10 LinkedIn marketing tips that once implemented give you a distinct competitive advantage.
LinkedIn is still the top social media platform for professionals to connect, engage, and grow their businesses and brands. Whether you work for a company or are self-employed, LinkedIn is essential for B2B connections, leads, and sales. Here are the top 10 LinkedIn marketing tips for early 2019.
1. Update Your Profile (Even if you think it doesn’t need it)
Every year it’s a good habit to update your LinkedIn profile. Simply by refreshing your profile it appears differently to people – relevant! Your ideal clients, referral partner and colleagues are all looking and how you show up on your profile matters and could mean more opportunities. Here are the areas I would focus on:
• Update your professional photo – remember, first impressions matter
• Create a custom cover image for the top of your profile – think of this as a billboard for your brand
• Review your headline. We have seconds to attract someone to our profile, thus your headline must be compelling and attract those you want to connect with.
• Contact information: be sure it is updated and includes your website, email at a minimum
• Review your summary – this is where you share your career story and let people in to who you are, what makes you credible and interesting. You have 2000 character, use the space wisely.
2. Clean Up Your Network Connections
Chances are you have dozens or more connections you don’t know. It worth a little effort to disconnect from people you don’t know or haven’t communicated with. This matters because LinkedIn decides (or the algorithm decides) which of your connections will be seeing your content. Why take the chance that the wrong people are seeing what you post versus people you want to influence when you post.
It’s also good to get in the habit of being more intentional with developing a network and nurturing your key connections. Having more people isn’t better if you never communicate with them.
3. Clean up and Train the Newsfeed
People like to complain about posts they see in the newsfeed of their home page, but did you know you have some control over what you see? Next time you see a post that you don’t want to see or from someone who is annoying because they overpost, go to the 3 dots in the upper of the post and from the drop-down menu choose ‘Hide this post.’
The more posts you hide you can train the LinkedIn algorithm to stop showing you posts from a particular person or content posts you don’t care about. Also note, from the drop-down menu you can choose ‘Unfollow’ if the post is from someone you are connected to and you no longer want to see their posts in your newsfeed.
Think of this clean up as a strategy to train the system to show you post from people and organizations you actually care about and want to engage with. I hope you will invest some time in cleaning up your news feed.
4. Gain More Exposure by Posting an Update More Frequently
Every time you publish a post or article on LinkedIn the algorithm determines whether your content shows up in the feed and how far of an audience it reaches.
Posting styles below are in order of getting the highest views: (all subject to change of course)
1. Text only posts: Up to 1300 characters available on a personal post
2. Text & image: only add an image if it really adds to the value of your post
3. Video post: keep it under a minute and only talk about one topic.
4. Text with a link off the site: LinkedIn as with other social sites wants to keep you on their site as long as possible so they give less favor to outbound links.
There are 2 options for using links:
First one is best – Before the link, write context about what it is and why people might want to read it and clearly mention the link to the article is below in the comments. (You must go back and add this to the comments after you publish your post)
Second – Before the link, write context about what it is and why people might want to read it. Write this in a way that tells a story and engages with your reader. If you keep them reading the post, they’ll be more likely to click through.
5. Try Native Video to Drive More Engagement
Native video is 5x more likely than other types of content to start a conversation among your connections and network. As mentioned in #3 above, video posts are fast becoming a winning way to drive engagement and having an engagement strategy will save you time and you’ll see better results.
LinkedIn video pioneer & expert Goldie Chan recommends
• Get to your key takeaway immediately or you will lose your audience
• Limit each video to 1 minute and focus on one simple subject that provides value
Although your videos can be up to 10 minutes, LinkedIn viewers don’t want to watch a 10-minute rambling vlog that lacks a clear point.
Additional tips for using video effectively on LinkedIn include:
• Add captions to your clip
You need to add captions to your video because people likely have the sound turned off. People will see your video in the LinkedIn feed and the video plays automatically. Most people don’t want the sound to come on as they’re scrolling. So, adding captions makes your video content as easy as possible to consume.
Tools: Clips App or iOS clip-o-matic App. With Clipomatic, you have to use the app’s built-in camera and record the video in one shot.
With Clipomatic, you have to use the app’s built-in camera and record the video in one shot.
If you are savvy, edit the first second of your video to show the image you’d like to appear as a thumbnail.Make sure you’re not making a weird face!
6. Update Your Recommendations
We live in a world where social proof results in sales. Simply said, whether we want a recommendation for a restaurant or for a vendor to provide a service we’re looking for, we have become trained to read a review or recommendation before making a buying decision.
If you want to be considered or referred, then having a profile with up to date recommendations can give you a competitive advantage.
I suggest you gain one new recommendation per quarter. You become more relevant, and it lets people know that you are doing business and people are recommending you now – not what you did 5 years ago.
It’s also a good idea when requesting a recommendation that you be specific in your request based on what you want to be known for and the results you delivered for your customer. Never send the default recommendation request because you want to be in control of the direction you want the recommendation to be written. Also, it’s not enough to have a generic character recommendation, although nice – it won’t necessarily get you the business. People want results.
Once posted to your LinkedIn profile, you can copy & paste the recommendations elsewhere in your marketing.
7. Consistency Versus Randomness Builds Trust & Wins Business
Showing up with consistency can win business when you are adding value each time you show up online and offline. In terms of LinkedIn how you show up is via communications with your connections via messaging, creating posts that are thoughtful and demonstrate what you stand for or have an expertise in and posting or messaging content of value. Your messages are building trust with those who are watching and believe me there are lots of lurkers out there watching who may not ever leave a comment or message you.
However, by your adding thoughtful comments to someone’s post build’s your trust and if you are strategic with choosing who to follow and comment on, all the better influence you will have. Being consistent on LinkedIn will keep you top of mind and so often those that show up and have built a reputation of trust and helpfulness win business.
“A benefit of constant contact is that by sending your prospects useful information that doesn’t always ask for a sale you can establish a bond of trust, and trust wins business.”
– John Jantsch, Duct Tape Marketing
8. Build Relationships by Helping Others
In my experience, those people who demonstrate real caring and who are authentic in helping others build mutually beneficial relationships results in more long-term opportunities. Not only that, you also position yourself as someone with knowledge, experience, resources and I think also as a leader. As a leader your team along with internal and external customers are attracted to those who demonstrate real caring to be helpful.
According to John Hall, CEO and author of Top of Mind (one of my favorite books) says “helpfulness is not a science; it’s a personal, intimate practice.” Below is a partial list of his best helpfulness practices.
• Share Knowledge–when you offer someone useful information, you’re providing a real form of currency.
• Connect People with What They Value – This requires active listening to uncover what someone values. In business, offering unhelpful information can cost you credibility and weaken your relationships.
• Share Resources – This could be resources your company has invested in that may be idle or other resources that you know could help someone else.
• Make People Aware of Opportunities – Whenever you hear of an opportunity – whether in the form of a potential partnership, an exciting event or a journalist looking for industry contacts. Connecting the people in your network to these strategic opportunities generates trust and goodwill.
9. Leave a Voice Message via the LinkedIn Mobile App
Stand out differently with your connections by leaving a voice message inside the messenger feature – only available on the mobile app.
By recording a brief message, your contact can hear your voice and if it is brief and to the point often will respond before a basic text message. Inside the messenger on mobile in addition to the voice message, you can attach a document, picture or a stock GIF file.
10. Utilize Saved Searches & Get Leads Dropped to Your In-Box
If you have a free LinkedIn account this strategy is for you. If you have refined your ideal customer title and want to know when new people with that title fall into your criteria, simply click on ‘Create a search alert’ and save your search. LinkedIn then emails you any new people with your search criteria directly to your inbox. You can manage your search alerts from the same area. If you subscribe to LinkedIn’s sales navigator tool, you have the ability to save your searches within the program. I find this feature is highly unused by free account holders.
Conclusion
LinkedIn is a fantastic marketing tool with features ever-changing as do all social media platforms.LinkedIn remains the #1 social platform for professionals and for those who want to do business. You can’t afford not to manage your online profile as a key reputation management tool, find and connect with those key relationships that matter to you and leverage those relationships for more long-term opportunities.
The key to success for your 2019 LinkedIn marketing will be engagement and specifically engaging beyond than the typical niceties of a thumbs up, thanks, congrats, great job, nice – those one-word comments that really aren’t that meaningful.
Invest time and hyper-focus on those people that matter most to you. Read an article and comment constructively, add value to the conversation, share your knowledge in constructive ways and be consistent. I assure you, it will pay off in big dividends.
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**Originally posted on my blog