The Beginner's Guide to Linkedin

The Beginners Guide to Growing on Linkedin:

If you’re reading this right now it probably means you're beginning to look at LinkedIn as a way to either grow your personal brand, find the right opportunity, or a company looking to utilize the platform to boost your brand awareness and drive qualified sales leads. Whatever your goals are, Linkedin is definitely the social channel you should be investing your time and resources into, and I'll discuss what's worked for me personally and what you can do to grow your profile organically.

WHY Linkedin?

Because your customers are there!!!!!! Linkedin gives you an opportunity to reach hundreds of potential customers daily and promote yourself/your business for free, so why wouldn’t you?

LinkedIn was created in 2003 and is the world’s largest professional network with over 675 million users. The company’s goal is to connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful. The platform allows you to interact with other professionals in two ways, and that’s either posting your own content(text, video, article, PDF, etc) and engaging with others' content by liking, sharing, or commenting on posts.  

Currently, there are over 675 Million users with 310 million of those users active on the platform. There are 9 Billion weekly impressions and of the 310 million active users only 1% post content daily, though 91% of marketing executives use it as a source for information. 

Source: Pew Research Center

Unlike other social media channels such as Instagram and Facebook, Linkedin is content deficient. That means there are more users on the platform scrolling than actually creating content and is a huge opportunity to connect with decision-makers who are scrolling on the platform looking for content with very little competition to get on their newsfeed. Trust me, It WON’T stay this way for very long.

Now you might say to yourself “I’m on Linkedin”, I have an account but it doesn’t help me win new business? Or when I do post I don’t get much engagement, “how can I land my dream job or that big deal on the platform”? 

Great questions and the answer is simple - Content and Relationship Building

Content

Content creation for LinkedIn is no different than creating content for your company’s blog or website, the 1st step is to understand your audience. LinkedIn is all about providing value for the network whether you want to talk about your experience or your industry, you should try to make your content relatable and useful. The most successful content creators either engage, inform, or entertain their network. 

I created my account back in 2011 with one goal in mind. Winning more business! At the time, I used LinkedIn like everyone else did then, I would connect with anybody I could potentially sell to and then pitch as soon as I connected. If I wasn’t instantly pitching I was sharing an article I read or a company webinar/event. I was absolutely TERRIBLE!! 

I wouldn’t spend much time on the platform unless I was trying to verify or connect with someone I’m pitching or already doing business with. It wasn’t effective, and most times my messages would be just seen in buyers' inboxes with no responses. You may be in the same predicament right now and asking yourself

What kind of content actually works on Linkedin?

If you’re on Linkedin every day and listen to a lot of the content creators you’ll hear a ton of people say you should provide “Value” to your network, but I think value is subjective to the reader, you should make sure your content is relatable & fits your personality. 

If you have a good sense of humor try to entertain people and make them laugh, it’s a great way to get more exposure and build relationships with people who genuinely like you. Here’s an example of a good friend of mine and a guest on Rankable Alex Sheridan using humor in his content to engage his audience.

This is visually appealing and gives potential buyers a glimpse of your personality. Quality content will make buyers want to connect and have conversations with you which can lead to sales opportunities. This may not be your style but if you’re in sales you could create informative content that proactively answers your buyer's questions. Make a list of frequently asked questions you get during sales calls and start to map out content ideas. 

If you’re someone looking for new job opportunities, you should document the entire process of your job search, and start creating content around questions you’d get during an interview. Regardless of the approach, you take your main goal should be to get into as many feeds as possible. Feeds equals leads and opportunities!!!

What worked for me was being authentic and telling my story. In 2019, when I joined iPullRank, My main goal for myself was to build a name for myself in the industry and increase my awareness to buyers without making a million cold calls. I wanted to build real relationships with buyers and I vowed to post consistently on the platform. Within two weeks of starting to post consistently, I saw an article on the Linkedin News section that spoke about the retail apocalypse and I decided to share my take on it. 

Within minutes I got a notification from Linkedin editors saying my post was featured and shortly after I just kept seeing the views go up and I was HOOKED! 

The challenge for me when creating content was that I’m connected with thousands of people but I don’t know what they're looking for or if there is a need for SEO services. So I had to ask myself “how do I reach more people”

I stepped out of my comfort zone and decided to tell my personal story of what I’ve overcome in my career/life, and it worked!!!!

This was one of my best posts ever and not because it had a lot of views but because It turned me from a salesperson to an actual person that others in my network could relate with, and that’s one of the keys to success on the platform. To get the most out of the platform you have to be a part of the network, which means sharing content, and also liking others when they post. Before you know it, you’ll have 40-50 people you’ve built relationships with. 

I've connected with CEO’s, VP’s, Digital Marketing Managers, and people from all over the world from this one post. I would have never thought telling my real life experiences would work but when you think about it would you rather hear what someone is going through or would you rather see a link to a webinar? It’s a no brainer for me. 

Once you decide on what kind of content you want to create your next goal should be to get as much engagement as possible. The 1st hour of your post is the most important, it’s called 

THE GOLDEN HOUR

The 1st hour is the most critical because the engagement you get in the 1st hour determines the reach of the posts. The Golden Hour is the 1st hour when you launch your post and the engagement you get within that 1st hour will determine the overall reach, so it’s important to make sure your content captures users' attention immediately if you want to get thousands of views. This illustration shows how the algorithm scores your post and displays your content across the network.

Keep in mind Linkedin’s main goal like every other social media platform is to keep you on the platform. If you can keep people engaged within the 1st hour, Linkedin will reward you with more views in hopes that more users will engage with your posts and stay on the platform. This is also the reason why external links to other sites don’t perform well. If you want to share a USA Today, or Business Insider article make sure to create your own take on it and share it within the comments to give yourself a chance to be seen by more people.  

Conclusion:

Linkedin right now is one of the best social channels to be using because the organic reach by far outperforms other social networks. Creating content consistently is how you differentiate yourself from other people and bridges the gap between sales and buyers. 

Don’t get too caught up in creating the perfect post just make sure you post. Every post isn’t going to have thousands of views(it can depend on the quality of the post), you should think of the Linkedin Feed like a highway. Every day your buyers are zooming down their feeds looking for content to consume and your post is the billboard. Some will see it, some won’t but not having your name seen day after day for free is a wasted opportunity. 

Be yourself, have fun with the posts, support other people with posts with zero expectations. Be a valuable member of the network, if you do this you’ll be off to a great start!