How To Use LinkedIn to Grow Your Brand

LinkedIn is not just a resume— it’s a platform to connect, create, and converse.

LinkedIn is more than just a professional social network, it is also a dedicated business network. At its core, it is all about career development, professional connections, industry discussions and other types of business-related activities.

So, yes! From making connections to establishing partnerships, generating leads and creating brand awareness, LinkedIn makes an invaluable addition to your digital marketing strategy.

In this article, I’d share some tips on how you can effectively use LinkedIn to grow your Business. Let’s dive into it

Create and Optimize Your Profile
Having an Optimized LinkedIn Profile is the first step in harnessing the possibilities the platform has in store.

It is expedient that you carefully, thoroughly and ever so professionally fill out every aspect of your profile (Experience, Education, Certifications, Honors etc). Understand that your personal profile needs to be a professional representation of your personal brand and your business’ brand.

Pay Attention to your profile Headline
It is easily one of the most important parts of a LinkedIn Profile and is effectively a 120 character sales pitch, so use it wisely.
Also, ensure that you fill out your profile summary. Use it to give detailed and relevant information about your career path and progression. Use a great smiling photo of yourself (not a group picture please, keep that for Facebook), and customize your profile URL to include your name.

It would also be worthwhile to create a Company Page for your business brand (just in case, you didn’t know; LinkedIn Company page is synonymous to a Facebook Page). So, create one and then just like you did for your personal profile, optimize it.  Add your logo and brand details – write a description about your business fill it with relevant and interesting information…and don’t forget to claim your custom URL.

Stay Visible
A great way to stay relevant is to stay visible and to stay visible, you need to consistently churn out content. Please, not just any content; valuable content. You need to stay on your Target Audience’s radar, so endeavor to put out engaging posts and imagery that can be of benefit to you potential customers and establish you as a thought leader in your niche.

Unlike other social networks, where you can easily promote your business anyhow and anywhere you like, LinkedIn users frown at a user or company page that puts out only promotional content.

Spamming of any form is a No-No for LinkedIn. Thus, the best way to connect with your audience and get their attention is to share with them content that is interesting, that educates and enlightens them, but more so that provides a solution to their problems.

Ensure that your make your company page matter. Do not just post solely on your personal profile, also post on your company page so people can get accustomed to seeing the brand name.

A great way to give your company page more visibility would be to share with your connections, posts from your page.

Try not to stereotype your page, make it interesting, switch up the content. Let your followers see behind the scenes pictures, give your employees a face – showcase them. Do not only encourage them to optimize their profile with details of what they do in your brand but also, celebrate and showcase them on your company page).

There’s just an array of information you can post on your Company Page, from job opportunities to behind-the-scenes photos and ‘gist’, product announcements, blog posts, recent project etc. So, explore!

Be Engaging
LinkedIn strives on Connections (pretty obvious yeah?). Therefore, as much as you possible, create time to engage in conversations, particularly conversations relating to your niche/industry. Comment on other people’s post, join and converse actively in groups. As a matter of fact, groups are like the greatest resource of leads on LinkedIn. Not only is it a great way to listen in on what your target audience is talking about, get advice from other thought leaders; it is also a great way to establish yourself as a thought leader.

So, join groups pertaining to your industry and actively jump in on conversations, answer questions, share information, make connections… Be Relevant! Be Engaging

Very worthy of note: LinkedIn allows you message the members of the groups you are in, even if you are not connected (YES! It’s for real).

Get Found
After doing 1-3 above right? What are other ways to reach more people aside those who are already following your company page or those who are connected to you? Two keys ways would be to Use Linkedin Showcase Pages Feature and use Sponsored Updates.

Showcase Pages are great because Google is a big fan, and thus, will rank them highly in search results. A Showcase Page is an extension of a Company Page and is used to highlight a particular product line, or service (or the brand itself). They are listed in the right-hand column of a Company Page.

Sponsored updates, on the other hand, is synonymous to ‘boosting a post’ on Facebook, so in a similar way, businesses pay to push their post onto an individual’s LinkedIn feed. Sponsored updates can be an excellent way to promote thought-leadership content, increase website visitors and, if the content is compelling enough, generate sales leads.

Peace Itimi is an Account Manager at Webcoupers, a Lagos-based Digital Marketing agency.

Photo Credit: Dreamstime |Kiosea39