LinkedIn has become a very valuable marketing tool for many businesses and individuals. In July 2022, there were over 34 million users…and I’m fairly confident that number would have grown even further now.
Whereas LinkedIn was once thought of as a stuffy place for suits to interact and network, the B2B social platform has pivoted and evolved. It’s now a place where people are creating strong connections, upskilling and educating themselves and most recently, developing their personal brands.
The segmentation and filtering on LinkedIn is second to none, you can get really granular with details and insights.
How do you grow your LinkedIn audience?
It’s pretty easy to grow an audience through LinkedIn but it’s important to build the right kind of audience and connect with the right kind of people.
Think about your ideal audience persona – are they Managing Directors, HR Managers, Marketing Execs…or suppliers? Once you’ve narrowed this down, either via company or individual, then send them a connection request. If it’s a totally cold connection then make sure to add a personalised message too. [Tip: Don’t try to pitch to them or that request may never be accepted!]
How do you find the right people on LinkedIn?
LinkedIn can be a minefield of people, but to drill down and find the ideal ones you can search by:
- Location. Are you looking for local contacts, or Worldwide? You can find both in the filters.
- Job Titles. Specific positions or seniority level can be selected to narrow down your search.
- Industries. Are you looking for people in the manufacturing space, in the education sector or something else? It’s all there to pick through!
- Company. Have a specific company you are trying to reach? Select them there and then go through to their company page where you can look into the contacts who work there. It’s a great way to look through the hierarchy and find more people who work within the chosen business.
- Number of employees. Are you looking for one man bands or multi-branch businesses? As my target audience is ‘owner managed’ businesses, I will generally look for companies who have under 30 employees and have one branch.
Always, always engage
Social media schedulers are fantastic, I use them for myself and my client work, however you can fall into the trap of scheduling everything and setting the publishing dates and then forgetting. It’s imperative to check in and engage with any comments or reactions to those posts.
The ‘golden hour’ isn’t just about when to take the perfect selfie, it also applies to LinkedIn engagement. It’s recommended to engage with your community within an hour of your post going live/their comment being received. Keep up the narrative.
Responding to posts gives you more comments, LinkedIn then see you as a ‘valuable source’ and you may just find that you’re appearing on more and more timelines across the world!
It’s not all me, me, me though. Take some time out of your day to go through your news feed and respond and react to other peoples posts that you find valuable. Add opinions, viewpoints and discussion and get the conversations going. It not only shows that you’re an active user but your comments will get picked up in their network and you’ll reach a lot more people in the net.
Be consistent. It really is key!
Building an audience is one thing, keeping the conversation and engagement flowing is another. So what is the secret? Consistency!
Easy to say, a lot harder to put into practice. To keep your audience sky rocketing, it’s important to put out valuable content and let your brand awareness grow. I find spending time at the start of a month planning all of my content out helps with regular posting, instead of scrabbling around each day wondering what to write. Never post just for the sake of it. It. Will. Show.
Stick to a schedule that suits you. Once a day, a couple of times a week – but ideally no more than once a day.
Provide value
Think about what you enjoy seeing on other people’s feed. Is it the corporate waffle and sales pitches? Probably not. Create content that adds value, that people can learn from and relate to.
What are your target audiences needs? Keep that in your mind and post content to satisfy them. Providing solutions to their pain point can grasp their attention and get them engaged. And also remember, that everyone is human. At the end of the day, you are talking to another human being – it’s okay to show your vulnerable side sometimes, share some family posts, share quotes that resonate with you.
Human to human connection
It’s known that personal profiles have more engagement than company profiles and that’s because people can inject their personality into their own content. There’s been a shift recently of people sharing personal stories, showing vulnerabilities and opening up taboo discussions. Now, it isn’t Facebook and we’re not on an episode of the X-Factor where you need a ‘rollercoaster, emotional journey’ every post but letting people into the real you can really resonate. After all, we are all human beings just connecting with other human beings.
I know personally I comment on threads where I can resonate rather than those posts who are just trying to sell me something and providing no value.
Be on brand, always
When you post, make sure to be on brand, keep your consistent tone of voice, pepper your personality throughout it and if you use any graphics or illustrations try to thread them in to your marketing output.
Videos are a great way of keeping clients engaged, they help to build rapport and relationship – even if you haven’t even met them!
Building a strong LinkedIn network does take time, and you will need to be consistent. You can’t post one post and expect to go viral. I go with the 50/40/10 method broken down into 50% value, 40% personality and 10% obvious service promotion.
Not sure you’ll have time to fit consistent posting into your already jam packed day? Check out my Social Media Managementsocial packages here.
