LinkedIn is one of the most powerful social media platforms on the Internet today. Many brands use the LinkedIn marketing strategies below to drive thousands of targeted traffic to their website and services.

It has over 630 million users and is one of the best platforms for business marketing. It has grown into an asset for corporate marketing teams to source qualified leads for sales. The platform has also become a hub for franchise sales.

LinkedIn combines social media interaction in a professional setting.

Over 30 million businesses have their company pages on LinkedIn, which is utilized for accessing the global network of millions of users.

If you are not using LinkedIn for business, then you are certainly missing out on numerous channels to boost your company’s sales.  

There has been a surge in the number of people using social media globally in recent times. 94% of B2B Marketers have been found to use LinkedIn to promote their services through valuable content.

It is a perfect platform for managing professional associations and connections. The platform is unrivaled when it comes to maintaining professional business connections and this is what makes it a true asset for businesses that are looking into growth hacking.

How can you leverage LinkedIn marketing for your Business?

There are several ways in which you can leverage the popular professional network to your advantage. You can use this platform to:

• Grow your reach
• Source and engage top talent
• Promote your business, educate, and nurture potential clients
• Improve your brand’s credibility through this platform

Top LinkedIn marketing strategies to grow your business

So let’s go over the best ways to leverage LinkedIn to grow your business. These tactics cover organic and paid options for leveraging LinkedIn for growing your business, B2B or B2C.

Create and get your “Full” LinkedIn profile ready

If you want to connect with your potential clients through LinkedIn, then the first and foremost thing you need to do is create a profile on the platform and work on it.

LinkedIn members are 50 percent most likely to purchase once they have engaged with a business on LinkedIn.

As per a report by Forbes, only 57% of companies have their pages on the platform and the rest are just missing out a free chance to generate talent, leads, and revenue.

If you do not have a LinkedIn page for your business, then it is best to follow a guide on creating a company page. But wait. Just having a simple company page is not going to do you any good.

Complete profiles on LinkedIn receive up to 2x more visitors than the ones with incomplete profiles.

You need to ensure that the profile page consists of:

• Company logo
• Company description
• Website URL
• Company size
• Company type
• Location
• Industry

Head to your Company Page and select the Overview option. You will be directed to the information page and from there you can fill out all the vital information.

Here’s a few tips to keep your profile looking good and valuable to the reader.

To have the best possible profile to start your LinkedIn marketing strategy:

• Upload a high-resolution image of your company logo.
• Make sure that the cover image captures the essence of your brand.
• You also need to fill out the About Us section.
• A complete company profile makes your page appear more professional and legitimate.   

Make it a habit of posting consistently as per schedule

To generate leads on LinkedIn, you need to regularly share content that reaches your potential audience. The top company pages on LinkedIn are updated consistently to ensure that the visitors have new information every time to learn and share with others.

If you have just started, you should try posting at least once a week. It is not uncommon for businesses to share posts two to three times per day. You need to post anytime you have something worth sharing with others. Consistent posting shows that your company is quite active on LinkedIn.

You can utilize LinkedIn’s Company Page Analytics to see your top-performing posts, members you are most engaged with, and the best times to post. You can optimize the page content based on the data offered to you.      

Here are some stats that help you to boost engagement: 

• Posts with images witness 98% boost in engagement
• Posts with links receive over 45% engagement
• Posts that consist of relevant lists get over 40% more growth

If your posts are receiving good engagement, then choose to promote it to a wider audience by using LinkedIn Sponsored Content tool to your advantage.

Expert tip: If you want to post quality content consistently, then consider adding a few RSS feeds to your content inbox. It offers a solid supply of content which you can share anytime. The key is to customize the content to your audience.

Re-buffer your top content

If you are running out of ideas, then rebuffer or re-share your top posts from the past. Due to complicated algorithms, the chances are quite high that just a small percentage of your followers would have noticed your posts in the feed.

You can head to the analytics sections to find your top-performing posts on the Buffer dashboard. Select the report and click on Most Popular to identify your top posts. You can then re-share them with your followers.    

Encourage your employees to link with your company page

Your employees and your colleagues are your finest resources to grow your network on the platform. As per LinkedIn, companies that have a strong employee advocacy program are 58% most likely to attract top talent and 20% more likely to retain them.

Your top advocates are your employees. You can tap into their network and expand your reach by adding them as your followers. Also, encourage them to add their position at your company to their profiles.

Share posts with rich media

If you want to make your content stand out from the rest, then there is no way that you can rely only on plain text posts. LinkedIn figures show that posts with an image receive 98 percent more engagement and comments.

If you have a YouTube channel, then you can consider linking your videos to your LinkedIn posts. YouTube videos start playing automatically in the news feed and can generate a high share rate, which will also boost views on your YouTube videos. There’s huge potential here for businesses that need to market their videos.

Take advantage of LinkedIn groups

Being an active participant in groups on LinkedIn can help you boost your network with other businesses and professionals in your field. You can utilize the search feature on the top of your homepage to discover groups on the platform. You can also create your own group based on the industry or topic that interests you.

If you are a part of any association, then check if it has any members-only group on LinkedIn. This group can prove to be a valuable source of business development and networking. For instance, The American Institute of CPAs has over 69,000 members on LinkedIn where you can participate in in-depth professional conversations. 

Promote your content

LinkedIn permits you to distribute your content to professionals using the sponsored content feature offered. You can use this tool to promote your e-books, articles, and any other form of digital content to the users on LinkedIn directly. 

Increased content exposure helps you to establish your business as an authority that can be respected and trusted. If you want to get the most traction from the content that has been sponsored by you, you need to:

• Use targeting features such as job titles and skills to show off your content to the kind of professionals you intend to reach
• Produce content that would appeal to the specific audience you intend to target
• Use a strong call of action for guiding the users to take the next step
• Respond to the comments on the posts that you have boosted for increasing engagement with prospective customers

Utilize multi-language tools

If you have customers in regions where English is not the primary language, then make sure to create descriptions in local languages.

LinkedIn lets you create customized descriptions about your company in 24 languages. This description would appear for each member based on their language setting. You can also choose to make your company name appear in different languages. 

When you post any content or updates, you can configure the settings and post in different languages for your global followers. This will help you build credibility with the international members of LinkedIn. This small act will show them that you care about working with them and put their needs first.  

Make effective use of LinkedIn ads

LinkedIn members offer detailed information about their skills, associations, and professional interests to the network. This implies that the platform has exceptional targeting capabilities that you can leverage to take laser-focused strategic decisions. Several solutions are offered by the company when it comes to advertising.

• Sponsored content – You can amplify your content to reach a larger audience than you could do organically

• Text Ads – These are pay-per-click ads that appear on the homepage, group pages, and profile pages

• Sponsored InMail – This is similar to email marketing, but is done with the ecosystem of the platform. This feature lets you send personalized ads to the inbox of members. Messages are delivered to the members when they are active on the network, thereby increasing their chances of noticing your ads. 

Install the LinkedIn plugin

The importance of solid content is stressed all the time on social media platforms when you are looking to develop a firm footing. You can utilize two options on LinkedIn for content sharing. You can write compelling posts and share them or you can install a plugin on your website or blog page.

Sharing great content can help you increase your profile visits and also will help in elevating your credibility. However, it can be a tedious process to share with multiple groups and platforms.

This is when you can utilize automated sharing tools to your benefit. You can also place the LinkedIn share button on your blog page or website. This will direct the targeted audience to your posts through various channels.

Use Automation Tools

LinkedIn groups certainly help you to expand your network. However, it also requires you to be consistent when it comes to sharing your posts. You can automate the entire process instead of manually wasting your time.

There are several tools available that do a better job of sharing your content to the intended audience. You will just have to choose certain options and furnish basic details into the tool to start using it.

Automating Inmails on LinkedIn

Sending Inmails can prove to be quite challenging. It can be time-consuming if you are dealing with a larger audience. You can choose to save templates in LinkedIn Recruiter to create a standardized InMail message. This would be sent instantly to a large number of people at the same time.

This automation feature makes your manual process more efficient. You can also utilize browser-based tools for sending Inmails to a larger audience. You need to remember that these features can be utilized only by premium members.

Selling and Generating Leads

LinkedIn offers plenty of ways of identifying leads, engaging with them, and converting them into customers. This can be achieved through a combination of listening, analyzing, sharing, participating, networking, and responding. Networking with clients directly will increase your chances of making direct sales. 

Key prospects are more likely to post queries and needs. Group Posts also provide marketers an opportunity to identify new leads. Liking content and sharing it also offers you insights on what your prospects find interesting. Engaging in a chat or responding to queries can demonstrate your know-how to your prospects.  

Bonus: LinkedIn Marketing Techniques with Maja Voje

Maja Voje, an expert growth advisor, shared with us her opinions on how to excel on LinkedIn. You can find her tips in the full interview below:

Maja has built fantastic growth strategies for brands like Apple, Tesla, and Adidas. She also has an extremely popular growth hacking course on Udemy with over 51k students and she helped develop the exceptional growthhackers.com community.

Summary

LinkedIn holds immense potential to help your business grow by connecting with the right resources, prospective clients, and professional bodies.

If you utilize all these right tactics, you can grow your network globally and develop a firm footing on the channel.

These are the tactics in short:

• Create and get your “Full” LinkedIn profile ready
• Make it a habit of posting consistently as per schedule
• Re-buffer your top content
• Encourage your employees to link with your company page
• Share posts with rich media
• Take advantage of LinkedIn groups
• Promote your content
• Utilize multi-language tools
• Make effective use of LinkedIn ads
• Install the LinkedIn plugin
• Use Automation Tools
• Automating Inmails on LinkedIn
• Selling and Generating Leads

You can utilize these simple tips to grow your network and connect with the intended audience on this popular professional networking platform.

How are you currently using LinkedIn to market your business? Let us know in the comments.

Author – Aditya S

Aditya works as a Growth Assistant at AirTract, a go-to place for all expert advice wherein people ask questions, write articles, share and learn from online courses.

He has a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science Engineering and has been working in the field of Digital Marketing for the past two years. He’s also a voracious reader and a big sports fan.