“LinkedIn is no longer an online resume. It’s your digital reputation.”–Jill Rowley
Since its launch in 2002, LinkedIn has acquired over 750 million users worldwide. To date, it remains one of the most useful social media platforms for professional development.
LinkedIn is designed to grow your business by facilitating new connections and reinforcing professional relationships. It can filter results and optimize your feed according to specific metrics such as credibility, job types, and seniority. In doing so, it helps you to make relevant business connections with ease.
While other social media platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram, are great tools for getting your business recognized, they are more on casual use. Furthermore, marketing your business on a platform that targets professionals can also bring desirable results to your business.
If Microsoft buying LinkedIn for $26.2 billion doesn’t inspire confidence in the success of the platform, these statistics surely will.
Content Marketers Find More Success on LinkedIn:
In 2017, research conducted by the Content Market Institute determined that LinkedIn was the most successful social media platform for professional digital marketers. This is because LinkedIn allows you to target precise audiences based on job types, experience levels, and companies. It can also boost your career through industry news, career training, expert advice, and peer recommendations.
The content in these pages, combined with content published by over 500 popular influencers, will guide you towards the strategies that will expand your business. Plus, the up-to-date news of your industry will affect how you operate and market yourself as you’ll have greater insights available on tap.
LinkedIn Provides Greater Business Leads Than Other Platforms
HubSpot’s study of over 5000 businesses revealed that LinkedIn is the most lucrative social media platform for building new business leads. Through investigating how much of the traffic directed from social media platforms turned into concrete business leads, LinkedIn had almost triple the success rate of Facebook and Twitter.
LinkedIn Connects You to Successful Companies and Professionals
A survey conducted by Pew Research Center in 2019 discovered that 49% of financially successful individuals earning over $75000 used LinkedIn. And, more than half of the college graduates in America are on the platform. These percentages dropped significantly as education levels and income rates dropped.
Considering that LinkedIn has over 750 million users, these demographics show that it will put you in touch with millions of businesses and like-minded professionals. LinkedIn further includes premium plans and advertising that can help you reach high-end individuals and companies in your field.
Understanding Your LinkedIn Feed
Posts will appear in your feed that are connected to the people or pages you follow and the previous content you have liked and shared. This means your feed will cater to your business. It will send you information that is not only interesting for those in your field but potentially helpful too. One of the popular sayings at LinkedIn is “People You Know, Talking About Things You Care About”. This credo is what guides the platform’s algorithm and features.
LinkedIn is the Most Trusted Social Media Platform in the United States
In June 2020, Business Insider sent out a survey to American social media users on digital trust. It used five different measures to determine which platform users felt most confident would protect their information and create a safe environment for them to produce and consume content. The social media platforms that prioritized the interests of their users were deemed more trustworthy than those that did not. The results of this survey ranked LinkedIn as the most trusted platform amongst users.
The perceived trustworthiness of a social media platform is important for businesses using sponsored content to reach potential customers. 79% of users said that trustworthiness had a noteworthy impact on their decision to engage with sponsored posts.
Sharing Content on LinkedIn Helps Marketers to Connect with Other Professionals
Of the 250 million active users on LinkedIn, only 1.2% share content on a weekly basis. But despite this, content on LinkedIn gets 9 billion impressions each week. This means that if you start regularly engaging with LinkedIn by sharing and creating content, there is a higher chance of your content going viral than on any other platform.
In addition to this, over 90% of marketing executives have said that LinkedIn is the best place to find valuable and relevant content. Just under 50% of the readers on LinkedIn are in high-end positions. So, your published content is likely to be seen by the people you want to read it, especially if you pay to boost it. Unlike other social media platforms, LinkedIn also allows you to sort how you would like your updates to appear. This gives you the choice of chronological or top updates.
How to Get Your Content Seen on LinkedIn
If you’re now convinced that you need to use LinkedIn to boost your digital marketing strategy (and you should be!), the following tips are vital when publishing content.
- On average, longer posts on LinkedIn generate more views. Make sure your post title is 40 to 49 characters with content of about 1900 to 2000 words.
- Include pictures in your posts. 8 images will keep your content interesting as it is not too little and not too much.
- How-To articles that explain things from a neutral point of view and include lists are most effective on LinkedIn.
- Involve your employees and colleagues in sharing and engaging with content together. The more connections you have on LinkedIn, the further your content will reach. Use the SharePoint team calendar to schedule meetings beforehand and brainstorm new ideas.
There are countless guides and services for those looking to refine their LinkedIn strategy and increase their business connections and leads. LinkedIn itself even provides information on how to market in line with its algorithm in a way that will help your career or brand thrive. According to the platform, lengthy posts with visually appealing content like photos, videos or infographics help to grab the attention of users. If you have an online portfolio that you use for marketing purposes, you can use the same or similar images on LinkedIn to boost interest.
Get Started With LinkedIn
Remember, although LinkedIn is highly professional, it is still a social media platform and uses similar algorithms and tactics to other platforms. You can be creative with how you engage with the platform, utilizing everything from the stories, live videos, and messages to put your business in the spotlight online. With the points stated above, LinkedIn marketing will help you take that next step forward.
