5 Tips To Get You Started With LinkedIn Social Media Marketing

Social media is a part of many people’s everyday lives and LinkedIn is especially a favorite for many business professionals. Social Media Marketing (SMM) is a great way for you to get more involved with prospects and customers online to grow your marketing network.

Here are 5 tips to help you boost your LinkedIn Marketing Strategy:

1. Shout it From the Mountain Tops

 

Let your customers know that you’re going to create a profile and become active on social media for marketing and connection purposes. Social media is one of the fastest and easiest ways to connect with existing customers, and prospects as well. So, get the word out that you have a profile too! You may want to create a personal profile and an account for your business.

Many business people in the U.S. and around the world already have LinkedIn accounts as a way to maintain their professional business status and keep in contact with important connections and influencers. If you want to grow your LinkedIn connections, people first need to know that you even exist there.

2. Connect with Your Connections

Interact with your prospects and customers as much as possible. If you want your LinkedIn account to actually benefit your business and grow your connections, you need to actually make an effort to connect! Encourage your employees and co workers to create LinkedIn profiles, follow industry influencers, and send connection requests out to existing customers or those in your target audience. LinkedIn is one of the best resources we have to come into direct contact with prospects and clients.

People use LinkedIn as a business resource, so take the time to develop an interesting profile and post useful content (videos, images, articles etc). And, if others in your network are posting content, read it or spend a few minuets to take it in. Like, comment, and share their content. Chances are, if you’re active on social media and invested in what your connections are doing, they’ll return the favor.

Know your audience. Understand that social networks aren’t just used for visitors to look at. LinkedIn in particular is a platform for business professionals. As a result, LinkedIn is a great place to conduct customer and prospect research.

On LinkedIn alone, you can see work and employment history, their posts, any people or pages they follow, and any particular interests and skills they have. Using that public, provided information, you can build buyer personas and hone your target audience focus for your social media marketing. You should also take the time to optimize your profile as well. LinkedIn gives you the ability to include a description of what you do right at the top of your profile. Include keywords that your target audience would most normally use and list and/or explain your product or service as well.

If someone is searching for a particular service or keyword and they don’t see it in your profile, they’ll most likely pass you by!

3. It’s Not All Sunshine and Rainbows

Be prepared for the negativity associated with social media marketing. Because LinkedIn is a professional, business network, you shouldn’t have to worry about “trolls”, but that doesn’t make you immune to negative comments or feedback. You may see that many people love your company and products, that’s great. Whether people are happy or complaining, do not ignore them. If people do have concerns or negative feedback, face it head on and resolve their issues.

Be grateful for that immediacy of social media to brings concerns to the surface. You’ll be able to address concerns promptly and fully, and use social media to update your customers easily on your progress toward resolving the issue.

4. Keep Your Eyes and Ears Open

Are you listening? If LinkedIn is the place you intend to market (and it definitely should be), you have to make visitors feel like they’re important and understood. As mentioned before, LinkedIn already provides you with a fare amount of information about your connections. Use that to your advantage! Develop your relationship with your connections through messages and online communication, as well as in person or phone conversations. Once you develop and get to know your connections better, you’ll understand what they need or want specifically.

When you figure out what your customers’ needs are, you can tailor specific messages to them, providing helpful content and resources they can use.

5. Create Incentive

Create an Informational LinkedIn Group. One of the great attributes of LinkedIn is the ability to create groups. Personalized groups is a great way to jump start your social media marketing plan and get the right information into the right hands. Because groups are invite only, you can tailor information and conversations to a specific topic or audience that you wouldn’t normally share on your public profile.

This isn’t a space for self-promotion, rather this an additional space to go above and beyond to connect and serve your customers. Give your group members something to look forward to!

In Conclusion

LinkedIn is a great resource to grow your marketing network and connect with prospects and customers. If you follow the tips outlined here, you will begin seeing the powerful benefits of social media marketing on LinkedIn.