How LinkedIn Posts Can Change Your Business

Is LinkedIn part of your social media marketing strategy? It should be.

“But LinkedIn is for posting resumes and looking for jobs,” you may say. Once upon a time that was the case, but that time has passed. The executives at LinkedIn are broadening their horizons, and that’s good news for you.

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For a few months now, LinkedIn has been rolling out a new feature on its site to all of its users: the ability to post content. It started with people who qualified as “Influencers” but has recently been expanding, and will continue to expand, to include all users.

So what?

How does that affect you?

It means you have another opportunity to showcase your expertise in your industry by posting educational information that can point traffic to your website. (You may remember from my previous post that traffic is more important than links. If somebody visits your website based on a post you wrote on LinkedIn, you’ve got a potential lead!)

If you’re a consultant, you can flex your business savvy. If you’re an author, you can showcase your talent. If you’re a business owner, you can share your knowledge of the industry. In each case, you have the opportunity to present yourself as an expert and potentially reach new connections on a new platform.

How does that affect your social media marketing?

The ability to post on LinkedIn affects a few aspects of your social media marketing. First of all, it changes the utility of LinkedIn from a primarily networking and recruiting platform to a marketing platform. It will remain a place online to learn more about applicants, but in order to make the most of it, you’ll need to visit the site more often and write unique posts with marketing in mind.

Secondly, it makes all of your employees marketers. If they have a profile that shows they work for your company, then their posts can be marketing tools to point traffic to your company website. Employees have long been a reflection of the companies they work for, now even more so.

Thirdly, it means there is another site that needs unique content for marketing. If you’re keeping tally at home, here are all the social media sites that need to have content created for them:

  • Company blog
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Google+
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Podcast
  • LinkedIn

Before you throw your hands up in the air in frustration, keep this in mind. Each of these sites has a unique audience with different leads who could turn into customers. That should help to keep you motivated and nudge you to write your first LinkedIn post.

How does posting on LinkedIn benefit your business? 

write blog postWe’ve already talked about how LinkedIn has a new audience for you to wow with industry insights and about how it can point traffic to your business website. Those are fantastic benefits in and of themselves. But there’s more, too.

In the past, when someone viewed your profile on LinkedIn, they would see your background experience first. Now, your posts appear at the top of the profile. That means your industry insights are seen before your resume is. It’s more relatable and valuable in the long run. Just because somebody holds a certain title does not mean they are good at what they do. By providing first-hand industry knowledge, your posts give you the opportunity to show people how your business and expertise can help them.

For example, if you’re a consultant who specializes in employee relations, a resume that shows your years in human resources at a hospital will be less helpful for your business than a post about successfully dealing with conflict in the workplace.

Unlike other social media sites, LinkedIn automatically shows you the publishing metrics for your posts. In other words, the site tells you how many people looked at your post. Knowing what people want to read is incredibly helpful as you plan what to write in the future.

7 Tips for posting on LinkedIn 

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  1. Use an image at the beginning of the post. An image captures attention at a glance and makes the reader want to know more… or least read to title to see if they want to know more.
  2. Beware of duplicate content. If you’re already thinking to yourself, “I’ll just post stuff I’ve written on my blog to my LinkedIn profile” you’ll need to come up with a new plan. Duplicate content like that actually hurts your website when it comes to search engine rankings. Unique content is your best bet.
  3. LinkedIn has explicitly stated that no sales oriented content will be allowed. Just like search engines want to provide the best results, LinkedIn wants to provide the best reader experience. That, and they want to make the most of paid advertising opportunities.
  4. Include calls to action. You can’t post sales content, but you can tell readers to check out your company website where they’ll learn all about your products and services. The call to action can also be to encourage readers to read a specific blog post on your company site. Remember: the goal is qualified traffic that will become leads.
  5. Business hours are the best time to publish. Unlike other social media sites that tend to focus more on entertainment, LinkedIn’s focus is business. As a result, your posts are more likely to be read if they’re posted during business hours.
  6. Keep your audience in mind while you write. LinkedIn has a different audience than Twitter or YouTube. Focus on industry insights rather than pop culture gossip.
  7. Keep your profile up to date. Even though your posts are at the top of the profile, inquiring minds will want to know more about the author of the post. Make sure your information is current.

Don’t think of LinkedIn as another item on your to-do list; think of it as another opportunity to find leads. If you need some help, let us know.

How to Join the Best LinkedIn Groups

LinkedIn group

The one place you can find everyone – recruiters, influencers, potential networking connections and prospective clients – is within LinkedIn Groups.  Known for their strong focus, Groups provide a unique way for you to become visible, known and trusted – without members even being connections.

You can:

  • Give and get feedback
  • Ask questions
  • Answer questions
  • Present offers
  • Share resources
  • Invite people to share your content and visit your site

And best of all – monitor the response you get to all of the above.

You can also share links freely with Groups – but don’t use this as an excuse to spam.  Always make sure that any links you share are highly relevant, timely and interesting, with a clear purpose for sharing.

LinkedIn has done away with the ability to create polls for Groups, but you can now perform some actions that weren’t approved before:  Namely…

  • Post job discussions and promotions
  • Flag or delete posts according to Discussion Types

(If in doubt as to what you can and can’t do, check out Changes to Groups Format in the Help section.)

Used regularly, consistently and wisely – with a clear goal in mind – LinkedIn’s Groups feature remains one of the best arenas in which to conduct business research.

When you join the right Group, you can use it to check out:

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  • Areas of the common Group interest that its members are having trouble with
  • Gaps in available resources and products
  • Resources or products currently available
  • Complaints about competitors, or existing products or services
  • Complaints about lack of products or services currently available
  • Brainstorming sessions and ideas
  • Community culture
  • Industry or niche influencers
  • Competitors

So how do you know which Groups to join?

Get into the habit of scrolling down LinkedIn’s right-hand, vertical sidebar.  That’s where you’ll find suggestions tailored to your Profile – including “Groups You May Like”.

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In addition…

1.     Make a commitment to spend time daily monitoring or interacting with your Group or Groups.

2.     Decide how many Groups to join.

3.     Find Groups that are active, with ongoing discussions and dialogues.

4.     Avoid Groups that are too big (over 1,000 members) or too small.

Taking these simple steps ensures you’ll create maximum visibility and interaction – which in turn will impact your searchability when others research you.  Successful Group participation also creates trust and shows you without any need for third-party apps or stats who to follow – and learn from.