The most common mistake committed by companies integrating their businesses to LinkedIn is underestimating the capabilities of this platform.
According to Hootsuite,
96% of B2B enterprises utilise LinkedIn for organic social media marketing with a reach of 163 million users in Europe (including the UK), 196 million in Asia Pacific, and 107 million in Latin America.
Like any other social media, LinkedIn has a top-secret ingredient, a set of rules to be followed in a calculation, that is made up of different components — its algorithm.
A question arises:
how to utilize the platform to get the maximum benefit and maintain an outstanding brand on LinkedIn?
There is no other better way to mount the algorithm other than optimizing your profile to the full as it will provide your brand with a solid foundation for growth. Luckily, we will guide you through 6 crucial points to consider when building your brand on LinkedIn.
Profile Image
The company’s logo and cover image are the first things your clients are going to see hence treat it like your visit card since it will tell a word about your company.
Upload better resolution images to boost brand credibility within LinkedIn from the start. If your images do not comply with up-to-date standards of the LinkedIn algorithm it will result in fewer users discovering you in their search resulting in slower growth of your brand- the goal is to be distinguishable and easily recognisable.
Also, look into various strategies that would match your branding guidelines and could be applied by using bright colours or inserting symbols into your image.
Heading and Summary
“Am I on the right profile?”
“What does this company do?”
Those questions should be covered by reading the company’s description. Well-written heading will relate your brand with the right industry members and guarantee better reach thus be honest and relevant as it is the working method to get the most out of your new connections.
Adding hashtags will direct you to your target audience as hashtags are one of the main search methods on LinkedIn.
Limits for characters for 2021:
Key questions you aim to be answered reading your summary:
Since LinkedIn has various networks of people, brand ambassadors could be considered the key component to expanding your network.
Your first thought might be hiring someone or asking your clients and friends to share and post your content and you are not wrong, you miss out on a bigger perspective. Because the main ambassadors for your company are your employees.
Going beyond and mastering not only your profile but also the profiles of your employees will provide another leg up for building a confident brand on LinkedIn.
The motivation of your employees to grow the company will improve the quality of the content and become a passive benefit that might be missing when you outsource ambassadors from outside the company.
Content is the main driver of your brand on LinkedIn as it will define your reach and therefore your results from using the platform.
There are various aspects to consider when planning your posts in LinkedIn thus keep in mind the four main goals or KPIs you might set for tracking the growth of your company on LinkedIn:
A number of clicks and likes aim at catching the audience’s attention and will require eye-catchy visuals.
A number of comments and shares intend to focus on engaging users in the post and encouraging them to spread our posts to their networks increasing the reach and therefore awareness about the brand.
Due to the high potential of organic growth in LinkedIn, if you manage to create a topic worth sharing, your content will be quickly noticed by other users. It could be news, opinions, shocking content, interviews, podcasts, videos, or anything that your creativity will come with.
What will be left is to have to identify touches to your content so that your company could be differentiated from others, it could be a special watermark of your logo that defines you.
Sometimes a good old fashion shock strategy can bring worldwide awareness to your brand since content that makes no sense is most interesting to research, for example, imagine if a coffee bar would put a cup of coffee for 300 Euro, you would never buy it but you would remember this company and their product.
Seek for innovation and experiment with new formats, you will never know where the treasure is hidden until you find it.
Brands get 7x more reactions and 24x more comments through live streams than regular videos, for this reason, their amount has increased by 158% in 2020.
Most B2B companies are using the organic reach capabilities of LinkedIn to grow their brand on the platform without any extra costs. If you are still confused about whether or not to invest in the LinkedIn advertisement, begin by sharing the content you already have such as videos, podcasts, or articles.
Go beyond that and leave links to your other channels and this is where it gets interesting. As you leave links to other social platforms you create a bridge that allows you to create a network of channels for lead generation throughout all of your social networks. Some might additionally argue that investing in advertisements on LinkedIn making personalised messages or posts will have an even greater effect on your reach.
Structuring your posts could also be considered as an asset by the LinkedIn algorithm that will affect your reach, therefore the following structure will do the work.
Remember to constantly track the changes in the algorithm and monitor the successful strategies of other users when sharing a post. For example, did you know that LinkedIn users are 20x more likely to re-share a video post?
Suggested structure of a LinkedIn post:
1.) Brief explanation:
Keep it simple yet create an interesting heading with an intriguing peak into what the post is about.
2.) A question:
Give people a question to think about when they will view your content. This part will create engagement within the post. You could leave a call to action and direct people to leave a post and discuss with other members the content you have posted.
3.) Content file:
Always try to add an image or an interesting cover, regardless if it is a video or an article if it is not an image already that you want to share.
SEO is constantly active and it tracks down every word you will post, this is done to optimise the advertisement for clients and make people’s searches as relevant to their enquiries as possible.
Since we are still on the road to full AI integration to SEO algorithms, today SEO strongly relies on wording and hashtag system that allows people to find the right contact or product in a huge digital database.
Further on challenges of SEO will be associated with proving your digital credibility to the SEO algorithm before being recommended to a bigger number of users, Therefore you need to be tagged, shared, and talked about by other members in order to be a reliable profile which will show in better reach.
Showcasing your previous experience and reviews will solidify your statements to the public and give extra validity to your company.
Remember to tag and link the companies you have worked or collaborated with, depicting and verifying these references will portray that your company is trustworthy. Add links to previous projects or collaborations you have done, it will increase backlinking adding more channels of lead inflow.
Reviews can also help attract better employees, according to PostRoadConsulting:
“75% of applicants view an employee profile six months before applying.”
and
“Employee referrals are the #1 source of new hires”.
Every unrecorded review is a missed out opportunity to keep your profile updated, which can create undesired impressions for your brand. Thus collect all the reviews you can regardless of already gathered opinions.
If you want to make reviews as a part of your marketing mix, showcase what people think of you and share their opinions with the public.
Keeping in mind the guidelines we pointed out, your profile is now ready to take on the adventure in the network of LinkedIn.
The main mission comes to sustainably grow your network and become more noticeable in your industry therefore it is now the time to let others know who you are.
It will help you create useful connections and remain in the news feed. You will be able to pop up in their news feed as well and tailor your content to their liking, with a chance to secure a desirable outcome.
Enter active groups related to your industry and gain access to the traffic of random people (leads) in your industry as you engage with them in a discussion or conversation. This draws us back to the previous point about the importance of backlinking, the more people tag you the more credible your brand will be considered for the LinkedIn algorithm.
In other words, people need to be interested in your opinion, and staying active in your network gives your brand the necessary effect for growing awareness about it, which is you always remain in sight and recognition of your target clients.
What matters in this game is communicating what your brand truly stands for, bringing out the uniqueness, and attracting the right audience.
Stay creative and bold, however, remain relevant to your industry, shock people, and provide them topics for discussion.
Be identifiable and user friendly, create outstanding visuals, although, remember to be informative and accessible across all internet, think about how to connect to your target audience and what would they want to see.
The last piece of advice would be to focus on the long-term instead of waiting for a quick success since it comes with time and patience multiplied by the amount of work you have put in.
We can review your LinkedIn profile for you – at no cost. Just send us a message!
