Are you marketing effectively on LinkedIn?
LinkedIn has always won the race for the most useful social media platform for business. The way that LinkedIn develops online communities based on different fields and professions is a great way to build relationships and promote your business.
There are many features of LinkedIn that you can use for marketing – and the best news is that the majority of them are completely free! More and more business professionals are now on LinkedIn, from engineers to sales managers, but how many of you are using its marketing function effectively?
LinkedIn Pulse
Pulse is LinkedIn’s publishing tool, and is a powerful way to distribute any content that you want to promote. Previously this feature was only available to LinkedIn Influencers (AKA well-known business personalities) but in 2014 they made this available to all LinkedIn users, and that was a great move for marketing on LinkedIn. Pulse is becoming increasingly popular, and it is now rare that I will go a day without a notification telling me that one of my connections has published a new post.
Pulse gives you a place to publish your own content, much like a blog. It also has the added benefit that your post can be much more easily found by your LinkedIn connections, as they will have a notification waiting to tell them about your article as soon as they log in. Therefore, even if your content is already posted elsewhere, it is worth publishing it in Pulse too. If you want to direct your connections to the original source, just publish an inviting summary with a call-to-action and URL link.
LinkedIn Groups
There is a LinkedIn group for almost any industry you can think of, and they are a great place to promote your content to a wider (and targeted) audience. Here are some examples of useful groups relevant to the UK plastics industry:
– Injection Moulding in the United Kingdom
– PRW
The best place to start when engaging with LinkedIn groups is by getting involved with discussions on posts by other group members. Groups aren’t for constant self-promotion. If your only contribution to the group is promoting yourself or your business, group members will begin to switch off from your posts, or your posts may not even get verified to appear on the group. Joining in the conversation will also help group members familiarise with you and give you some influence within the group, so when you do your own post they will take more notice.
When you come to post your content in a group, make a discussion out of it, rather than simply posting a link. If you encourage group members to share their opinions, there will be more discussion on your post. The more discussion on your post, the more your content will get seen and the longer it will stay at the top of the group.
Company Page
Having a Company page is vital in making sure your business has a presence on LinkedIn, and updating your Company page is vital to maintaining this presence. Make sure you fill out your company profile with as much detail as possible – you’d be surprised at the number of companies who create a company page without even including their website URL!
Building a following on your company page can take time, but a great way of doing this is by posting updates on your personal LinkedIn page and tagging your company page in your update. Keep doing this on a regular basis to ensure that it gets seen by a large number of your connections, and encourage your colleagues to do the same. You could even message some of your connections asking them to follow your page.
Posting updates on your company page and encouraging your followers to engage will get your company in front of a wider network. You can also post updates to your company page and then share them on your personal page. This way your connections will know that the original post came from your company page, and if they like what they see, they could give you a follow. Even at the start when your follower numbers are low, keep updating your company page with interesting information about your services, news and offers – leaving it empty isn’t going to inspire anybody to follow you!
These are just some of the many effective ways you can use LinkedIn for marketing your company. Whatever approach you adopt, remember that interesting and valuable content is the key to getting the attention of your connections.
If you would like support with your digital marketing, discover how PlastikMedia can promote your business by contacting us on 01455 209270 / info@plastikmedia.co.uk
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