Around 810 million people in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide use LinkedIn. Like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and a few others, LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network on the internet. On the other hand, it is a professional networking site designed to help you build and deepen professional relationships, find the right job or internship, and learn or share the skills and experiences you need to thrive in your career.
This article highlights the importance of running digital marketing campaigns on LinkedIn and how to do so, especially if B2B is your primary target market.
LinkedIn: How to Stand Out?
1. Gain exposure for Hiring and Recruiting.
2. Demonstrate your knowledge, credibility, and leadership expertise.
3. Use LinkedIn as a research tool.
4. You can earn social evidence for your abilities and skills.
5. Join LinkedIn Groups That Provide Support.
6. Build Your Brand.
7. Establish Yourself as a Knowledgeable Professional.
8. Rank your name on Google.
What exactly is LinkedIn Marketing?
Because of its efficiency in developing a robust and beneficial professional network with people of different niches, LinkedIn marketing has become a vital aspect of successful businesses’ marketing strategies today.
The site’s objective is to allow registered users to create and document professional networks of people they know.
When you use LinkedIn to market your business, you gain access to useful features such as analytics, connections, and brand-building.
These techniques can be used to draw attention to the business and, preferably, to generate leads. Setting up a LinkedIn business profile is the first step toward taking advantage of these perks.
It also offers additional functionality such as LinkedIn Boosting, LinkedIn Ads, and Showcase Pages.
What is the LinkedIn engagement rate?
A 2% LinkedIn engagement rate is considered good, and an above 2% engagement rate means you are doing great. If your posts have a lower than 2% engagement rate on average, you may need to evaluate whether the content you created is just not as engaging as you thought it would be, and how to improve this.
Engagement – Shares, comments, likes, and clicks are all types of measurable engagements of your posts.
Clicks – The total number of times a piece of content has been clicked or viewed.
Shares – The total number of times content has been shared on social media.
Likes – The total number of likes got for a content.
Comments – The total number of comments received by a content.
Follows -New followers gained from certain content.
Impressions – The total number of people who have viewed the content.
Total Engagement = clicks/impressions + shares + likes + comments + follows.
Why is LinkedIn engagement valuable?
Every week, nearly 9 billion impressions are made on the LinkedIn feed, with just 3 million users sharing posts. What does this imply to you? It means that you will have a lot of viewers but not a lot of competitors. Moreover, the LinkedIn algorithm is now greatly favoring marketers, providing those who are doing it well with a good amount of site traffic. It is incredibly enticing to marketers right now for a lot of reasons. It looks a lot like Facebook did back in 2012-2013 where you could post something for your page and you could get people to see it organically without paying for it.
LinkedIn is going through a very similar thing right now, where they’re giving a ton of reach to marketers. So we post more, we talk about it more, we get more people involved, and then over time they will move and push their advertising model a lot further.
Engagement is critical in digital marketing strategies. Why is the rate of engagement important? Because it reflects how effectively people interact with your LinkedIn material. The engagement rate indicates if people find your material engaging, relevant, and worthy of connecting with.
In today’s highly competitive corporate world, having a solid social strategy is critical. LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network, was officially launched in May 2003. In 2018, LinkedIn remains the most influential social media platform for business marketing. All of this emphasises the importance of running digital marketing campaigns on LinkedIn. This is particularly true if the B2B market is your primary target market.
if a person posts something and a viewer comments on it then his post will get shown to the viewer’s network. That doesn’t happen anywhere else, so LinkedIn is allowing you to truly go viral without having a lot of followers.
How to calculate LinkedIn engagement rate?
Interestingly, marketers and businesses may assess LinkedIn engagement numbers in a variety of methods. Before we get into the numerous methods for determining LinkedIn engagement rate, let’s define some of the most widely used digital marketing terms. It shows how well our target audience engages with our content. It can be shown by “clicks”, “liking”, “sharing“, or “commenting.”
Use this LinkedIn engagement rate formula to calculate your content’s engagement rate.
“Clicks + Shares + Likes + Comments/Impressions x 100”
This will yield a percentage, which indicates your engagement rate.
On your LinkedIn profile or in LinkedIn Analytics, you may also look at different engagement rate measures, such as daily engagement rate or cost per engagement rate. The engagement rate on your posts, on the other hand, is by far the most important metric you’ll need to focus on.
Update contents consistently
LinkedIn’s algorithm, like most social media networks, favors those who post regularly. If updating your profile on a daily basis is too much for you, make it a practice to do it every month, quarter, or at the absolute least at the end of each calendar year. You’ll be more likely to complete it if you schedule it for a specified period.
Just like having a website isn’t enough to draw people in, having a LinkedIn profile isn’t enough to generate interest in you or your work. For you to get results, it must be an active element of your marketing arsenal.
To engage followers on any network, you must maintain a consistent presence and post on a regular basis. Your posts should highlight your work while also providing useful information to your readers. Engage with people and thoughtfully comment on other posts in addition to sharing your work to showcase your knowledge and skills.
It takes time to establish a LinkedIn profile. Even if you don’t notice immediate results, keep going. With each new connection you build and each new post you share, the efficacy of this practice will improve.
Use a mix of contents
You want to keep your feed fresh with new content, but that doesn’t mean you have to create it from scratch every day. Repurpose infographics, blog posts, videos, event links, eBooks, and webinars instead to illustrate your brand’s story. Also, be sure to re-share your best-performing articles so that anyone who missed them the first time, can view them again.
Different content styles include:
Blogs – Builds brand recognition, generates engagement and establishes you as an expert.
Research & Industry News – It is an excellent platform for publishing research-based case studies, reports, and whitepapers.
How-To & List-Style Posts – Easily digestible and informational format. One of the best ways to effectively execute this type of content is by creating infographics.
Quick Tips – Inspiring quotes and helpful advice can help your posts stand out.
Photo Updates – Posting company photos helps add a humanized element to your brand.
Company Updates – Like photo updates, company updates help followers learn about the company and engage with your brand.
Native Video – Native video, not to be confused with the video commercials that LinkedIn is heavily promoting, is unsponsored video content that you share with your network without having to pay for it to show in a feed.
Third-Party Content – Content produced on your social media platforms that are not from your own website or blog is referred to as third-party content, also known as curated content.
Photos and Graphics – Text-only contributions have their place on LinkedIn, a quick peek at your newsfeed will remind you that image dominates this social networking site, which is understandable. The mind excels at digesting images, especially when that imagery provides a lot of information or makes a point at a glance. Photos and graphics can be used to support a point made in a short post or as a stand-alone piece that conveys information.
Announcements – Spreading the word about new products, events, live streams, and other significant events may help develop excitement and keep people informed about what’s going on with your company. Audiences adore getting behind-the-scenes information about their favorite businesses and companies.
Each of these content types is a great approach to energizing your LinkedIn content and keeping it from becoming static. In addition, users like to share their opinions. This is important to remember because the more content you post that allows your audience to share their ideas, the greater the engagement rate you are likely to earn on those posts.
It is expected that LinkedIn posts with questions generate 50% more engagement from active readers. If you don’t use targeted, engaging content like blogs and photo updates, you won’t be delivering specialized content that connects you with your viewers.
When you get down to the details, you’re still interacting with other people, so keep their best interests in mind. Only then will you notice an increase in engagement.
Use Hashtags
Hashtags are commonly used to emphasize a LinkedIn post, but they also have a purpose that might improve your marketing plan. These short sentences, which are preceded by the hashtag symbol, are gold mines for reaching new audiences, industries, and niches. However, using too many, or worse, the wrong ones, might limit your reach.
By doing hashtag research on LinkedIn, you’ll be able to strike a balance between relevant and popular hashtags. First, use the search bar to look for a wide hashtag. If you work in growth marketing, for example, start by searching #growthmarketing to discover how many people are following it and how frequently it is used.
Begin with three to five hashtags that target the audiences you want to reach. The number of people who follow these hashtags should vary, so don’t get too hung up on large numbers. Related but lesser-known hashtags can help you target an audience that is more likely to connect with your LinkedIn content. Part of the allure of social media is the possibility that any particular post may be found and emphasized. Using hashtags not only improves the visibility of your content but also informs your viewers about the topics your article will cover.
If you want to get followers from existing groups, using the same hashtags they do is a smart approach to do it. Consider using hashtags for themed content initiatives to make it easier for followers to find anything else you’ve published relevant to that initiative.
Including hashtags in your postings not only help your content get noticed but also assist LinkedIn to categorize and distinguish your articles from other content.
Turn viewers into followers.
It’s a major thing to convert your LinkedIn profile viewers into followers. It emphasizes the importance of creating personal and business goals, followed by identifying your essential digital marketing techniques. Building a LinkedIn profile necessitates focusing on what you want to achieve and then taking the necessary measures to make it happen.
LinkedIn profile viewers are valuable, but if you want to build a network of significant followers, you must keep focused on what is vital rather than what is convenient.
Visitors that come across your LinkedIn profile are more inclined to follow you rather than connect with you. This is why it’s a smart option to alter your profile’s default CTA button to ‘Follow’ instead of ‘Connect.’ Changing the button can help your network develop quicker and lead to greater engagement. Furthermore, after people follow you, you may personally reach out to them and encourage them to connect as well.
Post Job Vacancies
If you are a recruiter and if your company has job vacancies, then it is advised to post the vacancies through your company’s Linkedin account. It lets you connect with a wide number of potential applicants and bring more job seekers to your account. To have a stronger impact, you might also want to use the LinkedIn sales navigator for recruitment.
This increases your engagement rate and makes your account live. If you are using a WordPress website, then you can easily set up a career page inside your website by simply using a WordPress Job board plugin.
Get Recommendations
Recommendations are a type of social evidence in that they offer third-party confirmation that you are a well-established and reputable professional. If you don’t yet have any recommendations on your profile, it’s time to start asking for them.
Request recommendations from professional connections and previous clients. In order to get the most out of your recommendations, ask if they can offer particular insights about something you want to draw attention to.
For example, did you assist them in reducing expenses, increasing revenue, or improving employee retention? Whatever the case may be, measurable achievements will carry more weight than general recommendations.
Participate in LinkedIn groups
LinkedIn also provides hundreds of groups, many of which are led by industry professionals. Contributing quality information to these groups may help build your credibility as an industry expert, and it’s a unique opportunity to connect with individuals in your target audience.
However, there is another advantage: if you do not have a premium edition of LinkedIn, you cannot request to connect with someone who is more than a second-level relationship away from you. Unless you’re in the same LinkedIn Group. Being a member of a group directly allows you access to sending connection invites to every other member of that group.
Being a member of a LinkedIn group helps you to meet new people in your business, create healthy relationships with members, and build connections with your target audience. It promotes your status as an industry leader, especially when you share valuable experiences, promote insightful content, and provide advice to other professionals. Joining industry-related groups also allows you to watch competitors, and discover what information they’re providing, as well as their accomplishments and failures. It allows you to better target your market and gain insight into potential users, allowing you to create content that offers them answers and solves their requirements.
Let’s Wrap Up
All of these suggestions will help you improve your LinkedIn success in a variety of ways. Make sure the content on your profile is optimized for search results, focus on short and engaging content for readers to encourage connections, and don’t be hesitant to ask out endorsements and recommendations to help you establish yourself.
To actively engage your audience, post consistent and relevant content at least once per day. Focus on text posts with hashtags and no external links, but mix in native videos as well.
Join groups and connect with people to create value and experience reciprocity, and don’t forget to expand your connection and acknowledge influencers openly. Also, keep track of your progress as you adopt these tips to discover which ones generate the most engagement for your profile.
Vismaya Vijayan is a content writer and strategist, and former hardcore developer at ThemeHigh – A leading WordPress and WooCommerce plugin development company selling across the world. She loves to write about anything that falls under the technology category especially related to web, app, and digital media.