LinkedIn is a professional social network that has evolved far beyond its origins as a public CV platform. Today, LinkedIn serves as a central hub for individuals and businesses to interact, build connections, and foster professional relationships. Instead of viewing LinkedIn as a standalone tool, it should be integrated into your broader social media strategy, leveraging its unique features to benefit your company.
When looking at Social Media for B2B, here are some tips on Marketing on LinkedIn in a way that will build trust and drive traffic to your business:
Create a Company Page
A centralized company page is a critical asset; this page is the perfect one-stop shop for people who want to know about your company without navigating through individual employee profiles. LinkedIn Company pages rank highly in organic brand searches. You can post job advertisements, showcase your company culture, and provide detailed information about your products or services directly on your company page.
A great way to jumpstart traffic to your company page is to ask your employees to link to it on their personal LinkedIn pages. This simple action ensures anyone visiting their profiles can access the main company page quickly.
Have a Complete Profile
When visitors arrive on your LinkedIn profile, their first impression is crucial. It's essential to make your profile look polished and be as informative as possible.
You want your company page to stand out, so while maintaining professionalism, infuse your page with memorable and personal touches. A custom banner image is the first step—it adds significant personality to your page without sacrificing a professional look.
Combine your banner image with your company logo, and you are on your way to building brand recognition and a solid reputation. You can further personalize your page by sharing your company's story and purpose in the "About" section.
Once your company profile is complete, you should also ensure your personal LinkedIn profile is fully optimized. Your name appears on your company's profile page, and you wouldn't want a click on your name to lead to a disappointing or incomplete profile. A well-maintained personal profile shows that you uphold the same high standards for yourself as you do for your company. Finding the right balance between professional and personal is crucial for a compelling LinkedIn presence. If you have other personal websites, such as a blog, include links in both your personal and company profiles.
On trust:
Take Advantage of LinkedIn groups
Joining a LinkedIn group and being an active participant is one of the most effective ways to draw people to your profile. LinkedIn offers a vast selection of groups based on your company's industry, interests, location, and target audience.
To stand out in these groups, you need to offer value. In marketing, this often means sharing content. However, be mindful of the context; a group full of marketers will quickly see through overt marketing tactics. It's best to tone down the self-promotion and adopt a more relaxed, personal approach. You must contribute to the group without being perceived as an opportunistic marketer. Make helpful posts, point people toward useful resources, or answer questions—but do not self-promote. Direct self-promotion is a major faux pas. Your goal is not to harass group members to visit your page, but to stand out in a way that makes them want to learn more about you on their own.
Start Your Network
You can use LinkedIn groups to connect with people you don't know but with whom you share common interests. You can also find and connect with people you know personally. Whether it's friends, former colleagues, or professionals you met at an event, LinkedIn is a great way to communicate with them and begin building a robust network of business contacts.
Here's a list of people to try to connect with on LinkedIn:
- Current and past coworkers
- People you went to school with, especially college/university
- Email contacts
- People you met at networking events
- People you are connecting with on other social networks
- Customers
- Business partners
Stay Active
Like any other social network, achieving success on LinkedIn requires consistent activity. Aim to post updates multiple times a week so that your connections regularly see your company's logo on their LinkedIn feed. The more they see you and your brand, the more trust you will build. Infrequent posting—only once every few months—prevents your connections from being exposed to your brand with enough frequency to establish that trust. Trust is what leads to clicks, conversions, and sales, so staying top-of-mind is essential.
You must also avoid overactivity. Just as being inactive hinders trust-building, being overactive can cause similar damage. Excessive posting is often seen as impersonal, opportunistic marketing. If you spam your network, people may unfollow you to clean up their timelines and reduce notifications.
Include Your LinkedIn on Your Website
Just as you include a link to your website on your LinkedIn company page, you should do the reverse. Your website and social media profiles should be interconnected; a simple link can go a long way. If traffic arrives organically at your site without coming from your social channels, users can find the link and connect with you on LinkedIn. Since LinkedIn is a social network, it is much better for keeping people updated than a static website because it centralizes updates. Instead of visiting your website for updates exclusively about your business, users go to LinkedIn to get updates from all their connections. You want to ensure your business is on that list.
Connect With Influencers
Influencers are not just for Instagram—LinkedIn has them too. You should connect with these individuals and engage with what they offer. You probably won't get a follow back from major influencers, but simply following them is worthwhile. You can learn a great deal from the prominent thought leaders in your industry.
Once you've identified which influencers are relevant to your industry, make a list and follow them. If you publish regular, high-quality content and promote it on your LinkedIn profile, there's a good chance that influencers will notice and share it, significantly increasing your content's exposure. Influencer exposure is precious because it carries their implicit endorsement of your content. Influencers are often highly trusted by their followers, so receiving an endorsement from them is a great boon to your brand's reputation.
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