PROFESSIONAL’S BASIC GUIDE TO LINKEDIN · 2017-03-28 · A Marketing Professional’s Basic Guide to LinkedIn 01 Optimizing your profile 02 Your professional profile is an integral

A MARKETING PROFESSIONAL’S BASIC GUIDE TO

LINKEDIN

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A Marketing Professional’s Basic Guide to LinkedIn

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With deep industry experience of 16+ years and technologicalexpertise across all major business functions, Indus Net Technologies helpscorporations and Governments across the globe embrace the “Nexus ofForces” – Cloud/Web based custom application development, Mobilityand Digital Marketing Services.

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Table of Content

Preface 04

Why Does Your Business Need LinkedIn? 05

What Are the Marketing Advantages of Using LinkedIn? 06

Optimizing LinkedIn Features for Marketing 07

How to Market Your Business on LinkedIn? 09

Final Thoughts 11

Connect with us 13


Preface

With businesses aiming to go global, entrepreneurs are looking for increasing opportunities on social media to market their business to professionals across the world. LinkedIn is a power-ful platform specifically designed for affluent and educated audience.

As a marketer of your business, you have to make sure that the messages you design are able to resonate with the target audi-ence. The impact of your messages should be such that your prospects yearn to be a part of your company.

There are over 259 million professionals associated with Linke-dIn globally that accounts for 1 in 3 professionals present on LinkedIn. The professionals find LinkedIn extremely useful that stimulates them to invest their time, form connections, gain insights and look for job opportunities. LinkedIn members want to hear from marketers about their brand and engage themselves with interesting content. And whether you are a B2B or a B2C company, LinkedIn has a great deal of opportunities for you. According to LinkedIn, the number of B2B and B2C marketers generating sales from LinkedIn has grown 65% and 51% respectively since 2010. This eBook is designed to help marketing professionals who are looking for basic knowledge about LinkedIn, the different ways to use and how it can be optimized to boost business. This LinkedIn marketing guide will help you to understand how you can reach your target audience.

Facebook is massive in scale and scope. Twitter is a public communica-tion forum, but if I'm following you, you're not necessarily following me. LinkedIn is, simply, a professional net-work.

““ Jeff Weiner

Indus Net Technologies Pvt. Ltd.(https://www.indusnet.co.in/) | E:[email protected] | Ph: +91 33 23576070

# 532, SDF Building, Sec V, Salt Lake, Kolkata 700091, India




Why Does Your Business Need LinkedIn?It is interesting to note that over 3 million businesses have made their company pages on LinkedIn providing access to a huge number of professionals. As any other business, your company too is looking for growth opportunities.

By connecting with professionals across the world, LinkedIn helps you to build and nurture connections that turn into revenue stream ultimately. There are business communities with common business interest that indulge in discussions and debates. Besides that, LinkedIn provides customized solutions for your business through its various marketing tools.

Unlike any other social network like Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, it has established itself to be known as professional network. It is the strongest professional network with hardly any competitor. While many companies ban the use of social networks in office to keep up the productivity levels of their employees, LinkedIn, on the other hand, is promoted among employees.

LinkedIn is increasingly becoming a very strong place for companies to develop their talent plans, their recruitment plans, and so there are ways in which we can track some of the momentum there.

““Jeff Weiner

What Are the Marketing Advantages of Using LinkedIn?While LinkedIn is relatively ‘less glamorous’ than Facebook or Twitter, it is also more respected among the professional community. There are many advantages of using LinkedIn to create marketing campaigns and to reach the target audience. Below, we have listed some of the advan-tages that marketers can expect when they begin to use LinkedIn for their campaigns:

50% of our paid inbound leads come from LinkedIn. LinkedIn is our most cost-effective online marketing channel.“ “


Increase awarenessMarketers try their best to influence decision makers in companies so that they can be turned into your customers. Engaging the consumers through blogs, news content, websites and social media are some of the common practices employed by them. With LinkedIn, you specifically reach an audience that acutely understands your message. You definitely create awareness here but you also save a lot of time.

Influence perceptionIt is not easy to change the perception of your customers. But when you share a content rich message with them, you are heard loud and clear. And an intelligent message always resounds and recommended across the networks. It allows you to communicate effec-tively punching the fact that your company means business.

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Generate leads It is not easy to change the perception of your customers. But when you share a content rich message with them, you are heard loud and clear. And an intelligent message always resounds and recommended across the networks. It allows you to communicate effectively punching the fact that your company means business.

03Drive revenueThe leads generated on LinkedIn hold a great potential to be converted into your permanent customers. Your top line significantly improves over time by adopting various tools of marketing. 04



Matt Johnston, VP of Marketing at uTest

Optimizing LinkedIn Features for MarketingThere are a number of reasons why LinkedIn has more advantages than other social networking tools. It stands apart from the rest because of the professional nature of its users. LinkedIn users tend to be more interested in business proposals, more open to the idea of marketing communica-tions and also more open to opportunities. This sets LinkedIn apart from Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, all of which are personal in nature.

By understanding these unique features of LinkedIn, you will be better able to target your niche audience and increase your prospects. Whether your goal is to increase lead generation or to contact people to build relationships that evolve into sales, LinkedIn has something for everyone. In this section, we take a look at specific features that can be optimized to build a marketing strategy.

Company pages

Forming a company page on LinkedIn exposes your company towards a vast audience waiting to listen to your brand including your business interests, employees, products and services. A well-written company page with optimized keywords improves visibility of your company in search engine results. You must regularly update your company page to ensure re-visits by customers to know you better and enhance their knowledge about your company’s standing. Your employ-ees are the face of your company and every employee has the ability to drive customers into your company by forming connections.

Marketers and business owners must make sure that they encourage their employees to create a profile on LinkedIn and keep it updated. Employee profile must have a clear mention of job title and job description. It must also have the links to various content pages created by your company. As your company profile can be easily embedded in your employee’s profile, customers can easily click through the links within to know your company.

Company updates

Engaging content and updates sent from your company page attracts attention of many professionals and it is strong way to pitch your intriguing information. According to LinkedIn, rich content is able to garner six times more engagement than job related information. Including compelling images to your updates, customizing your content to suit your audience and maintaining timely communication with them helps you to uphold your brand image.You can link to your blog posts and encourage a discussion about the product or service about which you wrote. Make your blog posts informative, brief and entertaining. Do not indulge in posts that look like you are desperately trying to sell something. Instead, offer valuable content that will help your followers and contacts to understanding something deeper.


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03 Sponsored updates

While the company updates are targeted toward your members, sponsored updates allows you to reach a broader audience. Sponsored updates are explicitly labeled as “Sponsored” and give you the flexibility of choosing your audience as per their location, company size, industry, job description and title. You can analyze the response of your sponsored advertisement as soon as you publish the content.

Make sure that your sponsored updates are error free. As they will be read by a larger audience, it is important to ensure that it does not contain grammatical errors and punctuation mistakes. Get your sponsored updates copyedited before publishing. Though it may cost a little money, it will at least save you from a lot of embarrassment.

04 Display advertising

Display advertising refers to displaying your ad content on company pages, profiles, inbox, search engine result pages and groups. The content could be in the form of blog posts, case studies, white paper and video. It is important to have a great landing page before creating a LinkedIn ad.



Active participation on LinkedIn is the best way to say, 'Look at me!' without saying 'Look at me!“ “Bobby Darnell

How to Market Your Business on LinkedIn?




01 02Optimizing your profileYour professional profile is an integral part of your company. A professional profile includes your complete name with a catchy headline describing your job profile. Furthermore, fill in your skills and expertise. Share your current and past work experience. A 100% complete profile means you are there for business.

Modify LinkedIn URL Your company URL is displayed at various locations on the web and its readability is one of the key reasons for the number of clicks it receives. Custom-ize your URL by changing the default one generated by LinkedIn. Keep it simple and use your company name if available.

03 04Add a cover photo A cover photo must resonate with your brand. A conspicuous cover photo establishes your brand image. Avoid using a stock photo. Better ask your graphic guy to design a simple header that speaks for itself.

Use appropriate keywords Choose your keywords carefully that are unique to your company. Good keywords rank higher in the search results and the chances of your visibility increases.

05 06Set up your products and services page Highlight your products and services on the product and services page. Add relevant information describing your primary products and services in the beginning. Then mention about your subsidiary products/services. Use a high resolution image with a link to grab the attention of visitors. The link can then direct the visitor to your company website, purchase page.

Set-up career tabMany aspiring professionals search for job opportunities in your company. Add information that describes the experi-ence of working in your company. You can also mention about your expecta-tions from new recruits and candidates.




07 08Mobilize your workersMultinational companies encourage their workers to share content on LinkedIn with their networks that results in significant increase in content reach. This is especially influential for busi-nesses whose sales representatives and marketers are connected to the right decision makers and influencers.

Participation in LinkedIngroups Your company URL is displayed at Active participation in LinkedIn groups forms a powerful image in the minds of your followers whether they are your employ-ees, customers or prospects. It promotes a leadership thought in your company that makes you stand apart in the com-munity. Forming your own group on LinkedIn can take your business to another level. It allows you to spread your message faster to the group mem-bers.

09 10Recommendation from current and past employeesMultinational companies encourage their workers to share content on LinkedIn with their networks that results in significant increase in content reach. This is especially influential for busi-nesses whose sales representatives and marketers are connected to the right decision makers and influencers.

Recommend othersIt is a great way to help your connections to market themselves. A recommended profile always has a better chance of being selected. The generous act of recommendation ultimately works in your favor.



A Marketing Professional’s Basic Guide to Linkedin

Final ThoughtsAs we can understand, Twitter is a powerful tool to reach your target audience without spending a lot of money. If you choose to use their advertisements, you will have to spend a small fraction of what you would spend on conventional ad campaigns.

The best features of Twitter marketing are its ability to target the right audience with precision, learning about who could possibly be your target audience on Twitter, what they like and understanding all this data with the help of power-ful analytics. By integrating your marketing efforts with Twitter, you will be able to scale your efforts and maximize marketing impact. Twitter community also provides knowledge about promotional strategies and helpful tactics.

If you find it difficult to understand Twitter and how it can help your business, do not hesitate to contact a reliable digital marketing agency. We have helped scores of businesses with Twitter marketing and we have witnessed their success along the way. Certainly, Twitter is not only a broadcast medium and a social networking site, but it is also a powerful marketing tool.




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PROFESSIONAL’S BASIC GUIDE TO LINKEDIN · 2017-03-28 · A Marketing Professional’s Basic Guide to LinkedIn 01 Optimizing your profile 02 Your professional profile is an integral

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