Operating a business isn’t a simple task. Trying to get constant users and good sales can at times seem impossible. Luckily, we have social media to boost those numbers. These sites if carefully manipulated can help greatly increase business revenues. However, this blog will discuss LinkedIn and how to increase your footprint on it.
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How is LinkedIn Beneficial for your business?
LinkedIn is a major networking website with many consumers that are constantly operating it to look out for the next best thing. LinkedIn can immensely help in extending organic reach. Tackling LinkedIn without a game plan or strategy can cause the entire approach to collapse significantly.
Numerous registered business organizations actively operate on LinkedIn. The platform makes it easier for companies and entrepreneurs to take part in the aspect of networking. Issues related to the communication gap can be significantly addressed and resolved with the assistance of this platform.
Ways to Increase LinkedIn Organic Reach for Your Business
- Post proper content
As per a recent study conducted, it is estimated that LinkedIn has over 303 million active users and 40% of them are daily visitors to the site.
With these many users, with the right content, you can easily expand your business borders. Let the audience know what your business is all about, content that is related to the service or product is a good marketing approach. Few ways you can do this is by:
- Publishing videos about the business, videos are the best way to get the word around and they are the most shared.
- Texts are another good way to convey information, but try changing the formats.
- To engage younger audience memes are a good source but must be used limitedly.
Always mix up the content output. This makes people interested in your feed which can make them interested in the business. Most of the people on LinkedIn behave like android or robots to dawn a professional outlook. This attitude must be avoided. Maintaining an approachable attitude will help your business to grow in the long run.
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- Follow best practices to create a professional image
Have you ever been on somebody’s profile and neglected it due to incomplete or inconsistent information?
It’s a recurring phenomenon that happens all the time. Well somebody shouldn’t feel the same about your profile as well. When creating profile entrepreneurs must make sure that the page possesses the ability to deliver a clear idea about the business. Keeping the content crisp and fun is what generally matters.
40 million LinkedIn users are key decision-makers for their respective organizations.
Maintaining a user’s point of view is also a great technique while managing content. Acknowledging the things that can truly engage the audience and make them visit your business page can pay a dividend in the long run. It is also productive to seek assistance from digital media in the form of:
- Videos
- Images
- Logos
- Gifs
- Maps
For additional profile points try the following strategies:
- Spreading around keywords as it boosts your search results. Use them in the about us page or the headline but tend not to disturb the value of the content.
- Constantly updating images on the profile can at times reduce the monotony that a user might experience.
- Examining profiles of some other reputed companies and trying to incorporate a basic structure from them but keeping it unique to your idea.
- Get to Know the LinkedIn Algorithm
Just like any other social media website, the LinkedIn algorithm dominates the entire structure and dictates what should be given more importance to. Similar can be said about LinkedIn, its algorithm flies under the radar and either elevates your posts or completely neglects them.
With content being shared by 3 million users every week, the algorithm does a pretty good job of keeping things in top order.
So what type of filtration does the LinkedIn algorithm deal with and what are some ways to make it to the limelight?
- LinkedIn prefers quality over quantity. Any current relevant topics and news will be given a better priority.
- Quality work is appreciated. Implementing this not only benefits the algorithm but even your business.
- Your posts should be a source of engagement between you and the users. Try incorporating questions into them.
- Avoid too much self-promotion and randomness. Your posts must have a conversational and genuine feel to it.
- Incorporate images into your posts.
- Use Videos to engage the audience
Videos are a great way to keep the crowd engaged. It also makes sharing of information and data very simple and entertaining. Videos about your business or things related to the industry are a good place to start. You can source videos from different places or make your own. Just make sure to have good equipment when you are recording.
Now, LinkedIn does offer a feature where you can upload videos:
- Native LinkedIn video – Previously any video that had to be published needed a link from the video streaming sites. Now native video allows you to directly record and upload video straight to your profile or feed.
The benefits are that you are using services which when shared elsewhere still hold merit since it embraces the LinkedIn trade. By accessing this shared link you will be getting audiences from other sources as well.
Did you know? – LinkedIn is the most popular social platform among the companies listed in Fortune 500
- Share content at frequent intervals and at the right time
When it comes to keeping an audience involved in your work, regular uploads is a game-changer. With timely and quality uploads, your audience circle will gradually start increasing as the word spreads around.
Besides this, it is necessary to also know the correct and the most ideal time of posting content.
According to a recent 2020 research, it is observed that Wednesdays and Thursdays are the best days to post whereas Sundays are the worst.
What is the need for being consistent and does it help in any way?
Yes!! it does and here’s why:
- People generally lose interest fast and since LinkedIn isn’t an all-out social interacting platform, it’s your content that can save the day. Inconsistency can lead to losing valuable users in the long term for your business.
- Your consistent publishing can give you good data on the users. This data can be really useful when targeting larger groups. This data could be likes, dislikes, time of engagement, etc.
- Consistency helps in understanding the current trends within the user group. When dealing with regular uploads constant connection with the market trends is also necessary. So any users following a certain trend will also jump onto your feed after your post.
- Publish articles on LinkedIn’s blogging platform
Sometimes long articles and blogs don’t fit well in the regular posts section. These write-ups require dedicated portals to make them shine. So this is where LinkedIn introduced Pulse. This is a blogging platform that is connected with LinkedIn, any article or blog can be published here.
When you publish any content from here, all your connections will get notified. Any shares, likes, and comments will make your content visible to a bigger crowd expanding your network.
“Hashtags” can be immensely incorporated into your posts too! It helps to categorize content so that users can easily connect to a specific one. It also keeps those relevant tags as a constant feed. The key element here is to include market-relevant tags on your posts. This will reach out to relevant users. Hashtags can be seamlessly integrated into your regular posts on the pulse.
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- Be active when it comes to sharing your thoughts and opinions in your industry
Engaging with your users is one thing but at the same time engaging in the current trends within your industry market can be beneficial. To elaborate be part of any news, forums, blogs that are associated with your industry, voice your views, and opinions.
Be supportive of things that can benefit the industry and less to those that can damage it. A strong voice in the industry can earn respect towards you and your brand.
Along with bringing in new users stronger bonds and trust is achieved. A social platform requires social interaction and sharing of ideas, thoughts, and opinions are appreciable. Try to also use your posts as a source to vet out these feelings by incorporating the industry news and trends.
A total amount of $2.6 billion was paid by Microsoft for LinkedIn establishing the relevance and popularity of the platform in the corporate world
Post the shared content on your LinkedIn account on other social media platforms as well
One of the best ways to advertise your business is to use other social media platforms for cross-promotion. Social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. possibly have a larger user base and the activity range is drastically higher than LinkedIn. By sharing links to your feed and post you can take the advantage of cross-promotion and garner a wider crowd.
A single follower on LinkedIn could mean four over at Facebook, due to the sheer size of networking present. This type of promotion won’t disrupt your LinkedIn algorithm too as users will be coming over to LinkedIn, but a Facebook link on LinkedIn can mess with the algorithm.
Influencers and professionals can help in growing your organic reach when posting a blog or article try to include quotes from industry masters while also mentioning any contributors and their companies.
Due to these inclusions, your content and posts will reach out to their network of people and your engagement rates will boost up. While this is a good way of marketing your brand, it is important not to overdo it.
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- Create engagement programs
Engagement with your connection goes a long way when establishing a brand. Make the users feel that there is a human on the other side of the machine, set aside some time daily to respond to comments and messages.
Keep a polite and friendly attitude with your connections, even though the content is only visible to the users the replies can be read by many others outside your network. You can always:
- Ask questions or indulge people in polls or quizzes and other creative initiations.
- Include gifs, emojis, or jokes to lighten the conversation and strengthen the relationship.
- Post updates or news related to your business and take in feedback from the users.
Remember you can attract more bees with honey than with vinegar
Your employees can be a valuable part of your social environment too. Encourage them to interact with your social content, with likes, comments, and shares, each employee can add an entire fresh network of people just by a simple click. Try not to force this over your employee. A forcefully incorporated response can seem bland and robotic.
These types of engagement can work both ways. For the business, it brings in more users by increasing organic reach and for the employee. There are the reputation and image of the company associated with them.
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Post in professional groups
Birds of a feather flock together, if success is what you aspire for then being in the midst of successful people can impact your goal. LinkedIn groups are a kind of hub where industry professionals come together to discuss, share, and network, think of it as a watering hole but digitally.
These groups shouldn’t be a one-way market place for only your business, engaging in the content shared by other members is much appreciable.
Research has shown that around 61 million users are high-level influencers and 40 million are in decision making roles on LinkedIn.
With these kinds of statistics, these groups will likely turn out to be beneficial. These groups help maintain authentic and valuable relationships throughout the industry. Your organic reach can spread 10 folds if the right people are met.
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Conclusion
LinkedIn is a haven for your business’s online presence, use it right and you can capture millions of hearts, use it wrong, and well you can still capture some people.
LinkedIn boasts one of the highest conversion rates on its platforms at 2.74% than Facebook’s 0.77% and Twitter’s 0.69%.
With these kinds of numbers, your strategy mixed with ours can well dominate the platform.
Keep an open mindset, go into this not as a business but as yourself, and even if nothing you will surely come out of this with immense knowledge and experience.