Effectively Using LinkedIn to Market Yourself or Your Brand

LinkedIn is currently the most prominent social media site for recruiting and talent hunting; with more than 20 million companies using LinkedIn. So how do you make sure you're getting the most out of it? Whether you're a business using LinkedIn to market to other businesses, or you're a go-getter looking to jump ahead in your career by building the right contacts, this is the ultimate guide to marketing yourself or your business on LinkedIn.

Make sure your profile is up to scratch

Your LinkedIn page is the first place that interested parties are going to click on to, so make sure it clearly represents you, your mission, your values etc. and leads them to want more ie. contacting you or visiting your web page. Make sure your photo is up to date and professional. Professional headshots can be expensive, but with phone camera quality as good as it is, you can set up your phone to take a photo of yourself in front of a blank wall with ease! Also, upload a relevant cover image; for businesses this can be your latest product or an image of your offices. For personal users this could be linked to your career aspirations; want to be a lawyer? how about a picture of chambers? Want to study Astrophysics? How about a nice picture of the latest mars rover?

Next, narrate yourself a punchy summary. Only the first 2 lines of your LinkedIn summary are visible until someone decides to click on the 'see more' button, so make them want to click that button. When writing your summary think about what your target audience want to see. This doesn't have to be focussed only on sales; you're not trying to sell just 1 product but a brand. Perhaps start with your biggest achievements, or most impressive statistic.

Be Active

Now that you've got an impressive profile, it's time to attract some attention. To do this you have to be active; follow relevant hashtags, join groups within your chosen industry, react, comment and share relevant content, news, projects and achievements by other users. If you do find and join groups you can then go through the member list and invite some connections.

Post Regular Content

Perhaps the most daunting part of social media - creating and spreading the right content. Regularly publishing relatable, informative content that is of value to your target audience will help to increase your coverage - make sure it's something worth saving, sharing and reacting to. Make content engaging by publishing a variety of forms of content that are visually appealing with a consistent colour scheme, images and animations, and a clear, easy-to-read format. And remember, all content should have a call to action - it's all about leading the customer/client to the correct destination. This could be your LinkedIn page to contact you, your website or other social media pages. You can boost your reach by connecting with people who interact with your previous contact, or tagging relevant groups and pages.

Visit my page for a run-down of the best user-friendly content creation tools, and a variety of content ideas.

Nurture your connections

Once you start building connections it's important to not forget about them! Engaging with your connections keeps you at the front of their minds; be sure to reply fast to messages and new connection requests, reply to comments and thank people who share your content, and you can even send new connections a message to thank them for connecting, and ask if they require your services.

You can also begin seeking out connections yourself using the advanced search feature of LinkedIn: filter searches of people and companies by industry, location and key words to find and connect with other people and companies who are likely to value your connection.

Being seen and heard in the busy thralls of social media can be difficult, and can take time. Be patient and remain optimistic and you'll soon see your connections and clicks pick up. Be sure to measure your success of each step you take in order to determine what works best for you and your company, and doesn't work so well; what works really well for one group may do nothing for another.

I hope you find this article of use. If you did please comment, like and share. Supporting other industry professionals is an excellent way to build connections and knowledge within any industry.

~ By Chloe Fox

26.02.2021