal platforms.