Sarah Clark
LinkedIn is a powerful social media platform that according to its statistical data, reports to have more than approximately 332 million members by now. An ideal platform with a steady increase in the number of users per month, LinkedIn will soon grow into a powerful marketing tool of the twenty first century.
Does it mean Facebook and Twitter would soon have to occupy the back seat? Well, that is impossible to predict without any strong statistical evidence. Nevertheless, here are some data that you would require, to think twice about LinkedIn and how it fairs in the following months to come.
- LinkedIn is used by more than 200 countries and territories.
- Every second, 2 new members are signing up to become new members.
- Approximately 39 million students and graduates now have a LinkedIn account.
- Number of LinkedIn page views by members in the third quarter of 2014 is 28 billion.
So, what makes LinkedIn a growing platform in the coming years?
Sudeep Banerjee of Search Optimal, one of the leading Internet Marketing firm in Orange County, while speaking of 5 Strategies To Make Your LinkedIn Marketing Stronger This Year, points out how the social platform is evolving to give the rest of the world a tough competition. While you can have a look at them later, here are some basic factors, which helps to label it as a more professionally preferred platform.
LinkedIn brings you 3 Factors That Makes It A Professional Preferred Platform
Media – Social media marketing is an important tool in today’s world to reach out to new and existing target audience. According to a marketing survey, 62% of users rate LinkedIn as a powerful professional platform. If you are looking for a stronger point to hold this claim then guess what – more than 94.2 % of journalists and editors are signed in on LinkedIn. Furthermore, more than 500 Fortune company executives are enlisted here. With the recent updates like the publishing feature, LinkedIn provides business entrepreneurs a scope for personal branding, which has become the brand awareness tool of the hour.
Partnership – Having a powerful partnership strategy, you can foster your business output to new directions. LinkedIn offers you an opportunity to do that. With more than a million professionals available in LinkedIn, why not engage this powerful medium to find new partners and offer complimentary services and products.
Clients – Nearly all social medium platforms can turn out to be powerful social marketing tools, but LinkedIn comes with specific client search filter tools that make your client search easier. With these tools you can connect and build a strong network, by maintaining relationship with thousands of potential clients all under one roof.
The above factors leave you with nothing, but to think of what key marketing strategies can you use to make the best out of LinkedIn, for your business.
#1 – An Engaging Company Page Can Generate More Leads
Getting leads needs proper workout and this is different from the usual company page that contains basic information about the organization and its service. Your company page will work as pipeline to draw leads to your actual website. You can engage in the maximum number of conversions through your company description and updates. To engage your company page with interesting updates , is an ongoing management task. However, there is no other effective strategy that can increase the social visibility of your company and increase the number of followers.
LinkedIn is referred to as the No. 1 social platform that can drive 64% of traffic to an organization’s home page. You can segment your target audience and keep them posted with all kinds of valuable update.
On the other hand, your two lined company description must be compelling enough, to speak directly to your customers and encourage them to convert. Note – Your company description must include 3 features, which are as follows:
- Identify your target audience
- The service Offered
- The value proposition you promise
#2- Engaging In Any Group For Ideas To Start Your Own Group
This is two fold. LinkedIn is a thriving hub with a reported number of 2,058,816 groups. You can find a relevant group and engage, discuss and build up your own brand image. In the course of your engagement, you can identify a new opportunity to start your own group. Beginning your own group, helps you to build a leadership that would give some recognition to your industry. This will allow you to develop a kind of authority and trust and give exposure across several networks.
Use relevant keywords to narrow down your group search, based on language, category, relationship, size and geographical location.
#3- Use Advanced Search To Target Specific Clients
LinkedIn’s Advanced Search enables you to search for relevant clients only. Just go to the header menu and look up at all your potential clients, using the Advanced People Search option. You can avail it even without upgrading your LinkedIn membership. This feature provides you with various opportunities, since you can narrow down your search based on school, company, profile language and more. The most delightful thing is that, you can advance your search, without having to rework all the way to the initial search stage. The search filter option, available on the left side panel lets you decide, whether a particular area or company would be a better prospect or not.
The better your network, the better would be your chance of finding better prospects.
#4- Publishing Content Is A Powerful Marketing Tool
In April 2014, LinkedIn made an announcement of its two new Certified Marketing Partners. They are – Sponsored Updates Partners and Content Partners, which promised to make LinkedIn a convenient social network platform for content marketers. Today, LinkedIn has a strong publishing platform. The Content Partners platform allows companies to post relevant contents along with their company’s name.
The initiative also helps marketers to find out target specific information and utilize them to produce something relevant that would turn out to be useful for others. According to Penry Price, the LinkedIn marketing supremo, “Content is an important driver of engagement on LinkedIn, and our members get tremendous value from brands that deliver quality information and insights…”.
Nevertheless, the big question that many intend to ask is that – how often does one post? Here the time is an important factor, since it determines when is the right time to post your content. Generally, market experts recommend posting on week days, during business hours. Besides, you can almost reach 60% of your target audience, if you engage in publishing 20 posts per month. Some of LinkedIn’s ‘best-in-class’ marketers engage in updating 3-4 posts per day. That shows the total number of posts they make per month is 80.
The Concluding Strategy For Every Internet Marketer
This is just like A/B split test. You need to monitor and track your progress and make necessary adjustments, if you want to remain stable. The only way you can measure your progress is by measuring how much you have reached to your goal. In this way you would make more engagement with your target audience, generate relevant business leads and direct your company’s brand image strategically. While LinkedIn has features to provide insight and statistical reports on a daily basis, maintaining your own analytics program would help you to survive in the long run.
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