Calling all LinkedIn users – this show is for you. This networking platform can be a simple marketing tool for building B2B relationships and generating leads. However, according to a recent poll conducted on LinkedIn, 56% of members found B2B marketing more challenging than B2C marketing. But not to worry, we’re here to help change that. Today we are providing a guide to LinkedIn marketing. We’ll show you some best practices to help you use LinkedIn as a dynamic marketing tool rather than an “About Us” page.
Welcome to Marketing and a Mic. We’re here to give you various digital marketing tips, trends, and helpful guides to help your business get results. LinkedIn is a unique platform. While every platform has certain levels of engagement with its audience – with LinkedIn, building connections is the name of the game. Businesses are expected to be visible and interact in conversations – you just need to know where to start.
We’re going to break up this show into two parts:
- Features to use on LinkedIn that will help you build better connections and brand awareness.
- Some valuable Lead Gen approaches that were shared by a panel of experts from a recent LinkedIn event called B2Believe.
LINKEDIN FEATURE TIPS
1. Make the Most of Your LinkedIn Page
Take advantage of all the features, tabs, and sections your LinkedIn page has to offer. You would be surprised at how an incomplete page can impact your visibility and credibility with followers.
LinkedIn data shows that complete pages get 30% more weekly views than those missing information. This goes for both your company page and personal page for business owners.
This also goes for your cover image – create an eye-catching cover image and refresh it every six months or so. You can use your cover image to promote upcoming events, highlight your products, services, or announcements. Your Business Profile should list strategic keywords relevant to your business, a CTA button, and a lead gen form that you can set up directly through LinkedIn.
2. Use the 4-1-1 Rule
I love this one – we got tips directly from LinkedIn’s recommendation list, and I think the concept is brilliant. The 4-1-1 Rule states that you should share an update from another source for every piece of content you share about yourself or your organization. And more importantly, share four pieces of content written by others.
This is a great way to put your audience’s needs first rather than discussing your business post after post. In addition, by sharing other content on your page, you’re introducing more eyes and businesses to your organization. Make it a habit to share valuable posts from other like-minded companies every week as a start.
3. Content Suggestions Tool
This brings us to #3. The content suggestions tool helps you quickly discover the topics and articles your target audience currently cares about. To help build on your content planning and the 4-1-1 Rule, this is a great option to build on your content planning.
4. Engage, Respond, Comment. Repeat.
Asking questions that encourage comments can do wonders for igniting conversation. In addition, it helps build a community and connections on LinkedIn. You don’t have to respond to every comment; just add in responses that would add value to the responder to others viewing the thread. Thanks to a recent update, admins can now respond to comments as yourself or as your business.
5. Search and add Topic-Related Hashtags
LinkedIn uses hashtags in a very effective way. First, hashtags can be used to help find posts. Second, it shows your audience which topics you talk about. As a result of this setup, LinkedIn users can then follow those hashtags groups, which then become their own communities.
If you want to add new followers from these existing communities, keep using the same hashtags is a good way to go about it. This gives followers an easy way to locate everything else you’ve published related to those themed content initiatives.
6. Create a Newsletter
Newsletters have become a great way to grow subscribers and Page Awareness. When you publish an article through Newsletters, it will post as an article to your page feed AND notify all your page followers. Newsletters serve as an ongoing way to attract and engage your audience organically.
You can also review analytics to see which articles resonate more with subscribers. In addition, incorporating your own newsletter with your original articles helps build on your credibility as an organization – which is a significant trust factor with followers. That’s our 6 LinkedIn feature tips. Now let’s move on to LinkedIn lead generation tips.
LINKEDIN LEAD GENERATION TIPS
1. Shift Your Mindset from Features to Promises
Late last year, LinkedIn had its first-ever event, B2Believe, to help inspire businesses to succeed with LinkedIn. One key takeaway was that companies needed to change their mindset from highlighting features their products or services offer but putting a promise to the customers at the heart of their strategy.
Products and services alone don’t build connections with people anymore. They are bombarded with this every day. The problem with the product and features approach is that it’s telling people about a solution they may or may not need – or know they need. If your current lead gen messaging is created around “What we offer,” the experts suggest a new approach.
2. Create Category Entry Points (CEPs)
Piggybacking off our previous points, this panel of experts emphasized the need to “understand evolving customer needs.” Understanding your customers’ needs is essential to determine what promise your product or service fulfills. One way to do this is by creating Category Entry Points, which are common, recurring pain points and motivators that buyer experience when entering a buying situation.
These pain points are all customer centered. What challenges are your customers facing, and how does your business fit into that? From there, you can create what’s called “situational messages” which are the key drivers to building awareness with your potential customers. Then you can deliver a promise to your customers that tell them you understand what they need and exactly how you’ll be able to help them.
3. Create Memorable Messages
Businesses always try to leave a lasting impression on customers and cut through the noise. During the B2Believe event, the LinkedIn team shared some glaring statistics:
- 48% of B2B purchase decision makers find B2B ads boring.
- 71% of B2B ads are likely to generate no sales.
Currently, B2B buyers don’t believe brands are engaging them with their creativity. Instead, the most memorable ad messaging feedback was those that tapped into emotion, storytelling, good imagination, and value. LinkedIn’s internal data showed that delivering creative that resonates emotionally with your target will boost the results of your campaign. In fact, LinkedIn found that brands that harnessed this emotional connection saw an increase of 198x more followers.
Key Takeaways
The main takeaway is that LinkedIn firmly believes the best way to build more connections is to make everything about your followers. This comes down to the posts you publish, the content you share, the comments you make, and the ad messaging you create. Businesses that do their homework about their target audience and then create a LinkedIn Page that centers around that will find the success they’ve been looking for.
That’s it for us today! Don’t forget that our podcast also goes live on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and you can catch the replay on Instagram. You can also subscribe to our YouTube Channel for more resources to help your digital marketing plan.