It’s been a while since we’ve talked about generating leads on LinkedIn, but like any social media platform, things just keep changing—and in the case of LinkedIn, this means vast improvements for BtoB publishers.
The platform now boasts more than 3 million registered users, and although it’s been the preferred platform for BtoB marketers for quite some time, the launch of LinkedIn’s publishing platform in 2014, upped the ante. With the new capability, BtoB publishers gained significantly greater ability to target a highly relevant audience and garner greater engagement via LinkedIn.
How do you take advantage of these increased capabilities? Not surprisingly, some of the same old tricks apply—but in combination with tactics that are tailored to the strengths of the platform, you’ll find yourself with a steady stream of higher quality leads.
1) Post Regularly: Publishing on LinkedIn is not different than publishing on your own blog, in that it requires regular doses of good content. You can use the same format you use for blog posts on your own site. Heck, you can even use the same blog post. That’s the beauty of a SaaS CMS, you can write a blog post in your CMS then publish it to LinkedIn profile, but also repost it easily on your own site and other platforms, without skipping a beat.
2) Know Your Influencers: LinkedIn Influencers are leaders in their field who have been invited to share their voice on the platform. Their posts are known to attract an average of 31,000 views, 250 likes and 80 comments per post. What does this mean for you?
- Identify the top influencers in your niche.
- Get active on their posts.
- Tag them in your own posts when relevant and let them know you’ve done so. Tip: don’t ask them to share—just draw their attention to your content. If it’s good and relevant, they’ll likely share it of their own volition.
3) Target Your Content: Right. That’s not news. But, what does that mean on LinkedIn? Of course it means that you find your target audience on LinkedIn and you give them helpful content. Establish your credibility and expertise—as if you’re having a lunch meeting with them and they are looking to you to help guide them through the challenges they face or to help make their work easier. It also means that you should let your LinkedIn community feed you topics and ideas. Respond to questions that are being asked. Weigh in on debates over best practices. Provide a unique and creative solution to a problem.
4) Link Deliberately. This doesn’t mean you should overload your content or your comments with links. It means that where relevant, you should link back to your website, or a survey you are running, or to older posts from you on LinkedIn. Think of it as one finger on your hand, the hand that is reaching out from your website. It is connected to other parts of your body of content and you can call attention to that body of content, organically.
5) Tell Your Story: Remember that people will be more interested in content that has a storytelling or anecdotal slant. Why? Because they want to engage with a real person who has applied knowledge. Don’t underestimate the power of that.
6) Engage Yourself: There is no getting around it—if you don’t engage, you won’t get engagement. LinkedIn is yet another way to build relationships and partnerships.
- Join LinkedIn communities and get to know the folks who are part of them.
- Actively comment on other member’s posts.
- Ask your whole team to post your content on their profile pages and build relationships as well.
- Respond to comments on your posts.
Try these tactics for a few weeks, track your results then reassess your strategy. You might be pleasantly surprised!
