There are a number of reasons why LinkedIn is an essential personal branding tool for any person or business. As a virtual resume and networking site, it has allowed people and businesses to connect like never before. The platform allows Google to find you more readily and it’s packed with invaluable resources such as, sourcing staff, service referral, prospective clients, or researching your competition. The list truly goes on and if you aren’t making the most out of your profile, you don’t know what you’re missing out on.
According to Pew Research Center, LinkedIn usage is rather high among the educated and high earners—exactly the types of people you want to connect with professionally. Additionally, 98% of recruiters and 85% of hiring managers use the networking platform to find candidates. So for that reason, LinkedIn means business. If you’re unsure whether your own LinkedIn business is on par with the best, here are a few tips to drastically increase your marketing potential:
- Complete your profile: First impressions go a long way. When people do a search for your company name to learn about your product or service, you’d better have a rock solid profile that will keep their attention.
- Connect, Connect, Connect: Connect with people you don’t know, even those outside of your field. Accept invitations from others who add you and expand your network. It’ll create more opportunities in the long run.
- Customize your websites: This one is self-explanatory. Skip the generic link that says “My website” and change it to something sexier, something that warrants attention.
- Be compelling: Show some personality in your status updates. Add an interesting news line in your summary or a blog recommendation.
- Optimize your Search Ranking: Since business professionals are constantly searching for your company name, why not rank at the top of the list? Beef up your profile with keywords within your Headline, Work Experience, Summary, and Specialties. These keywords should be related to your company’s current field.
Although Twitter and Facebook may take the lead when it comes to social sharing of stories, blog posts, and visual media, when it comes to direct traffic to your main company site, LinkedIn is at the top (sending nearly four times more traffic to your homepage than other social platforms). You might be surprised to find that only 57% of companies are using their profile pages, which means there’s a bit of room for your company to take maximum advantage of the medium. LinkedIn also generated the highest lead conversion rate in social media. In other words, in a study of more than 5,000 businesses, according to HubSpot, LinkedIn brought in the highest “vistor-to-lead” conversion rate at a whopping 2.74%.
So, how else can you update and maximize your company’s LinkedIn profile? For starters, you have to know why you’re on LinkedIn in the first place. People usually join the networking platform to display their career, work expertise, and find content and information that will enhance their professional lives. They are usually business focused, leaving the chatter (children’s photos, quirky comments) for non-business related social mediums. With that in mind, here are a few great tips that will up your LinkedIn engagement rate:
Lists
People love lists. That’s because reading a screen and reading a book are totally different. Online, users have the attention span of a goldfish. For that reason, most people read articles online in an “L” shape. They scan down, then read a couple lines, then go right back up again to see what they missed. Making numbered lists, helps people follow along easier. If they know there are only 11 steps in a given article, they can calculate how long they’ll spend reading it.
Links
LinkedIn has revealed that updates containing links get up to 45% higher follower engagement than those without. People like to learn new things from other people. Show them something new and they’ll be sure to come back for more.
Questions
Status updates that contain questions will always receive almost 50% more comments. Not only do users want to learn something new, they want to teach something new as well. People enjoy giving their two cents, albeit usually asinine.
Images
Posting an image in your status update has been shown to result in a 98% higher comment rate. Images and symbols are extremely powerful. Try telling a fellow co-worker about an amazing culinary experience you had over the weekend and they’ll probably nod and say, “cool.” But, show them a photo of the food you ate and they are sure to give you a grade-A thumbs up of approval.
Videos
According to LinkedIn, by sharing videos in your feed, your likes, shares, and comments will increase by more than half, 75% to be exact.
At the moment, LinkedIn is the fastest-growing networking platform online. More than 39 million students and recent college graduates are on the site right now. If you act now, you may have the opportunity to reach these users for an inbound of opportunities for your business or career. Beef up your profile and don’t miss any holes. People want to see that you’re a legit company with high standards and a clean record of doing excellent business. What are some tips that you think will have an impact on your business?
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