LinkedIn is one of my favorite social networks. Why? Well it works great as a business development tool for my business allowing me to target key 
prospects very accurately, saving time. Also it is a fantastic platform to showcase your expertise in a field. Especially with the new LinkedIn publishing platform with its 'blog posts' feature.
My social media agency has secured numerous deals using the site as a sales development tool. A client of ours secured a deal of in excess of £200,000 using LinkedIn for sales prospecting. Interested now? Well read on!
Since its launch in 2003 LinkedIn has developed into one of the most successful business-to-business online networks, boasting over 15 million LinkedIn members in the UK alone.
With over 45% of B2B marketers having gained customers through the site, it essential that you know how to promote your brand correctly and target members accordingly.
This must-read article will give you top tips on promoting your brand on LinkedIn and provide a step-by-step guide to setting up LinkedIn adverts.
Top promoting tips!
There are many things that you need to be aware of when creating and promoting your company LinkedIn profile. The more that you can tick off the following list, the more likely it is that your page will be successful!
To help your company reach even more professionals you should think about sponsoring your best content. This sponsored content will then be placed directly in the LinkedIn news feeds of relevant professionals who may not be engaged with your company already, as well as those who are already following the company, helping you to reach a much wider audience.
As well as sponsoring your top content, another method of getting your content seen is to pin your best articles. By pinning your articles, they will stay at the top of your company pages recent updates section, meaning that they will be more likely to be viewed by all those who visit your page. This allows you to put vital content up, front and centre!
The next tip is to make sure that all of the content that you post is engaging and will be of value to your followers. Articles which are likely to answer some of the follower's questions or provide solutions to any issues they may have are going to be more valuable than a generic post. This will prompt more engagement and thus a greater overall reach.
Speaking of engagement, it is important to create discussion of your company with your followers. This could be achieved in numerous ways, some of those include: asking your followers questions, sharing quizzes and highlighting facts which show the success of the company.
Simple, but often overlooked, are the images on a post. You could write a really interesting article but if you attach an irrelevant image or thumbnail to it then it will instantly put people off clicking and reading it. As a result it is important to attach relevant and enticing images that showcase what your content has to offer.
Images are a great way of catching a users eye and attracting them to your post, so the use of interesting and unique images is vital. But, as already mentioned, don't just include an image for the sake of it, it might look nice but if it isn't relevant it can have an adverse affect on your post's effectiveness. What is great about this tip is not many people share images on LinkedIn, so it is an opportunity to stand out! This image below just got 48 shares on LinkedIn for example, within my target group of tech and digital marketers.
Once your main page is up and running and is attracting followers, your next step may be to add Showcase pages depending on the services your company offers. If your company covers a range of areas, then creating a Showcase page for each is a great way to target people interested in only a specific section of your company. People can follow the Showcase page and get the information relevant to them, rather than having to look through all of the main page's posts. What better way to show users what makes your company unique!
Exclusivity! Offering exclusive content to people who follow you on LinkedIn is a great way to build up a loyal fan base of followers. People will want to interact with your business in the hope of finding out exclusive content and getting a sneak peeks at new services/products.
Targeting your updates can be a highly effective method of reaching your ideal follower audience. The followers of your company are likely to range in age, location and language to name but a few, and as a result your updates may not appeal to all and the engagement levels could suffer. If you target your updates to specific demographics/locations, then there is a greater chance that the followers who see the post are going to be interested and engage with it.
Don't ask, tell! It has been said that posing questions in your post titles will lead to poor performance of the post. The most successful titles are those that make a statement, so make sure you give your post title plenty of thought.
Company pages. Take a look at the resource below for some of the best performing LinkedIn company pages on the site. This is an invaluable resource to provide inspiration for your company page.
I hope that you have found this post useful and I have tried to include all of our knowledge from using LinkedIn. However, I am really keen to learn from your experiences and do share any tips that I have missed.
Credit for image - StartUp Stock Photos.
