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LinkedIn
7 steps to build a successful LinkedIn marketing strategy
Mihaela Cicvaric
June 9, 2023
January 11, 2024
|
7 min. read
Mihaela Cicvaric
LAST UPDATED
June 20, 2024
READING TIME
7 min.
Have you ever noticed that almost all viral LinkedIn posts come from personal accounts rather than company pages?
That’s no coincidence.
If you still don’t have your LinkedIn strategy in place, you’re missing a chance to
→ network with industry leaders
→ attract qualified leads
→ earn more money
But how to transform your profile into a sales powerhouse? How to build an outstanding personal brand that turns your LinkedIn engagement into $$$?
Let's find out.
What is LinkedIn marketing?
LinkedIn marketing is the strategic use of LinkedIn to connect with, engage, and ultimately sell to a targeted audience.
It's a mix of creating a compelling profile, sharing valuable content, and leveraging LinkedIn's features to reach potential clients or collaborators.
This approach focuses on building relationships and establishing thought leadership in your industry.
Unlike other social media platforms, LinkedIn's professional context makes it an ideal space for B2B marketing, lead generation, and networking with decision-makers.
What is a LinkedIn marketing strategy?
LinkedIn marketing strategy is an approach that aims to establish yourself as an authority in your field, fostering relationships that translate into business opportunities
This involves crafting a professional identity, connecting with the right audience, and engaging through meaningful content.
This strategy focuses on identifying and targeting potential clients or partners within LinkedIn's 1 billion people network.
Key components include optimizing your profile for visibility, consistently posting valuable industry insights, and using LinkedIn's advanced features like groups and direct messaging for targeted outreach.
6 benefits of creating a LinkedIn marketing strategy
Here are 6 key advantages of having a LinkedIn marketing strategy in place:
1. Increase brand awareness
A strategic presence on LinkedIn increases your visibility among industry professionals, elevating your personal & company brand and establishing credibility.
2. Network with influential people
LinkedIn's platform enables precise targeting, connecting you with decision-makers and influential figures in your industry (that you maybe wouldn’t be able to meet in person.)
3. Become a thought leader in your industry
Regularly sharing insightful content positions you as a thought leader, enhancing your professional reputation and trustworthiness.
4. Generate leads and increase sales
By engaging with a focused audience, you can make high-quality leads come to you, directly contributing to increased sales and revenue.
5. Be on top of the industry insights and trends
Active participation on LinkedIn keeps you informed about the latest industry trends, giving you a competitive edge.
6. Build long-term professional relationships
You can use LinkedIn engagement and outreach to build meaningful, long-term connections that can open new business opportunities.
LinkedIn marketing use cases
You can leverage LinkedIn for marketing purposes in several strategic ways:
Distribute valuable content
Sharing valuable and insightful content, such as industry articles, thought leadership pieces, and company updates, helps you to establish your business as knowledgeable and reliable.
Increase employer branding
Use a LinkedIn profile to showcase your company’s offerings, culture, and news. This helps you position your company as a human, relatable, and desirable employer.
Engage through groups and communities
Participating in or creating LinkedIn groups related to specific industries or topics allows companies to engage with like-minded professionals, increasing visibility and authority in their field.
Encourage employee advocacy programs
Encourage employees to share and engage with company content on their personal profiles, effectively broadening the reach and humanizing the company's presence.
Increase sales efficiency with Sales Navigator
Leveraging advanced tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator gives you detailed lead insights and enables more personalized and effective sales.
Promote events and webinars
Utilize LinkedIn to promote webinars and events, which are effective in generating leads and fostering community engagement.
Track performance and refine
Regularly review LinkedIn analytics to gain insights into your content’s performance, audience demographics, and engagement patterns, enabling data-driven marketing decisions.
How to create a LinkedIn strategy
1. Set up your personal brand basics
Set up your goals, KPIs, commitments
The first step is to write down what are the goals of your LinkedIn presence by filling out the following statements:
I want to build a personal brand to get… (type of opportunity)
e.g., I want to position myself as an expert in the industry
I want to achieve… (KPI)
e.g., I want to boost my + company’s awareness
I want to connect with… (audience)
e.g., I want to connect with marketers and copywriters
Then, based on the goals above, think about the KPI that you’re tracking? Make sure to put a time frame as well.
For example,
[x] Inbound leads per month
[y] networking calls per week
[z] podcast interviews per quarter
After figuring out your KPIs, think about what you’re willing to put it. This will help you hold yourself accountable and have more realistic expectations of your KPIs.
For example,
[number] LinkedIn posts per week.
[time] minutes of engaging with others’ posts per day.
You can use this page below to get inspiration for your cover photo.
Make sure your image is the right size. It's important that your presentation showcases you as someone who is professional and has attention to detail.
Write a catchy headline for your LinkedIn profile
This will be your hook. Describe what you do in a short and snappy sentence that will catch your leads' eye.
You can use this guide to build your LinkedIn headline with 22 headline examples.
Ensure all contact information such as email, phone number, birth date, and location are correct and real
Your personal information should be real and accurate.
You want your leads to be able to contact you easily, but if by any chance they find information on you elsewhere, you should ensure that they're not confused if it doesn't match.
Write your “About” section
Here are the elements that make the intriguing and catchy About section:
Hook: You can write up to 2 lines before “see more”. Make it catchy, so you spark people’s interest to read your info.
Story: This is the part where you tell your story. Share your personality and make it relatable.
Proof: Add accomplishments, results, and social proof. Feel free to brag about yourself here.
CTA: Add your links, products, company info, etc.
Add experience
The experience section gives people details about your past & current positions. Use short summaries of your achievements, be specific about your roles with keywords and bullets.
Put the most relevant experience at the top — perhaps it’s your business, your newsletter, or your product.
Show your current and previous positions, as well as companies' names, locations, and main tasks. (You can skip out on the ones that are completely irrelevant to your current personal brand.)
Include measurable results, links to articles, presentation
Add educational background
List all the schools you attended and degrees you earned. This is important for two primary reasons: networking and search filtering.
Include all degrees and diplomas earned, as well as details about the establishments: location and period of time. You don’t have to include the graduation year if you don’t want to.
Write a short description of each degree or diploma earned to give a better insight into your path and story.
Add social proof
Include relevant certifications
Include volunteering positions that demonstrate contribution to my industry/profession
Relate to causes you are passionate about
Add skills and endorsements
Adding skills to your LinkedIn profile helps showcase your expertise and allows people to endorse you.
Pick skills that are related to your profession, industry, or career goals
Demonstrate variety (minimum of 10, maximum of 50).
List your skills in order of importance – the most relevant skills are listed at the top
Ask your colleagues and clients for endorsements (top three skills at least 25+ times)
Give (and receive) LinkedIn recommendations
Both giving and receiving LinkedIn recommendations enhance the credibility of your LinkedIn profile. Ask (and give) a recommendation to someone you have worked with or, even better, worked for.
Give at least 3 recommendations to people with whom you work with
Receive at least 3 recommendations from people with whom you worked: managers, supervisors, customers, clients
Fill out the accomplishments section
Use the accomplishments section to highlight projects you've worked on, publications you have contributed to, and other credentials you have earned.
Showcase Intetrests
Follow influencers, companies, schools, and groups related to your profession, industry, or career goals.
3. Understand LinkedIn's algorithm
LinkedIn's algorithm plays a crucial role in determining which content gets a spot in user feeds.
Here's a brief overview of how it works:
Initial AI evaluation for spam
When you post content on LinkedIn, it first undergoes an AI-driven assessment to check for spam.
Posts flagged as spam rarely reach a significant audience.
Therefore, it's essential to ensure that all shared content is relevant, professional, and adds value.
Seeding to a trial audience
After passing the spam check, your post is introduced to a small trial audience.
This initial phase is critical as the algorithm closely monitors how this group interacts with your content.
Engagement, in the form of likes, comments, and shares, is a key indicator of your post's potential reach.
Engagement analysis and further distribution
If the trial audience engages positively with the post, the algorithm then conducts additional checks for spam and relevance.
Assuming it passes these checks, LinkedIn gradually increases the post's visibility, extending it to a broader audience within your network and beyond.
Human editorial review for extended reach
For posts that continue to perform well with expanded audiences, LinkedIn's human editors may step in.
These editors review the content to determine its suitability for further distribution. Posts deemed exceptionally engaging, informative, or valuable can be boosted to reach an even wider audience.
This process underlines the importance of creating high-quality, engaging content that resonates with your audience.
The more your content appeals to your initial audience, the greater the likelihood that it will be seen by a larger group on LinkedIn.
4. Create posts that reach millions of people
As the main goal is to appear on your target audience’s radar, your content should be relevant and valuable to them. That’s how you’ll make them engage.
For example, if you’re a salesperson, you can cover topics such as outreach or deliverability. Or, if you’re a growth marketer, you can talk about ways to increase ads conversion rate.
You want to position yourself as someone trustworthy who delivers value by following these steps:
1. Write engaging posts
The first thing you want to check when writing your LinkedIn posts is that they have the correct format. Use this LinkedIn Post Formatter to ensure your posts are perfect!
Here’s one week of different posts and formats that helped Tal, lemlist’s sales lead, book 35 meetings in 30 days:
→ Use an attention-grabbing first sentence to hook your audience → Add line breaks between sentences to make your posts easily readable → Use bullet points or numbered lists to make the information easier to digest and retain
This post was inspired by the target audience’s engagement. Just by reading carefully through comments on your and similar content, you can find actionable topics for your next viral post ⬇️
Since people might not be as motivated to read work-related stuff as at the beginning of the week, you can use memes to make your posts relatable and easily shareable.
Keep in mind these are general guidelines. The optimal posting time can vary.
It's a good practice to experiment with different times and days to see what works best for your specific audience.
Additionally, leveraging LinkedIn analytics can provide insights into when your posts receive the most engagement, helping to refine your posting strategy.
Pro tip: Post daily at the same time to create a routine for your followers, as they will know when to expect your content and engage more.
3. Schedule your posts in advance
To save time publishing your daily posts on LinkedIn, you can use Taplio. Taplio users write, schedule, and organize their weekly posts in less than 5 mins!
5. Build relationships
1. Prioritize engagement
→ Schedule time slots to engage on LinkedIn
Engaging on LinkedIn in your comments section is important. Still, to increase your visibility on the platform, you should engage with other content creators from your industry or like and comment on your target audience’s content.
This will help you appear more often on other people’s feeds and connect you with your target audience on a more personal level.
To ensure consistency, we advise you to book daily three 15-minute time slots to engage on LinkedIn:
→ Engage on your LinkedIn posts
Replying and reacting to comments on your posts will help you build relationships with your prospects and make your profile more visible in search results, news feeds, and recommendations.
Here are 3 steps that will boost your growth on LinkedIn without leaving your profile:
[ ] Reply to ALL comments on your post to get your posts trending on the feed again
→ reply to positive comments to show gratitude and get more content ideas
→ reply to negative comments to address any objections and connect with like-minded prospects
[ ] Reply to comments mentioning other members to showcase your expertise and gain new followers
[ ] Tag prospects in posts that will give them value to show you’re willing to go the extra mile to help them
→ Engage with others' LinkedIn posts
The more you engage with others’ posts, the more LinkedIn will push yours. Engaging with others will help you show your expertise and encourage them to engage later with yours.
Here are three steps that will help you encourage your prospects to reach out to you:
→ engage with at least 3 influencers’ posts in each time slot to expose your personal brand to a larger audience
→ engage with each other’s team posts to boost your reach, as your content will be shown on their followers’ feeds and vice versa
→ engage with competitors’ posts to expose yourself to potential leads, as you’re probably sharing the same target audience
We recommend you use a 20/80 commenting ratio to keep your engagement time efficient:
→ 20% of your comments could be short and fun without too much information → 80% of your comments should be 3+ sentences explaining your perspective and adding value
Pro tip: If you want a tailored list of the best people to engage, you can get it with Taplio and boost your visibility without spending extra resources 🙌
→ Be active in LinkedIn groups
Active participation in LinkedIn groups offers significant benefits for personal branding and business growth:
Enhance personal branding: Regular contributions to group discussions showcase your expertise, establishing you as a thought leader in your industry.
Open new networking opportunities: Engaging with professionals in these groups opens doors to new business opportunities, collaborations, and referrals.
Get market insights: Active involvement keeps you updated on industry trends, allowing you to align your offerings with market needs.
Generate new leads: Sharing insightful content can drive traffic to your profile or website, leading to increased leads and potential sales.
Boost credibility: Consistent, valuable input in discussions boosts your credibility, making you a preferred choice for group members seeking your services or products.
Get feedback for improvement: Interaction in groups provides immediate feedback, crucial for refining your strategies and offerings.
2. Connect with relevant people
When you’re connecting with new people, ensure you understand who your target audience is.
For example, besides connecting with potential clients, you can also connect with peers who find your content valuable.
Imagine you're a freelance content writer. This means you'll connect with:
potential customers - heads of content, SEO, and marketing departments
peers - other copywriters, in-house SEOs, marketers, and freelancers
Those are the two groups of people who understand your content when you write about SEO and content marketing.
This means quality engagement that leads to new relationships and potential future referrals.
Pro tip: Ensure you’re connecting with active users on LinkedIn, not LinkedIn users who only show up once in three months to check their messages. A LinkedIn Premium account shows this information.
3. Send your first message
Here are DM templates to use when reaching out to your target audience for the first time:
If they are a creator
Hey {{firstname}}, glad to connect with you!
Do you have a time when you usually post on LinkedIn? If so I'd love to make sure you get extra visibility by leaving a comment :)
If you found them on someone else’s feed
Hey {{firstname}}, glad to connect with you!
I found your profile on {{other creator}}'s post, and it immediately caught my eye.
I see that you're {{doing thing}}, which is incredibly interesting to me because {{reason}} — I'm looking forward to seeing your posts in my feed :)
If you found them elsewhere
Hey {{firstname}}, glad to connect with you!
I found you on {{where you found them}} and {{give a genuine compliment or appreciation}}.
If they are a prospect
- Directly ask a question
Hey {{firstname}}, thanks for connecting.
I noticed observation about {{their business or their team}}.
I'm curious how you handle {value proposition}?
- Can I ask a question?
Hey {{firstname}}, can I ask you a question?
and when they reply..
{{statement noticing something about their business or team}}.
Curious how you handle {{value proposition}}?
If they ask why you’re asking, just be honest:
It's because we're working with teams like yours to solve {value proposition}.
- If you want to appear more friendly
Hey {{firstname}}! [voice note asking them a question on what tools they're using]
- If you want to share an opportunity
Hi {{firstname}}, it's great to connect with you! I'm already a subscriber of yourcontent. Love your advice for {audience}.
Are you available for an {{opportunity}} on {{date, time}}? {{Share more details and context}}.
Let me know so that I can send you an official invite.
Thanks!
6. Encourage employees to be brand advocates
Consider each team member's personal LinkedIn post as an extension of your company's messaging. These posts should reflect individual expertise and personality while aligning with the company's overall goal.
To include team members in your LinkedIn strategy, encourage them to interact with the company’s and colleagues' posts.
LinkedIn's "Notify employees" feature can alert a select group about new company posts.
However, since LinkedIn limits this to seven employees and chooses the group, using internal channels like Slack for broader team involvement is more effective.
For instance, some companies use Slack to remind their team to engage with company posts.
Pro tip: Act quickly when notifying your team about new posts. Engagement within the first hour on LinkedIn is crucial for wider visibility and more interaction, as it increases the post’s reach.
7. Track and refine your performance
If you've enabled Creator Mode on LinkedIn, you gain access to valuable analytics about your profile's performance. To access these insights, go to your LinkedIn profile and select the View All Analytics button, usually located at the top left corner.
Within this analytics section, you'll find data on key metrics:
Post Impressions: This shows how often your posts have appeared on screens. It's a measure of your content's reach and visibility.
Followers: Here, you'll see the total count of your followers. This includes both your connections and individuals who follow you without connecting.
Profile Viewers: This metric indicates the total number of LinkedIn users who have viewed your profile. It's a good indicator of how intriguing your profile is to others.
Search Appearances: This shows how frequently your profile has appeared in LinkedIn search results, reflecting your visibility within the LinkedIn network.
By clicking on these metrics, you can delve deeper into each category.
If you're refining your LinkedIn content strategy, pay particular attention to post impressions. In this section, you can set specific date ranges to analyze your posts' impressions and engagement levels. Monitoring this regularly helps you understand the impact of your content and guides your strategy for greater engagement and visibility.
Key Takeaways
To sum up, the power of LinkedIn as a tool for marketing, sales, and revenue growth cannot be overstated.
By developing a robust personal brand, engaging with industry leaders, and attracting qualified leads, everyone can expand their business.
Eeach interaction on LinkedIn holds the potential to translate into significant business opportunities.
So, as you step forward, use these insights and strategies to craft your LinkedIn presence and generate $$$.
Want to go further and see how you can
- start publishing content that generates engagement? - engage with others and grow your visibility? - get to 10K followers in just 6 months?
Yes, marketing on LinkedIn is effective, especially for B2B and professional services due to its professional network and targeting capabilities.
Is marketing on LinkedIn expensive?
The cost can vary. LinkedIn generally has higher costs per click compared to other platforms, but it often offers higher quality leads and targeting, making it cost-effective for specific objectives.
How do I promote my company on LinkedIn?
Create a company page, share regular updates and industry insights, engage with your network, use LinkedIn Ads, and encourage employees to amplify content.
Should I use images in the content that I share on LinkedIn?
Yes, incorporating images can increase engagement. Visual content tends to stand out more and can convey your message more effectively.
What is the best content for LinkedIn?
Industry news, thought leadership articles, company updates, professional insights, and educational content are typically well-received on LinkedIn.
Mihaela Cicvaric
Content Marketing Manager @ lempire | Sharing everything you need to get replies to your cold emails
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