Making an impact on LinkedIn

With more than 830 million members in over 200 countries, LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional social network, so it’s well worth taking time to build your presence on the platform.

To stand out from the crowd, get your content seen and enhance your connections, there are several steps you can take. In fact, LinkedIn has recently added a number of new tools and features to help brands foster meaningful relationships including:

• more ways to quickly engage and react to content, whether that be liking with a range of different emoji options, commenting, sharing or the option to send on interesting content quickly to specific individuals.
• helping you make connections through new follow buttons in the main feed and search results. Searches on a specific company or topic now also include recommendations for people to follow who regularly talk about those topics.
• new lead generation tools for marketers, including a forthcoming Business Manager platform. This will provide a central location to ‘manage the people, add accounts, Pages, and businesses you work with,’ complementing its more comprehensive Sales Navigator subscription based offering.
• additions to its recent Creator Mode – interactive audio events have been added to its existing LinkedIn LIVE and newsletter options. There is also a new feature for Creator Mode users to add a showcase URL link display at the top of their profile, so that audiences can learn more about them and their brand.

However, there is so much more to LinkedIn than just being on it and using the available tools and services. Here are a few of the essential steps you should take to make an impact on this, and indeed, other social media platforms:

1. Have a clear social strategy

Setting and regularly reviewing objectives and goals, and knowing your audience, will provide a clear understanding of what you are striving to achieve with your social media. Not only will this help you avoid aimlessly posting, but it will also enable you to measure your success and increase your social media presence in the long term.

2. Plan your content

Check out the biggest brands on social and you’ll see they all post on a consistent basis, but it’s also important to share quality content, that has a purpose. Create a monthly plan for your content which will help you:

• Post regularly
• Decide on what your audience is interested in and include relevant keywords
• Time your posts for maximum engagement
• Avoid repeating the same content
• Find time to source high quality imagery or create impactful video content

While curating your brand is a key part of success on social media, it’s also important to be yourself. People love to see real lives and real stories – covering ups and downs – and sharing these moments will humanise your brand and build trust with your audience.

3. Get social on social

To build quality, long-term relationships with your audience, you also need to engage with them. If someone posts about your brand, or comments on one of your posts, make sure you respond. Another key part of engagement is following other pages and posts. This will help establish your authenticity, and increase your followers, as people will follow you in return. Keep in mind that these accounts should be relevant to your brand and business – a large following is great, but are they really relevant to what you do? Be selective in order to curate a brand that people aspire to.

For more great advice get in touch to find out how we can help boost your business on LinkedIn and other platforms.