The marketing and advertising landscape have changed dramatically over the past five years. Depending on their target audience and internet usage, brands nowadays have been able to do away with advertising on mass media and have successfully launched purely through online efforts. These days, even radio commercials are being played on Spotify! There is hardly any public and online platform that cannot be advertised on to maximize brand efficiency.
One such online platform is LinkedIn.
LinkedIn is not just a social platform to help you connect with previous and current colleagues. It is also a social networking site for companies that want to grow their business through manpower development, to create and sustain a brand’s awareness and overall experience, or to update their target audiences with relative and industry-related posts.
Given its type of members, LinkedIn marketing is professional and discreet as compared to Facebook or Instagram ads wherein the subscriber is aware of the hard-sell efforts that are being displayed to them. Below is a list of marketing hacks to help your company grow its business and reach a wider, more interested audience.
First and foremost, steer clear from hard sell. Since LinkedIn’s members consist of entry level employees to top senior executives (and might know a thing or two about the tricks of the trade), avoid obvious ‘in your face’ efforts. Instead, focus on content marketing as this makes the ad appear natural and editorial by nature.
Secondly, put the networking function of LinkedIn to good use: make a connection and then build a relationship from there. As a business owner or brand steward, one should acknowledge that creating connections with partners or suppliers and prospects is an essential aspect in making a business or service grow and thrive.
Connections have been made and relationships have been built. What is next? The third LinkedIn marketing tip is to cultivate those relationships and make it grow. Ultimately, LinkedIn is a numbers driven platform. The more connections you have, the greater the chance of your account being visible to other groups and prospective leads or partners. Make it a point to reach out and connect.
Is your business’ page updated? If it is not, then it is time to make it interesting. Having an account but not constantly maintaining it might be a big turn off to potential partners and even to existing leads. As the fourth LinkedIn marketing pointer, ensure your company’s page is filled with current information and is cohesive with the rest of your assets (i.e. website, Facebook and Twitter pages) in terms of content, photos or videos.
Some insights have shown that individuals check if brands or business have a LinkedIn page first, before browsing through their website or Facebook pages. This is because LinkedIn makes your businesses more ‘human’ and accessible, given its one-on-one connection feature.
These are just some of the hacks in this two part series. It is good to know that by having a LinkedIn account, the networking platform has the potential to do your business or brand a favor, expanding your connections.
To continue, stay strong and relevant—find your consumers and make the connection, before your competitor does. Filtering and segregating through the database in LinkedIn has never been easier. Businesses of all kinds can target on the company size, job position and industry that their target market belong to, thanks to the customizing tools the LinkedIn marketing solutions has to offer.
Once you have found your target audience, type a letter and invite them to be a part of your emailing list. In your message, include the direct link to your sign-up page and inform them what they will be receiving when they submit their details. As a brand or business making the move of inviting them to participate in your group, it would fair and appropriate to suggest reviewing what they have to offer, as a way of goodwill and there is nothing to lose.
In connection with ensuring your page or account, it is imperative that high quality content is posted on your page. Not only does this help your connections in solving their day-to-day problems but it also lets them see that you represent a company that is ahead of the curve, a true leader and innovator.
Besides inviting audiences to join your group or page, why not join groups that are relevant to your target market, too? It is great way to get a pulse of what is keeping your target audience interested. Moreover, it gives you the chance to engage and interact with them since LinkedIn allows you to send messages through LinkedIn InMail.
Another LinkedIn marketing hack is to make use of Sponsored Updates since consumers nowadays are not convinced by hard sell marketing efforts anymore. A feature of this LinkedIn tool allows businesses to customize which demographic gets to see their post based on age, gender and location as well as job title or function, skills or groups. This features filters through the clutter of other companies’ posts and is a strong way to promote leadership laden content to their target audience.
Lastly, give your business a facelift by encouraging your employees to create their own LinkedIn profiles (with appropriate pictures, of course!). By providing their job history or description and an overview of whom they are connected to, it provides the public a sneak peek of who are behind the business and what their respective responsibilities are.
To wrap the series up, some and maybe not all the tips discussed here could help attract new or additional market for your brands. Beyond being able to connect with a previous client or colleague and be updated on where each is currently employed, the tools of LinkedIn marketing aims to encourage its members to talk business and explore opportunities that will be beneficial to both company and prospected lead.
