We can all agree that social media has become an all-encompassing power in our daily routines. Not just used in our personal lives, social platforms have become a crucial and incredibly efficient tool for businesses to connect with their customers.
LinkedIn started and continues to be a professional networking platform, but today it is so much more. From recruiting tool to social feed, here’s how you can make the most of LinkedIn.
Remember it’s a ‘professional’ social platform
Although carrying many of the same features as other social media channels – a social feed where posts are shared, following/connecting with companies and individuals, paid advertising – LinkedIn has its roots in the business world. It’s seen as a professional platform, used to network, recruit and promote businesses, so it’s important to remember the tone of the platform throughout your activity.
This means it’s a great place to focus on the ins and outs of your company so that people can get a genuine feel. Sharing challenges and successes provides insight into what you are focused on as a business and the matters you are passionate about. A friendly pic of the team on an away-day shows the team behind your business and gives a face (or faces) to your brand.
Be appropriately personal
People connect with people. It’s a simple fact. Providing the human touch and personal feel to your LinkedIn posts will make your content much more engaging than constant promotional messaging. However, you can go too far the other way, especially on LinkedIn.
If you would candidly post something to Instagram, you probably shouldn’t post it to LinkedIn, at least not with the same caption, as context is key. A picture of you walking on a beach would seem out of place, but if you explain it is part of your company’s green initiative to do a monthly beach clean, it’s much more likely to spark a professional conversation.
Start a conversation
The best content on LinkedIn adds value on a discussion point. Maybe there has been a new piece of tech announced that will revolutionise your industry, or your CEO has unique insight into the challenges coming up in the near future. These are amazing ways to start a conversation with your network and followers on LinkedIn.
It’s not necessarily the place to be controversial, save that for Twitter, but having a different standpoint to the status quo could make people stop, think and possibly ask for more, giving them a reason to follow and engage.
Make a plan and stick to it (for a bit)
There is nothing worse than having to come up with social posts on the fly every week, so a social strategy plan is a great way to save time and effectively plan out your LinkedIn posts. By planning ahead, you can ensure you are regularly hitting the different topics you want to talk about and not banging on about the same things over and over again.
There are many ways to create a social media plan, including ADPR’s free social media content plan.
A popular way to divide your content is to spread it out between the following three categories:
- Hygiene – informative and helpful content about your business and the services you provide. Intended to give the basic information about your company for when people look through your profile.
- Hub – themed content around key topics to your business. Intended to create engagement.
- Hero – large pieces of content, aimed to be visually appealing with broad appeal. Intended to increase awareness.
The reason that you should stick to it for a bit is that you will begin to see what works and what doesn’t. What your audience engages with and what falls flat. You should then adapt your plan to make improvements bit by bit, while still posting regularly.
There are many ways to create a social media plan, including ADPR’s free social media content plan. It will save you a bunch of time, planning out posts in advance and making sure your LinkedIn audience doesn’t feel neglected.
You may also like to listen to Season 5, Episode 3 of the ‘Revitalise & Grow’ podcast where we discuss how personal you should be on LinkedIn, with some very entertaining examples of posts we thought had gone too far!