How to Use LinkedIn to Boost Your Reputation and Grow Your Business
LinkedIn is more than just a corporate social network. It is a powerful sales and marketing tool for B2B companies.
In fact, 94% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn as part of their marketing strategy.
LinkedIn presents an excellent opportunity for your business to increase brand awareness and stay top-of-mind among your prospects and target market.
So if you aren't using LinkedIn to drum up business, you're leaving money on the table.
Thought Leadership
With the proliferation of online service delivery, the professional services market has opened up - and consumers have more choices than ever before.
Therefore, communicating your unique value online is necessary to cut through the clutter and establish your competitive advantage.
Part social media, part networking
Social media marketing gives businesses virtually unlimited reach (pun intended!).
But with the sheer volume of competing businesses, it can be challenging to stand out online.
That's why traditional networking and direct sales are still the most profitable forms of marketing for most businesses - even digital marketing agencies. Connecting with your target market and sharing your value is much easier when you're in front of a captive audience.
LinkedIn gives business owners and thought leaders the best of both worlds.
Through LinkedIn, you can connect with your audience much like you do when your network. But given you're online, you can reach more people in less time.
What makes a Successful LinkedIn Marketing Strategy?
Businesses that "win" LinkedIn are the ones that become the "go-to" professionals in their space.
These are the pillars of a successful LinkedIn strategy:
Niching and targeting
Businesses have found success on LinkedIn by focusing their efforts on a particular niche.
When you tailor your content to a particular market's specific needs, you can form a strong connection with those customers.
However, businesses often object to niching as they don't want to alienate potential business opportunities from other markets.
However, the reality is that "generalist experts" don't tend to stand out online.
If you're networking, you won't spend time telling a room full of construction business owners that you also serve the food industry.
So why would you do that on LinkedIn?
Be specific about what you offer. This can mean targeting a particular industry (Eg Real Estate Companies), a particular service (Eg Tik Tok ads) or both (Eg Tik Tok Ads for real estate companies).
Once you've zeroed in on your niche, ensure your headline and bio reflect it. That way, when your target audience comes across your profile, they'll know they're in the right place.
The Targeting Process
Identify key problems you solve in your customer's words. This information can come from conversations and phone calls with clients/prospects.
Define your ideal client. Be very specific about who they are. What industry are they in? What's the size of their organisation? What issues is the organisation facing? Who is the decision maker in the organisation that would sign off on engaging you? What kind of personality are they? What do they look for in the services you offer?
Turn the above into a detailed customer persona.
Your customer persona gives a human face to your target audience.
Once you're clear on your customer persona, you can post as if you are speaking directly to one person.
Here's an example of the customer persona in action.
I worked with a café that wanted to attract remote workers looking for a place to work outside the home. As you can imagine, that is a broad market - so it wasn't enough to target remote workers.
Our customer persona represented one specific segment of remote workers. And in speaking to them, we laid the foundations for long-standing brand loyalty.
Build your following and reputation on LinkedIn
So now you've developed a LinkedIn strategy, it's time to put it into action by getting (and staying) active on LinkedIn.
Aim to post around three times a week on LinkedIn. The types of posts that work well are:
Blogs/text posts
Videos
Graphics and Image posts
PDF slide shows
Try to do a bit of everything. Don't worry if you think you could be better. Your audience would much rather a lo-fi video or stream-of-consciousness blog with valuable information than something that's all style and no substance.
While blogging and posting relevant content is paramount, a critical element of LinkedIn businesses neglect is its conversational aspect.
You see, LinkedIn rewards posts that start a conversation. When you comment on other people's posts, you bring those posts - and your insights - to your followers' feeds.
So make a habit of commenting on relevant and popular posts within your niche. You will not only expose yourself to a new audience, but you will also get the opportunity to show your expertise to networks outside your own.
Need help building a LinkedIn marketing strategy to establish yourself as the authority? We can help you communicate your expertise and establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry. To get started or find out more, contact us.
