― Bobby Darnell

In today’s time, being on LinkedIn is simply awesome. Whether you are a business owner, a professional, a freelancer, or a student, this platform has something for everyone. That’s probably why the social media platform has recorded an impressive 690 million active users in 2020 itself.

But when it comes to marketing on LinkedIn, professionals, and businesses are still in the nascent stages.

While some consider it to be just another platform for networking, there are others who believe it’s only meant for hiring purposes. And then there’s also a group of people who are trying to leverage the platform for marketing but haven’t cracked the code yet.

If you’re someone who’s just starting out with LinkedIn marketing or wants to know what may have gone wrong with their strategy, this post is for you. 

Dos’ of LinkedIn marketing 

1. Let your profile show who you are 

When someone visits your profile, they see three things:

• Your profile picture – Make sure it looks professional. Adding party pictures, pictures from your wedding or your last trip is not a good idea.
• Your cover photo – Make your cover photo like your business card. Define what you do in a couple of words. (Bonus Tip – You can pick a template from Canva to design your LinkedIn cover).
• Your headline – Your headline should define your USPs as a professional. So instead of stuffing it with your skills, offer solutions to the problems of your target audience.

For example, Instead of simply writing that you’re a startup coach, maybe talk about how you help them grow.
source.

2. Craft your about us section strategically

Copying templates to add some random content in your ‘about section’ might not help you in the long run. Nor will trying to find a few good paragraphs from a similar profile. This section needs to be about you, what you do, what you can offer, and hence strategically crafted.

Here’s a simple format to follow to ensure you don’t undersell or oversell to anyone visiting your profile – especially your prospects.

• Write about your present – What are you doing presently,  professionally of course.
• Write about your past – What have you achieved so far?
• Write about your future – Where do you see yourself in the next 5-10 years?

But more importantly, write what you strive to achieve and how you can add value to those who connect with you on LinkedIn. Treat this as your cover letter and you’ll see how many conversations you’re able to strike naturally as you expand your network.

3. Build your recommendations and request endorsements

70% of people trust reviews and recommendations from strangers and that is the power of social proof. The same holds true on LinkedIn. Highlight your skills by getting recommendations from ex-coworkers, friends, bosses, and others in your network.

This social proof also helps you sell better. With more people standing up and speaking positively about what you have to offer, you’ll have to do lesser convincing.

4. Give your profile visitors a sneak peek into your background

Add relevant information under every experience that you may have. Also, make your profile more interesting by adding some information under your educational background. This will help your connections get to know you better and maybe even find something to relate with you on!

For example, add information like ‘Sports captain in school’, ‘National champion – Cricket’ etc. to enhance your story in the eyes of the visitors. If nothing else, it might just become a conversation starter.

A little pep talk before you dive into a sales call, for instance, is a great warm-up session.

5. Share your knowledge and insights 

There are endless things one learns while on the job. Some relevant to the job and some that are experiences that somehow help you become a better self for the job.

But how do you get someone new in your connections or your prospects to know how much you’ve learned? Or how much value you can add to them? You can’t just have them trust you blindly and hop onto a sales call. You need to warm them up and make them feel like they can trust you.

This is where sharing your knowledge and insights as LinkedIn posts come into play.

From top-notch marketers to solopreneurs and others, the ones who are becoming “known” in the industry are typically those who haven’t been afraid to share tips. Unfiltered. With only one goal – educate.

6. Proactively engage with your connections

LinkedIn marketing is not just about sending out invites and growing your network. The important thing here is to stay on top of your connection’s minds at all times and for that, you need to engage with them proactively.

Send your connections personalized messages, endorse them for their skills, interact with the content they post, reply to the comments you get on yours, and find other avenues to start a conversation on LinkedIn.

Now, this can be time-consuming. But you can leverage automation tools such as Scrab.in to automate these tasks for you. From visiting profiles to sending out personalized messages, it takes care of it all and gives you back the time you can invest in growing your business.

Now that you know some of the most effective dos’ of LinkedIn marketing, let’s move on to the don’ts.

Don’ts of LinkedIn marketing

1. Do not send requests to “everyone” on LinkedIn

It is often said that you should only connect with four types of people over LinkedIn:

• People who can teach you something.
• People who can learn from you (this is the kind that will engage with your content).
• People who are your prospects or can give you some ROI.
• People who you can actually add value to.

So if you’ve been sending out invites to connections of those you want to connect and everyone else that shows up on LinkedIn, it’s time to take stock. Stop, right now.

2. Do not spam people with vague messages 

When we said to reach out to your connections with personalized messages, we did not mean bombarding them.

Always send meaningful messages to your connections to strike conversations. In fact, even when you’re sending across a note with an invite, put in the effort to make it relevant to who you want to connect with.

The best way to do this is to learn about the problems of your target audience and then offer them a solution. Without expecting anything in return, of course.

3. Keep your profile more up-to-date 

One of the most common mistakes that people make is creating a profile and then simply using it for expanding their networks, or so to say, LinkedIn marketing. But as months roll by, their network changes, their professional roles change, but their profiles remain the same. That’s where they start to lose out on conversations because the new visitors and connections don’t know who you are “now”.

So irrespective of what your LinkedIn marketing goals are, make sure your profile remains up-to-date at all times.

No goal can be achieved when the foundation is too weak or too old.

4. Do not stuff your content with hashtags

You are posting consistently? Awesome work! 

But if you are stuffing your content with unlimited hashtags then nothing is going to happen. We know you want your content to reach as many LinkedIn users as possible. But at the same time, you want it to be readable. You want it to make you look like an authority instead of someone who just posts copy-paste content.

Whether it’s a link you’re resharing or a piece of content from what you have learned so far, make sure you only add the relevant hashtags to it. This will also make sure that you attract the right audience to your content and your profile, making your LinkedIn marketing strategy more effective.

5. Stop scrolling, start doing

LinkedIn is great and has some amazing content but mindlessly scrolling through the platform won’t take you anywhere. It’s like going down the rabbit hole of watching one YouTube video after the other.

So join the platform with a goal. Your goal can be personal branding, lead generation, etc. but having one is an absolute must.

Once you have a goal, grow your network, follow hashtags, follow industry leaders, join groups and engage with people as per that goal. Do as much as you can to reach as many people as you can and see your LinkedIn marketing strategy become more effective by the day.

Should you focus so much on the dos and don’ts?

 YES.

LinkedIn is one platform that is yet to explode. With amazing organic growth and new features coming every now and then, it is one of the best platforms to invest your time and resources in. 

However, you should never forget that there are humans sitting on the other side of the screens as well and you cannot simply sell something to them instantly. Your goal needs to be “networking”.

Learn from what you do. Learn from your connections. Take value and add value, and continually test different strategies of LinkedIn marketing to grow your business! 

So give some time to this platform. Add a tint of content and lots of engagement to bake the perfect cake of ROI and if you do it right, trust us, your brand value will grow over time.

Suggested:

Complete guide to using LinkedIn Live.

A Quick and Easy Guide to LinkedIn Automation Tools.

The post The Dos and Don’ts of LinkedIn marketing appeared first on Tricky Enough.

Everything about LinkedIn Live

Video content or video marketing is the most versatile way to drive engagement. Online video is 600% is a more effective marketing tool than any other content. A recent survey by Marketing Land says that LinkedIn users are 20 times more likely to share videos than other posts. To leverage this, LinkedIn has geared up it’s live streaming! If you have been notified that you have access to LinkedIn live then there are a few points to be considered.

• Live Streaming on LinkedIn is only available with third-party broadcast tools.
• You can choose the tool that best supports your requirements and budget.
• You must go live within 30 days of getting the access otherwise you will be removed from the beta testing version.
• No selling or promotional streams.
• Live streams should not be less than 10-15 minutes.
• No meta streams- Which means don’t talk about how to use LinkedIn on LinkedIn.
• LinkedIn Live: Third-party broadcasting tools.
• To go Live you must have a third-party broadcast tool. Be notified that you are responsible for the costs and other associated fees in acquiring your desired third-party tools.

Here we will help you with the best tools that can connect you to LinkedIn Live. However, most of the tools offer you free trial periods for using their platform:

• Socialive
• Restream.io
• Wirecast
• Switcher Studio
• Wowza Cloud
• StreamYard
• Brandlive
• Brandlive
• Easy Live
• Live U

How to use LinkedIn Live?

Are you curious about using LinkedIn live? You are not alone. This post will provide you with essential pieces of information on how to use LinkedIn to live technically and how to leverage your LinkedIn live.

Live streaming through LinkedIn help people comment, like, and share live videos in real-time. Marketers, entrepreneurs, and professionals can use this feature for podcasts, conferences, webinars, office team meetings, Q&A sessions, and product & services announcements. Moreover, the video host is provided with the option to moderate the comments in real-time.

Technical aspects of using LinkedIn Live

Here are the technical aspects of creating your first LinkedIn live video:

Device– Make sure you have two devices available with you before you go live. You need one device for live streaming your video and the other one to monitor the comments in real-time.

Third-party broadcasting tool – Signup with a third-party broadcasting tool to start your video. You can choose your platform as per your requirements and the names of the platforms that support LinkedIn live are mentioned in this article. After choosing the platform, authenticate your LinkedIn account with the tool. Synchronize into the device you are supposed to go live.

Internet connectivity– Test your internet connectivity before you go live. The upload speed should be at least 10 MBPS otherwise your video won’t stream rightly. Test your internet connection using speedtest.net.

Server Error– In case of server error, please check for the following ports are open:

• TCP port 1935 + 1936
• TCP port 2936

Lighting– Check the lighting of the room where you have planned to conduct your live streaming.

Camera quality– Use high pixel camera for clear resolution.

Audio– Make sure the volume is maximum with no background sounds.

Start streaming – Once again check all your equipment and device setup and start live streaming.

End Live streaming– To stop live streaming, hit the end broadcast button. LinkedIn will save your video in the news feed and recent activity page so that users who missed your live video can still view it.

Leverage your LinkedIn Live Streaming

Once you are done with the technical aspects of the video you are good to go with your live streaming. To entice your viewers and gain new connections from your live video, you have to leverage your live video with new strategies that will help you drive more engagements. Here are great ways to leverage and lure your audience.

Choose a relevant unique topic

Choose the right topic that resonates well with the users of the platform. Your content should be relevant for your connections (audience). Say if you have student connections, then your topic should be of the students. Define and create content for your target audience. You can create a live video on Q & A session for your student’s connections. This will rightly bring more students notified of your live streaming which will ultimately gain traction.

Schedule your video

Planning and frequency are imperative for live videos. Set a schedule for your live streaming videos that will happen at a specific time of a day, week or month. This will allow the users to follow you rightly and expect your videos at the scheduled time. You can make a series for your specific topics and broadcast your series one by one on a particular schedule.

Promote in advance and post in multiple platforms

Planning your live video and promoting your content in advance is a great idea to get many views. Posting your next live video updates such as time, day and month will help users not to miss your live streaming. Another awesome way is to update your live video on other social media channels like Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, and LinkedIn will help promote your live streaming across multiple platforms. Once you have planned your live video, invite your friends, community, connections, and followers so that they will get notifications on your live streaming.

Include strong CTA

Include a stellar call-to-action in your description and in the video itself. The CTA should be intriguing that will provoke the users to watch your video and take action. Use clear and compelling CTA’s to entice your audience.

Description matters

The description of your videos is important. Write a brief description of your video which contains all the relevant information of your videos. Add the right keywords and speaker names. Add a couple of hashtags, links and video highlights. Do not forget to add the hashtag #LinkedinLive. The right description will help your video go viral.

Optimize your LinkedIn account

To get more views and traffic to your video, you will have to optimize your LinkedIn profile. Whether you are an individual or an organization, you have to fill all your profile information. Incomplete profiles or pages are less likely to get noticed. Write a perfect profile description and add relevant information and links in your description. For more authenticity upload the right banner and logo of your business if you are an organization.

LinkedIn page Analytics

Now it is time to track and monitor all your efforts. Review your LinkedIn page analytics to know the performance of your LinkedIn page. You can measure and evaluate the effectiveness of your posts and videos using LinkedIn analytics. This analytics overview will also show the demographics of your audience and the most performing posts. It will provide you insights on clicks, likes, reach and overall engagements of each post.

Suggested:

5 Ways To Utilize Facebook Live Video To Grow Your Social Media Presence.

The post Complete guide to using LinkedIn Live appeared first on Tricky Enough.