The profressional platform for professionals

Launched in 2003, LinkedIn is predominantly used for professional networking. This includes businesses posting jobs they have available and job seekers posting their CVs.

It’s a global network; users can communicate in no less than 24 languages.

So, what’s different about LinkedIn? The platform is known for attracting the educated and the affluent. Its framework makes it perfect for facilitating professional and business solutions for those that require them.

It is this very specific user base that makes LinkedIn special. It is the most focused of the social media platforms.

A significant 50% of Business to Business (B2B) cyber traffic deriving from social media comes from LinkedIn; which might explain why 94% of B2B marketers on social media use the networking site to publish content.

And it works for them too. Substantially; as you can see…

Why do so many businesses consider it the strongest link?

When you consider how 45% of LinkedIn users are in upper management, the question should probably be: ‘Why wouldn’t they consider it the strongest link?’

A marketer’s dream, decision makers assemble here. The statistics speak for themselves. A substantial 30 million companies have LinkedIn profiles. So, there must be something in it for them, right?

Right. 80% of B2B social media-generated leads come from LinkedIn. The social networking site has been the lead generation front-runner for years.

And with two professionals joining every second, the platform just keeps growing.

No doubt about it: when it comes to spotlighting business voices, LinkedIn is the business!

A mailing system that's in

InMail is a service that LinkedIn’s Premium account holders can use. It enables you to send messages directly to other LinkedIn users, even those you’re not connected with.

Analysis shows that InMail sees a 300% higher response rate than email. The platform states that 10–25% of InMail activates a response. Unlike other messaging services, people may only receive two or three InMails a day, compared to hundreds of text messages.

This undersaturated channel of communication provides unquestionable opportunities.

LinkedIn offers ‘sponsored’ InMails for targeting leads, with the assurance that each recipient will get no more than one sponsored message every 45 days. Of course, this means your message is much more likely to be seen.

Ready to start a chain reaction?

There are a mind-blowing 2 million posts, articles and videos published each day, on LinkedIn. Are you ready to join in?

If the answer is ‘Yes,’ you’ll need to open an account and set up your profile. You don’t need us to tell you that, in order to make LinkedIn work for you, it’s critical that your company is represented right; that it gives the most suitable — and favourable — impression instantaneously.

A good place to start is your logo. Research shows that adding a logo will escalate profile visits by six times.

Once you’re set up, it’s a good idea to familiarise yourself with the platform, simply by looking at what others are doing — including your competitors, of course — and seeing what tends to attract a response.

When you are ready to start posting, there are a few tips that may help: the first is that you can expect twice as many comments from viewers if you include images. This is because the platform’s algorithm prioritises high-quality, multimedia-rich posts.

Taking this a step further, if you use video posts, it is five times more likely that you’ll receive comments. And it’s highly likely you’ll instigate three times the engagement, generally, of text-only posts.

Building bonds

As you proceed along your LinkedIn journey, there are a few more things you’ll want to know.

The first will help when it comes to making decisions on what to say. A staggering 91% of executives regard LinkedIn as their number one choice for professionally relevant content. So that covers the ‘what to post’.

As for the ‘when to post’, we find that business hours are best. Though, you can only identify what works best for you by trying different times out, to start. Whatever time you find works best for you, we suggest posting 3–4 times per week.

The next point is that a survey of B2B marketers who purchase paid ads on social media revealed that Facebook and LinkedIn come joint first as top-performing platforms.

Our third point is that the networking site is particularly good at tapered targeting, so getting the right messages to the right people is made easy.

Is your LinkedIn networking working?

Measuring the effectiveness of your LinkedIn marketing is just as essential as it is with any other marketing efforts you undertake.

There are all types of evaluations you can do, though it isn’t so easy to arrive at figures relating to your engagement rates.

You can simply analyse followers, likes and impressions, though gauging your engagement results — reactions, comments and shares — will take a little more work.

What you need specifically, will shape how you go about getting your information.

It’s so important you ascertain what’s working for you. If you need some help, just holler. You know where we are.

All things considered, it makes good business sense to utilise LinkedIn. If you are using other platforms, or you have content ready, it is a particularly prudent move.

It is a place where brands are building a reputation for themselves, nurturing relationships that are mutually beneficial — be that with potential clients, suppliers, even competitors, for example — opening doors to new opportunities and keeping up-to-date with what’s going on in the business world and their industry.