LinkedIn finally finds itself—in helping businesses get found
LinkedIn finally finds itself—in helping businesses get found

By on in Content, Strategy

LinkedIn finally finds itself—in helping businesses get found

As Twitter decides whether it will self-destruct (in general and as a platform for marketers), LinkedIn is behaving like the proverbial tortoise—slowly and steadily coming into its own as a valuable tool for building business. Especially business-to-business business.


LinkedIn is behaving like the proverbial tortoise—slowly and steadily coming into its own as a valuable tool for building business. Especially business-to-business business.

 

The job-search side has seemed to go well since the beginning. No surprise there. It’s a good legitimacy check—you can’t really lie on your resume when the whole world can read it. For businesses, however, the content and outreach opportunities have made all the difference. Here’s what we’ve found valuable for generating and nurturing relationships and leads:

 

Group engagement

If you’re not hanging around in your prospects’ groups and giving away free advice, you’re missing a big opportunity to network. Of course, if you’d prefer to slap on a nametag and hang out in a hotel ballroom, feel free. But joining relevant LinkedIn groups, demonstrating what you know, and weighing in on industry challenges and trends is a great way to build your presence. Use groups as a place to share, listen, learn and build relationships, not sell.

 

Targeted ads and messages

Here’s where it’s okay to sell. LinkedIn offers such a broad marketing offering that it can be a bit confusing. We’ve had some fun with carousel and video ads, and had eye-opening success for clients with LinkedIn messages, but only when the offer was strong. We haven’t tried document ads, but I’m eager to see how these perform. I have noticed that as LinkedIn has grown enormous, it’s become easier for people to ignore direct outreach. A few years ago, you’d almost always get a polite response, but that’s okay. It’s no different than having someone skip your email or toss a direct mail package.

 

LinkedIn events

Your webinar never really belonged on Facebook anyway. Now LinkedIn lets you schedule in-person and online meet-ups, video launches, and so on, and invite prospects and team members in a more appropriate setting. Select individuals you’d like to invite or put the opportunity out to groups, once you’ve established yourself as a giver.

 

Finally, and most important—regular thought pieces

That sounds like a no-brainer—posting articles is a great way to demonstrate what you know and extend your reach via implied endorsements from your current network—but it takes commitment and effort.

Decide how often you’ll post, create a content calendar and force yourself to stick to it. Then place all of those articles on your website to support search, and repost them from time to time. Content creation on LinkedIn grew by 60% in 2021, so you’ve got competition. But marketers know—there’s no such thing as “one and done.”

We’ve found that the biggest hurdles at FATFREE are a) people being too busy with client projects to write articles (a good problem to have); b) uncertainty about whether the things we do every day are interesting to others (with nearly 900 million users on LI, the answer is probably yes); and c) overthinking the posts themselves. Sure, you can spend a lifetime wordsmithing, but for a subject you know, the point of diminishing returns hits somewhere around two or three hours.

And don’t just stick to your core offering. One of FATFREE’s most popular posts was Dennis’ look at entering the NFT marketplace. It helped our community better understand an emerging trend and showed that our team has varied, forward-looking interests.

 

Is it worth it?

A study by Edelman found that 49% of decision makers said that they brought in a company to bid, awarded business, increased business or made a purchase after engaging with a company’s thought leadership. So, in a word, yes.

If you need help integrating LinkedIn marketing strategies into your awareness and lead-building plans, bring in FATFREE. We’ll help you build your audiences thoughtfully and efficiently.