How to Get Started with LinkedIn Marketing
In this article you will learn how to get started with LinkedIn marketing with a summary of considerations including your mindset, content types and features you can use on both your Profile and Company Page.
With the continued popularity of LinkedIn for professionals who lead or own consulting or coaching practices, law firms or professional services, especially those in the B2B space, LinkedIn is an essential marketing tool to help you increase brand awareness, establish your thought leadership, educate your professional community about your services and expand your connections.
How to Get Started with Your LinkedIn Marketing
Here’s what I recommend you need to consider in terms of your LinkedIn game plan. Scroll down to read more about LinkedIn content types and how to leverage them for your LinkedIn Profile and LinkedIn Company Page.
1. Narrow Your Focus for LinkedIn
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To get maximum value from LinkedIn you must decide why you are there. Please ask yourself these two questions. |
What do I want to be known for? Consider what you want to be the ‘go to’ for. When people think of your name, what do they think of in a professional sense. What topics would people suggest they talk to you about. Let’s use me as an example. I want to be known as your go to for LinkedIn. If your community has a LinkedIn marketing question, I want to be the person you recommend they speak to.
Who are you trying to influence when you’re on LinkedIn? This needs to take into consideration your primary audience (e.g. the types of clients / connections you do your best work with) and your secondary audience (e.g. people who already know, like and trust you and will actively refer you to their professional community).
2. Embrace the LinkedIn Marketing Mindset
Embracing the LinkedIn marketing mindset means you’ll need to step out of the shade and share some of your thoughts and ideas to the public arena. To get maximum value from LinkedIn you need to commit to this platform as your first choice when you open your phone or look at your desktop each day. Why? Because showing up consistently and liking, commenting and posting value adding content is how you’ll increase your profile, get into more conversations and attract better clients.
In the 2019 Edelman B2B LinkedIn Thought Leadership Impact Study*, 82 percent of decision-makers said thought leadership being shared by someone they know and respect is a critical factor in getting them to engage. Cultivating your personal brand on LinkedIn also has personal benefits. Establishing your thought leadership online helps you be clearer about the impact you want to have on others and the difference you want to make for your community and, dare I say, the world!
Thought Leadership means becoming the ‘go to’ In your Industry
Becoming the ‘go to’ in your industry in your area of expertise is what Thought Leadership is about. And it’s essential that you analyse your market and understand your niche and be relevant to their needs. The majority of decision makers in the Edelman study said that half of the thought leadership they encounter did not provide valuable insights. The most critical factor in getting people to engage is to share your perspective on topics that people are working on right now.
You must consider your narratives, tones and messaging which all form part of the impression you make, the conversations you start (online and in real life), the ideas you inspire and the thoughts you provoke. Showing up more on LinkedIn also helps you reach a wider audience and share more of your insights with the people you wish to influence.
LinkedIn Content Curation for your LinkedIn Marketing Plan
The good news is that you don’t need to be a prolific content creator to stay top of mind with your LinkedIn connections. In fact, best practice content marketing principles recommend that you share a mix of curated (content created by others), owned (content created by you or your team) and promotional (content promoting you or your organisation). The first step is to curate your LinkedIn newsfeed. Consider your answers to the two questions above and let this inform your topic choices. Choose 3 topics that are relevant to engage with on LinkedIn in the content of ‘what you want to be known for’ and ‘who you want to influence’.
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Curating your LinkedIn newsfeed is a game changer and will significantly improve the quality and relevance of the content you see in your LinkedIn newsfeed. Now is the time to read this article about How to Get Better Updates in Your LinkedIn Newsfeed. |
LinkedIn Content Marketing Posting Considerations
Posts from the LinkedIn profile and company page allow all LinkedIn members and organisations to share their professional expertise, experiences and anecdotes with their connections, followers and the larger community. In both cases, you need a plan and should not take an ad hoc approach.
Via your LinkedIn profile, posts are a way of staying connected with your community and any posts you share will be broadcasted to your connections’ feeds on their LinkedIn homepage. However, your connections will rarely see all of your posts, due to the nature of the way the LinkedIn algorithm works.
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LinkedIn offers an increasingly expanding number of ways to post updates via your LinkedIn profile and LinkedIn company page. The main differences about what to post from your profile versus your company page will be based on your content marketing strategy. |
You need a plan and should not take an ad hoc approach.
Your LinkedIn profile posts are an opportunity to share valuable content to your community, and should not be viewed as just a platform for self promotion. This is a professional networking platform where people want to stay informed, learn, access opportunities and make connections.
Your LinkedIn company page posts are also an opportunity to share valuable content to your community. You do have more permission to post promotional content from your LinkedIn company page, but this should only be 10-20% of the time, and be part of a mix of curated and owned content that delivers again to the promise you’ve made to your LinkedIn company page followers. You want them to have an expectation of being kept informed about specific news, trends and updates, based on your organisation’s expertise and services.
LinkedIn Content Marketing Posting Options
The images below show the differences between the posting options from your LinkedIn profile (on the left hand side) and your LinkedIn company page (on the right hand side). When you click into the Start a post area you’re given a number of other content options. This can be overwhelming at first, so stay focused on your LinkedIn marketing plan and choose content posting options you feel most comfortable with. Observe how your community uses content posting features such as LinkedIn polls and LinkedIn events before diving into these more advanced LinkedIn marketing options.
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LinkedIn’s content marketing posting features include:
- Posting images, videos, links or just text.
- Publishing a LinkedIn article (LinkedIn profile only). Learn more here about how to publish a LinkedIn article.
- Creating a Poll
- Creating an Event
- Offering Help
- Posting a PDF document
- Streaming live via LinkedIn Live
- Posting LinkedIn Stories (phone only). Learn more about LinkedIn stories here.
Karen Hollenbach
As the Founding Director of Think Bespoke I help individuals and organisations unlock their potential with LinkedIn. Sign up to my E-insights for LinkedIn tips.