5 Tips On Leveraging LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the worlds largest B2B platform and 93% of B2B Marketers consider it to be the most effective lead generation tool out there. This week, Lucy Hopkins, Communications Manager at Tramshed Tech is sharing her top tips on leveraging LinkedIn for business.

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Five ways in which you can leverage LinkedIn for business include:

1. Be your own brand advocate
2. Complete your profile
3. Create video with sound off in mind
4. Explore advanced search capabilities
5. Engage with your network

Now some of these you may have completed, some you may not. Let's take a closer look at each step and ensure your LinkedIn profile is 100% up to scratch.

1. Be your own brand advocate

LinkedIn is designed to be a business-to-business channel. However, it relies on the people behind the businesses to leverage the platform fully. As well as setting up a LinkedIn business page, ensure that your personal profile is set up and aligns with your business. Then, appoint yourselves as a brand advocate for your business, amplifying news with your wider network.

Get your team behind the brand

It’s also important to ensure your team is representing your business’s brand on Linkedin, with the potential to expand your brand awareness by two, three or even four times.

Easy ways in which your staff can advocate your brand on LinkedIn could be:

• Updating header image to include brand and slogan
• Synchronising headshots so profile pictures match
• Ensure their ‘experience’ section us up-to-date with their current role
• Update profile headline to include what your business offers
• Comment on and share posts from the business page.

And remember, keep the language simple so that everyone can quickly understand your value offering.

2. Complete your profile

Completing your profile might sound obvious but it’s surprising how many people don’t. Completed profiles receive 30% more views than those that aren’t, so it’s worth carving out the time to do this.

‍Go through each section to ensure that you are providing valuable information and calls to action. Call to actions are important as they signal the action you’d like a user to take. For example, ‘listen to our podcast’. Optimising your business page and personal profile makes it easier for people to find you and when they do, the information they need about you and your business is accessible.

Some often forgotten about areas of a LinkedIn profile are:

• Featured - an opportunity to highlight your best content.
• Volunteering - whilst it’s less relevant for an entrepreneur, potential clients and contacts want to see a human side to you.
• Publications - the perfect place for thought leadership, publish an opinion piece and feature it here to get the discussion going.
• Recommendations - why not approach previous colleagues or current clients offering reciprocal recommendations.

3. Create video with sound off in mind

‍Video is a medium that performs well across all social media channels as it tends to be favoured by the algorithm. On LinkedIn in particular, a lot of content is viewed during the working day which means that people tend to scroll and watch, but won't necessarily listen. Because of this, designing video with sound off in mind is an important way to leverage video content within LinkedIn.

Remember the more authentic the better, be yourself and don’t worry about using overly sophisticated recording equipment.

4. Explore advanced search capabilities within LinkedIn

LinkedIn has vast advanced search capabilities that make it easy to find a person or business that ticks your boxes. Whether you are looking for your first employee, podcast guests, corporate partner or your next intern, LinkedIn’s advanced search functionality allows you to get granular.

Where do they currently work? What’s the company size? What's the location? What’s the connection to you? The more specific you get; the better chance you have of finding who/what are you looking for.

5. Engage with your network

Social media is designed to be social, so make sure that when you make meaningful connections, you engage with relevant content in a personable way.

If members of your network are sharing news that is of interest to you and your business, be sure to engage with them. Make a point of fostering meaningful conversations and sharing relevant news that will engage with your network.

When is the best time to interact on LinkedIn?

According to Influencer Marketing Hub, LinkedIn users are most active Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays between 8 am–5 pm. However, you’re a busy business owner and being constantly active can ruin focus, so my recommendation would be to schedule in 20 minutes of LinkedIn activity in the morning, and again after lunch.

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