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LinkedIn Marketing
Strategies forSmall Businesses
Introduction
Can you believe that LinkedIn is one of the oldest social networks?
Founded way back in 2002 (that’s pre-YouTube, pre-Facebook, and
pre-Twitter), LinkedIn had just 4,500 members when it launched.
Today, LinkedIn has more than half a billion users – gaining two new
members every second of every day. While LinkedIn may not seem
as hip as Snapchat, nor as massive as Facebook, its lineup of robust
networking features makes it more than just a tool for job seekers and
recruiters. It’s not a top-5 social network for nothing.
If you boil it down, LinkedIn is the digital version of a HUGE, souped-
up mixer with 500 million party-going professionals. In fact,
LinkedIn may actually be the most perfect platform for building and
nurturing professional relationships – including new leads and your
customers!
But many businesses aren’t taking full advantage of its most
sophisticated networking capabilities – and curated marketing
opportunities. LinkedIn offers native publishing and promotion, a
web-based educational platform, a slide-hosting platform with over 70
million users, and a heck of a lot more.
It turns out that there’s more to life than Facebook! Use this guide
to get to know LinkedIn a little better, create an amazing Company
Page, and see how far LinkedIn can take you and your business!
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Learning to use LinkedIn effectively for your business and personal brand can open new doors that you might never have known about otherwise.
CHAPTER ONE
Why LinkedIn is actually important for small businesses
We get it: LinkedIn is probably the least “sexy” mainstream social
network out there. But that doesn’t make it any less valuable – in
fact, when you’re running a business, a lack of “sexiness” can make a
social network MORE valuable.
Here’s what we mean:
LinkedIn is designed specifically for professional networking and
job hunting, which is why its potential to promote a business is often
overlooked. But that’s actually a good thing, because there are SO
MANY potential strategies to reach a relatively untapped large and
engaged user base – starting with creating a Company Page.
Whether you’re a business with hundreds of employees or an
independent proprietor, the benefits of having a Company Page are
many:
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Why a Company Page is amazing for your business
• Prove you’re legit: A LinkedIn Company Page adds an additional
layer of legitimacy for your business – as much as having
dedicated office space and a professionally designed website.
Tell your story, showcase your success, build your brand, help
potential employees and customers find you, nurture a stellar
reputation, and flaunt your company culture in front of a massive
community.
• Feed SEO: Unlike personal LinkedIn profiles, your Company Page
is publicly visible, giving you a tremendous opportunity to nourish
your SEO with fresh, valuable, keyword-rich content. And yes, this
means distributing all that quality content you create on LinkedIn.
(Don’t worry – Edgar can help with that!)
• Build a hub for your company ambassadors: Whether it’s your
employees building up your good name, or other fans praising
and tagging you in their status updates, all those good vibes tie
back to your company. Give future fans, advocates, and leads
a place to find you on the network. Add your website to your
Company Page, so the most qualified peeps can find out more.
• Get LinkedIn to promote your content, too: LinkedIn’s built-
in publishing platform allows you to share content directly on
LinkedIn – with advanced tagging and distribution features that
help get your articles seen by your fans. LinkedIn prioritizes
content first published on their platform, too. Once you get started
on the LinkedIn content train, your updates may find their way into
the regular newsletters LinkedIn sends to its members!
As you can see, the benefits are MANY – not least of which is taking
advantage of the boost in social influence that LinkedIn can provide
to your business. And if you need some help getting started, check
out our blog post: “Anatomy of an Amazing LinkedIn Company
Page”
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CHAPTER TWO
How can a LinkedIn profile help promote my business?
Whether you’re an entrepreneur who only has a personal profile or
you maintain a Company Page for your business, it’s a good idea to
have an active and conspicuously up-to-date LinkedIn Profile.
Here’s a handy checklist of ways to keep your presence fresh and
make sure your Profile showcases what a rock star you are!
Make sure your Profile has All-Star status.
LinkedIn profiles have a gauge that gives a visual representation of
how your Profile compares to others in your industry. Use its helpful
skills suggestions to fully complete your Profile and raise your status
on LinkedIn!
Make your Profile easy to find.
LinkedIn uses a search function similar to search engines like Google,
which means that you can actually optimize your LinkedIn Profile with
keywords just like you would a web page. When you’re filling out
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your Profile, choose a few keywords that are highly relevant to your
profession – words that people use when searching for pros like you.
Post frequent status updates.
The advantage of LinkedIn’s news feed, as opposed to Facebook’s
or even Twitter’s, is that it is populated with articles and information
exclusively according to your business interests. To help, we’ve built
an automation tool to help you easily customize and schedule your
updates, no matter where you’re posting.
Post LinkedIn Pulse updates.
Pulse is the LinkedIn content publishing platform that you can use
as a secondary outlet for your business-related content. Pulse can
unlock new and engaged audiences that you may not have access
to on your blog. Establish a few key employees – or yourself – as
thought leaders that can publish content on Pulse – you can even
hire writers to help produce the content if you don’t have the time!
Get your “boilerplate” on point.
A “boilerplate” is a prewritten company description. Make sure yours
is powerful and consistent, and ask your team to include it on their
own Profiles – it communicates a strong value prop for your business.
Looking for more LinkedIn marketing strategies? Check out our blog
post: “Easy-to-Miss LinkedIn Strategies That Can Give You That
Extra Edge.”
LinkedIn Tip
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CHAPTER THREE
Why are LinkedIn Groups more valuable for
small businesses?
If your company is not taking advantage of LinkedIn Groups, you
could be majorly missing out.
LinkedIn Groups have been around for a while, but they’re still one
of the best ways for people in the same industry (or with the same
interests) to share content, answer questions, network with other
professionals in their field, and establish influencer status within their
industry – right on LinkedIn, where their professional histories are just
a click away.
Here’s a fun fact about Groups: People who actively participate in
LinkedIn Groups get an average of 4x as many profile views as
people who don’t.
So starting your own Group – dedicated to your particular area of
expertise – and joining other established Groups are awesome,
proven ways to get more exposure for your Profile and your brand.
Here are some advantages to doing both:
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Participating in other people’s or entities’ LinkedIn groups can give
your business a boost in unexpected ways, by letting you:
• Engage in social listening. Leverage Groups to learn more about
your industry (or related industries or interests). What unanswered
questions, frustrations, and trending topics are popping up? How
can you use these insights to answer key questions for your
business? How can you leverage your insights to help others and
build rapport?
• Network in a trusted space. Thought leaders are spending their
downtime with their peers in Groups. If you’re looking for valuable
mentors or simply a new connection, use Groups as a people
discovery tool. As Groups may be invite-only, trust can be built
quickly and more thoughtful, valuable conversations can take place.
• Be the pro you are! Whether you own the Group or you’re a
member, contribute and engage! It’s all about adding value – if
you can do that on the regular, you’ll stand out from the rest (and
drive leads). Just avoid spamming with links to your own blog – a
Group isn’t really the place for that.
Starting a Group of your own can help you more directly connect
with others in your industry – and directly connect with people
interested in your company or services.
• If you start your own Group, commit to it! This means actively
recruiting members, posting interesting and relevant content, and
getting your team involved as Group managers and contributors.
Keep the conversations fresh, build trust by positioning yourself
as a helpful expert in your field, and don’t hesitate to start and
participate in discussions!
• Be sure your Profile is up to snuff! When people join your Group
they will see your LinkedIn Profile information automatically – and
they will see your Company Page, too. Be sure you give your info
an overhaul and are updating it regularly. Which reminds us:
• Have you optimized your Company Page? Your Company Page
gives customers, leads, and potential hires a place to learn about
you. Spend the time to make a clear, compelling, and professional
Company Page to help tell your story and share company updates
– which in turn markets your business to the wider LinkedIn
community. Make sure it is the best representation of your
business that it can be!
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Joining a LinkedIn Group
Creating your own LinkedIn Group
CHAPTER FOUR
Creating a Company Page that stands out from the rest
With 4 million Company Pages and 500 million members, there are a
lot of companies on LinkedIn vying for the attention of a lot of people!
All the more reason to make sure your Company Page is a lean,
mean marketing machine that’ll help you:
• Recruit talent
• Drive brand awareness
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• Engage your audience
• Attract customers
• Promote events, products, and services
• Prove your expertise
• Pump up your SEO
• And more!
Here are some tried-and-true methods to make your Company Page
stand out from the rest.
• Optimize for search. Google and other search engines index
LinkedIn pages in their search results, giving you yet another way
to be discovered! So make sure your profile is complete, that
you’re using keywords in a natural way, you’ve customized your
LinkedIn URL, and you’re linking back to your company website.
• Write interesting (and useful) content. If you’re putting energy
toward driving people to your LinkedIn Company page, make
sure you have some content for them to check out. LinkedIn
can’t emphasize enough how important regularly producing and
sharing quality content is – they recommend updating at least
once per weekday (which is totally NBD if you use an automation
tool like Edgar), so get cracking!
• Pin your best content to the top of your Company Page. All
that time you spent writing that announcement about your new
service offerings? Make it the first thing that catches a visitor’s eye
on your Page! LinkedIn allows you to “pin” your most valuable
updates to the top of your Page’s “Recent Updates.”
• Make it visually awesome. Creating compelling visuals (that
means your header image and logo, too) is crucial across all social
media, including LinkedIn. In fact, companies with logo images get
six times more traffic to their pages!
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Looking for a step-by-step guide on how to optimize your Company
Page? Check out our blog post: “Anatomy of an Amazing LinkedIn
Company Page”
LinkedIn Tip
CHAPTER FIVE
Why SlideShare might be the best LinkedIn feature, ever
With 70 million users, LinkedIn’s sibling platform is the ultimate
social media marketing double whammy – one part fresh format
(think YouTube for slideshows) and one part distribution channel.
This gem of a slide-hosting platform is the “sleeping giant” that all
content marketers should befriend. There are 40+ different content
categories on SlideShare, so the competition for your particular niche
is probably fairly small – providing you with a relatively uncluttered
distribution channel.
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Also, 80% of SlideShare traffic comes from search engines. If this
doesn’t set your SEO happiness-receptors aglow, we don’t know
what will!
Using SlideShare is a no-brainer. With minimal effort, you can even
upload slide presentations you’ve already created in a variety
of formats, adding HD video and audio narration for that extra
professional polish.
Here are some quick tips to get more traffic to your SlideShare
presentation:
• Integrate images, video, audio narration, and even infographics
• Use keywords in your title and keyword section for SEO
• Entice your readers with a catchy headline
• Backlink to popular posts on your site
• Include a click-worthy CTA
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When you’re an entrepreneur, finding the time and bandwidth for yet
another content marketing channel isn’t so easy.
Fortunately, you can use SlideShare to take an existing piece of
content and repackage it as a presentation to attract new audiences
Want to know what SlideShare is REALLY great for? Resharing your best content.
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that prefer a more visual or interactive format.
If you’re worried about repeating yourself… don’t be! With tens of
millions of potential eyeballs who have never seen your content (on
LinkedIn alone!), and ever-shorter online attention spans, resharing
is a tried-and-true tactic that helps extend the life of a valuable piece
of content – and the longer a post is live, the more opportunity it has
to move up in search engine rankings.
Resharing content starts new conversations with a wider audience,
which in turn keeps your brand or product top of mind.
Almost any type of marketing content can be repurposed and
reshared on SlideShare: archived webinars or Q&As, product demos,
infographics, Twitter chats, and (of course) blog posts – especially
those popular, evergreen posts that have visuals, lists, quotes, or
charts. (If you’ve been blogging for a while, you’re probably sitting on
a goldmine of evergreen blog posts that aren’t getting the traffic they
deserve.)
All of these content types can be turned into professional anthologies
of your business expertise on SlideShare – all while taking advantage
of LinkedIn’s awesome search engine traffic!
Looking for ideas on how to repurpose your best evergreen content?
Use these handy tips to repackage blog posts and more!
LinkedIn Tip
CHAPTER SIX
What are some strategies that can give me an edge?
There are plenty of LinkedIn features to use that can optimize your
presence on the platform. Here are just a few ways that are often
overlooked by marketers, but together can create some serious next-
level LinkedIn clout.
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Add a Showcase Page. Got a project you’ve been working on
that you’re ready to share? Do you have a “side brand” you want
to highlight to your customers and your network? Show it off on a
Showcase Page to share it far and wide and/or promote to a targeted
segment of your audience.
Showcase Page
Try out Sponsored Content.
Raising awareness and building
relationships can all start with
Sponsored Content – and can fit
with most any budget. Sponsored
Content at LinkedIn can give the
content you’re most proud of a
major boost, by getting it into the
News Feed of a more targeted
audience, instantly.
Become a LinkedIn Learning instructor. LinkedIn acquired Lynda.com
in 2015 to create an indispensable “learning library” that leverages
LinkedIn’s ridiculously awesome network of influencers and thought
leaders – including Oprah, Bill Gates… and you! Click here to see how
you can apply.
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Sponsored Content
Creating your own LinkedIn Group
Looking for more ways to level up your company’s LinkedIn
presence? Check out our blog post: “6 Essential LinkedIn Features
Your Business Should Be Using”
LinkedIn Tip
The Beginner’s Guide to Social Media Marketing
The Twitter Marketing Guide
The Facebook Marketing Guide
The Social Media Optimization Guide
Looking for more help?
MeetEdgar’s Social Media Guides
MeetEdgar’s LinkedIn Marketing Guide | 16
Put Edgar to work on your
LinkedIn marketing for
less than $2/day!
Get started now!
www.meetedgar.com