For most digital marketers across the globe, social media marketing means Facebook and Instagram marketing. These are pretty useful advertising platforms, but are they always the best choice?

Undoubtedly, LinkedIn does not have a user base as large as Facebook or Instagram, but, having said that, it offers a myriad of unique advantages over other advertising platforms.

According to Search Engine Journal, more marketers are shifting their advertising budgets to Linkedin Marketing . It is a sign that LinkedIn is going to be the next advertising player. LinkedIn has been offering advertising services for years now, but in the last couple of years, it has turned into a powerful marketing tool.

According to a recent survey, 93% of B2B marketers consider LinkedIn to be one of the most effective lead generation techniques. Moreover, 51% of businesses get positive results through LinkedIn.

In this post, we are going to make you familiar with some tested and trusted LinkedIn marketing strategies. If you want to leverage the full potential of LinkedIn for the growth of your brand, keep reading.

1.Define Your Objectives

Like with all other marketing strategies, for LinkedIn Marketing, you need to define your objectives first. The type of content you produce and the approach you take to distribute it on LinkedIn will depend on the objectives you want to achieve. Therefore, you must outline your goals before planning any strategy.

Maybe you want to target one or more of the goals listed below:

• Gain brand recognition
• Generate qualified leads
• Engage with your target audience
• Boost brand reputation
• Sell your product or service

2. Know Your Audience

Once you have a clear picture of your goal, it is time to define your audience. You can use different parameters such as geographic location, job title, industry, and more to outline your target audience.

Don't forget, successfully marketing on LinkedIn requires a deep understanding of who your target audience is and what they need. You can use the LinkedIn Analytics section on your Business page to learn more about your audience.

3. Create a Fascinating Company Profile

Your company profile is an essential asset to your LinkedIn marketing strategy. The company profile usually includes information about your business, product/service, headquarters, employees, and more.

List all necessary details of your business, such as company logo, website, and company size. Additionally, add a cover image and description which conveys crucial information about your company and services. To get organic traffic from search engines like Google and Bing, optimize your company profile with relevant keywords.

4. Examine Competitors' Company Profiles

LinkedIn comes with a unique feature called "Companies to track." The features help you find businesses similar to yours. It also gives you access to metrics such as the total number of followers, social media engagement, and the growth of followers over time for that company. It is a fantastic tool to see how your company profile fares in comparison.

5. Promote Your Company Page

There is no benefit of creating a captivating company page unless you can engage your target audience. Ask your employees and colleagues to follow your company page and share it in their groups. To make it easier for your audience to follow your company page, you can add a "Follow" button to your website, blogs, and email campaigns .

6. Try Using LinkedIn Polls

LinkedIn enables you to create polls and distribute them to your target audience, colleagues, and specific people you want to hear from. LinkedIn Polls help you get inside the minds of your target audience and listen to what they’re saying about your business.

7. Create Engaging yet Relevant Content

To ensure the success of your LinkedIn Marketing efforts, your LinkedIn profile must have followers who are genuinely interested in your space. And to retain followers, you need to create relevant and engaging content.

According to BuzzSumo, in 2017, around 10 million articles were shared on LinkedIn. The top phrases used in these articles included:

"The future of", "The Power of ", "X ways to", “X tips for," etc.

However, your aim should be publishing and sharing content that is meaningful to your audience.

8. Use Images and Videos

To maximize your audience engagement on LinkedIn, don't forget to add images and videos to your articles.

According to a LinkedIn study , image content leads to 2 times higher comment rates while videos are 5 times more likely to start a discussion. Apart from pictures and videos, you can also use SlideShare presentations and PDFs to make your content more engaging.

LinkedIn now lets you upload videos directly on the platform. Create a short video of 1 to 2-minutes with proper subtitles. The video should reflect the authentic version of your brand. If you're a beginner, don't hesitate to take the help of guides and tutorials providing tips on creating videos for the LinkedIn platform.

9. Create a Company-branded Group

A collaboration-based group managed by your company is an excellent way to advertise your business through LinkedIn. When you choose to create a company-branded group for your colleagues or clients to facilitate discussion about your business, it makes your company’s name more noticeable in the industry.

10. Utilize LinkedIn Analytics

Creating an effective LinkedIn Marketing campaign is not enough; you should also evaluate it regularly. LinkedIn Analytics helps you see useful insights about your audience. It may seem like fundamental advice, but evaluating click-through rate, impressions, and clicks for your posts will help guide your messaging strategy. These analytics will help you create content that is likely to get more attention.

Bonus Tip

If you're a member of several groups on LinkedIn, take advantage of that membership by participating in discussions. Participating in groups will help you expose your business to a large number of people.

Each time you participate in a group conversation, your photo and name get exposed. Moreover, you can drop in a short signature that includes your company's information on your posts for added promotion.

Conclusion

LinkedIn provides a large number of opportunities to connect your brand with your target audience. Over the years, it has turned into a powerful tool to build brand awareness and sell your products and services. Hopefully, the tips mentioned above will help you take your LinkedIn Marketing strategy to the next level.