LAB Marketing

LinkedIn is a social networking site designed specifically for the business community.  It is a link between you, your business and your potential new customers.

But it is much more than that, it will help you grow your network of contacts, keep you abreast of the latest insights for the topics which interest you and your business as well as enable you to expand your own personal development.

LinkedIn currently welcomes 2 new members a second and 80% of B2B social media leads come from the channel, making it a key B2B marketing tool.

Your profile

It is important to spend time on your profile in LinkedIn, as it acts as your first impression and, a well-written profile will enable you to:

• Be discoverable – the more detail you have, the more likely you are to come up in LinkedIn searches and Google.
• Be first – the more detail you have, the more likely you are to appear above, or instead of, similar profiles in search and suggested profile sections.
• Be clear – ensure that anyone finding your profile knows very quickly who you are, who you work with and what your achievements are.

For the best profile, I would look to:

• add a background photo (1584x396px is the recommended size), something relevant to your business
• ensure your profile photo is a simple headshot
• introduction is up-to-date, relevant and eye-catching
• make sure your summary tells your story, short and snappy, but includes some elements of your personality
• your experiences, keep relevant to your current career path, 2-4 short sentences for each role and include the company profile for each position.

Discovering Content

Follow companies and people – both in and outside your industry that you admire

Regularly check your newsfeed – make signing into LinkedIn a daily habit

Choosing content

If it interests you professionally it’s probably worth sharing

See if it’s been shared a lot by other people – that probably means there’s something interesting about it

Don’t just consider content that is directly relevant to your industry – interesting ideas can come from everywhere

Content Sharing Tips

• Don’t share without comment – add your thoughts, or ask a question to try and start conversation
• Regularly review comments
• If it picks up into discussion, encourage the conversation. Consider connecting with anyone who is particularly engaged
• Don’t ignore positive comments – give them some recognition, a thank you as in important here as in person
• Remember, if someone comments on your shared content it will then appear in their network’s content newsfeed.
• Add in suggested or related hashtags# to enable greater visibility of your posts
• Check the source of all content you share – is it from is it from is it from is it from a competitor, is it reliable, relevant?

Influencers & Groups

If is well worth looking at influencers suggested by LinkedIn (right hand side of your newsfeed and profile) to see whether they are relevant organisations, groups, individuals and even hashtags# which you could follow.

By using the search bar, you can also filter a search down for relevant groups which would also be a great place to share content, engage with that groups network and read new and valuable insights on a topic of interest.

DO NOT do it in just 1 day!  LinkedIn should be a daily habit, something you connect with every day.