Why Your Business Should Use LinkedIn
Even though it seems like people are only on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok these days, LinkedIn is still excellent for promoting your brand on social media. While many assume that LinkedIn is only for job seekers, it can be a great tool for promoting your business. LinkedIn is a business environment popular with professionals, job seekers, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders. In fact, there are over 160 million users on LinkedIn in the US alone.
If you’re unfamiliar with how LinkedIn works, it has a feed similar to Facebook where you can post images, text, page links, and more. You can start with an individual account, and create a company page, too.
Here are some LinkedIn tools and strategies designed to help you reach the right people.
Reach Customers Directly With InMail
With a basic (free) LinkedIn account, you’re only able to message people within your network. InMail is LinkedIn’s premium (paid) instant messaging system that allows you to send a direct message to users to whom you aren’t connected. LinkedIn provides “credits” based on which premium subscription plan you have. If you run out of credits, you can also purchase more.
InMail is useful if you’d like to reach people at other businesses that your business isn’t currently connected to. There are over 55 million companies on LinkedIn, making it the second most popular B2B platform after Facebook. So, InMail is an excellent way to get in touch with businesses or people that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to reach directly.
Keep in mind that only individual (personal) accounts have access to InMail.
InMail Best Practices
InMail can help you grow B2B connections, but only if you know how to use InMail properly. If your messaging strategy is weak, you can reach out to every business you want and not hear a peep back.
Here are a few ways to stay on top of the InMail game:
Keep your messages shorter: According to LinkedIn’s user data, shorter InMail messages have a significantly higher response rate. InMail messages with 400 or fewer words had a 22% higher response rate than average. The longest messages (1200+ words) had an 11% lower response rate compared to the average.
Source: LinkedIn
Use simple language: Don’t break out your thesaurus trying to sound impressive or overwhelm people with jargon they may not be familiar with. Messages written at a fifth-grade reading level receive 50% more replies than those at a 10th-grade level.
Personalize your message: We get it: copying and pasting is easier. But, you should still create each InMail message specifically for the business you are targeting. If the recipient of your InMail doesn’t immediately understand what benefit they get from partnering with you, they’re going to ignore your message. End your message with a call to action that incentivizes your reader to chat with you further.
Using LinkedIn for Marketing
Most people on LinkedIn are professionals, so generating brand awareness and getting more shares is a quick way to grow your professional network. Here are a few key elements to creating a good LinkedIn social media marketing strategy:
- Use Keywords: Use SEO keywords to reach your target audience through LinkedIn’s search feature. Don’t go overboard and “keyword stuff,” as this can actually lead to your posts not being prioritized by search engines.
- Backlink to Your Site: Backlinks are essential for SEO. Links to your website on other credible sites make your website appear more credible to Google. Link important web pages (i.e. your homepage, contact page, product/services pages, etc.) in your social media posts to increase interactions and conversions on those pages.
- Use a Custom URL: Get rid of the “alphabet soup URL” LinkedIn assigns your profile page in favor of a custom one. LinkedIn has a guide here.
- Sponsor Your Posts: Sponsoring your content helps more people see it, which means more traffic to your social media page and website.
- Use Relevant Hashtags: If you run a business that sells clothing, use hashtags that promote what you’re selling, like #shirts. Similar to SEO keywords, don’t overdo hashtags. Right now, three is the magic number for LinkedIn hashtags.
- Use a Voice That Reaches Your Audience: Know what your audience is looking for, and consider how you can create a social media campaign that resonates with them.
Creating an Effective B2B Campaign
LinkedIn is great for posting about your business because the lifespan of a post is much longer than most other social media platforms. LinkedIn posts typically last 24 hours, whereas Facebook posts last six hours. This gives people four times more time to see your posts and engage with them. Creating powerful, solid posts several times per week is the key to raising awareness for your brand.
When you create posts on LinkedIn, you need to do more than just promote your brand or products. Give your customer some sort of value, as well. Share posts from businesses you’ve collaborated with, make posts with tips and tricks to establish authority, and post testimonials or success stories from business partners who benefitted from your services.
Ready to Launch?
If you’re ready to create a LinkedIn campaign to promote your business, Top Fox is here to help! Contact us to get started.
