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How to Build a LinkedIn Marketing Strategy in 2024 [That Actually Works]
"Should we invest in LinkedIn marketing strategies?"
While it's a given for B2B companies to leverage LinkedIn, it's essential to recognize that the world's largest professional networking platform has evolved to cater to B2B and B2C businesses.
According to LinkedIn, four out of five members drive business decisions and LinkedIn audiences have twice the buying power of the average web audience. The numbers speak for themselves.
In this blog, we'll delve into LinkedIn marketing strategies that work and provide a competitive edge as you grow and scale your business.
What is a LinkedIn marketing strategy
LinkedIn marketing strategies are a set of principles, guidelines and processes designed to promote your personal brand or business on LinkedIn. Here’s how it can be effectively utilized:
For individuals: LinkedIn is a powerful tool for career development and personal branding. By crafting a compelling profile that highlights their skills, experience and achievements, individuals can connect with peers, industry leaders, potential employers and businesses. This strategic approach builds a solid professional presence and paves the way for exciting new career opportunities.
For businesses: Companies leverage LinkedIn to distinctly position their brand, promoting products and services to a targeted audience. LinkedIn marketing strategies cater to various functional aspects of a business:
- Digital marketing teams: Focus on brand awareness and lead generation, reaching out to decision-makers and influencers within their industry.
- Content marketing teams: Utilize LinkedIn for content marketing to establish thought leadership, sharing insightful and valuable content that resonates with their audience.
- HR teams: Recruit top talent by showcasing the company culture and job opportunities and engaging with potential candidates.
Importance of LinkedIn marketing
Did you know that LinkedIn has 67 million companies listed? It's the world's largest professional network and company pages and individual accounts on the platform are snowballing.
But why are so many brands flocking to the platform? What do they stand to gain from their LinkedIn pages? Have a look:
Professional networking: LinkedIn is a networking hub for professionals to connect with peers, brands, potential clients, partners and recruiters. For brands, LinkedIn's company pages are a hub for sharing company updates, industry insights and job openings. Building a robust company page and growing a follower base can enhance brand visibility and attract potential clients, partners and employees.
- Brand awareness and credibility: By sharing valuable content, participating in discussions and engaging with your audience, you can establish yourself as a thought leader on LinkedIn, building brand awareness, credibility and trust among your target audience. Similarly, individuals can use LinkedIn to showcase their skills and professional accomplishments, positioning themselves as experts in their domain.
- Lead generation and growth: LinkedIn offers powerful lead generation tools such as LinkedIn advertising, sponsored content and LinkedIn Sales Navigator. Additionally, individuals can leverage LinkedIn's advanced search filters and messaging capabilities to reach prospects, establish relationships and generate leads for work, consulting or career advancement.
- Recruitment and talent acquisition: LinkedIn is a valuable platform for you to recruit and acquire talent. By showcasing company culture, values and career opportunities, you can attract top talent. Likewise, individuals can leverage LinkedIn to discover job opportunities, network with recruiters and showcase their skills.
- Insights and analytics: LinkedIn offers robust analytics for performance insights. Businesses and individuals can track metrics such as engagement, reach and demographics to measure the effectiveness of their strategies and make data-driven decisions.
Deep Dive: Social Media Analytics Guide to Level up Your ROI
How to create an effective LinkedIn marketing strategy?
Creating an effective LinkedIn marketing strategy requires a targeted approach. Here are a few steps to help you make an effective strategy for using LinkedIn as a marketing tool.
What are your goals?
Understanding the relationship between establishment and achievement is essential when setting your goals on LinkedIn. Whether you're a new-age startup aiming to create brand awareness, an industry leader positioning yourself as a thought leader or a company looking to recruit top talent, clearly defining what you want to establish through your posts is crucial.
Equally important is defining what constitutes 'achievement' for your efforts. Clear, measurable goals are vital to track your success. For example, in awareness campaigns, your goal might be to increase user engagement through likes, comments and shares.
Consider Amazon's LinkedIn page. The company's brand identity is earnest and innovation-driven. Their posts highlight the human faces behind Amazon and share updates on products and services. Amazon's clear goals are to foster brand authenticity and market its offerings, which is reflected in its consistent and engaging content.
Who is your audience?
The next step is to clearly define your target audience. Use LinkedIn's advanced search and filtering tools to identify and segment your audience based on industry, job title, location and other relevant criteria. A deep understanding of your audience enables you to effectively create tailored content that resonates with them.
Let's say your target audience consists of talented job seekers. In this case, your posts should showcase your company's work culture, highlight growth opportunities and provide insights into employee experiences. You can build stronger connections and drive improved audience engagement by aligning your content with your audience's interests and needs. This strategy can significantly enhance the effectiveness of your social media content creation.
💡Pro Tip
Use LinkedIn's Audience Insights to gather detailed information about your followers and page visitors. This tool can help you understand your audience's demographics, interests and behaviors, allowing you to refine your content plan and target your posts more precisely.
Infographic: How to Reach Your Target Audience on Social Media
What is your competitor doing?
By delving into your competitors' LinkedIn marketing strategies, you can uncover valuable insights. This direct approach not only reveals what's trending in your industry but also what your audience finds appealing. Armed with this knowledge, you can fine-tune your own strategy for maximum impact.
But how do you do it?
- Study the companies' pages to find out how they position their brands.
- Find out how often they post, what they post and what works best for them.
- Look at how they interact with their audience. Are they witty, empathetic, helpful and responsive?
- Examine their audience by looking at a few of their active followers.
- List down what hashtags and keywords they use in their posts. Check out how to use hashtags effectively.
💡 Pro Tip: Go undercover! Attend your competitors’ events and webinars to see how they create and disseminate content. By analyzing their engaged audience more granularly, you may be able to zero in on a buyer persona.
Learn More: Your social media competitor analysis guide for 2023 and beyond
Optimize your profile
Ensure that your personal or business LinkedIn profile is complete and compelling. Use your logo, write a strong headline and create a detailed summary highlighting your unique value proposition. For example, look at L’Oréal’s company profile page on LinkedIn.
What content will you publish?
Understanding the differences between social media platforms and how to leverage each network best is crucial when creating a marketing plan and go-to-market strategy. LinkedIn communication is very different from casual posting on other platforms. While social media managers might queue up 5-7 witty tweets for X (formerly Twitter) and call it a day, LinkedIn marketing strategy demands a more thoughtful approach. It’s not a platform you can set and forget. Your followers expect meaningful and engaging content and can easily unfollow your page if they don’t receive it. On LinkedIn, focus on creating content that provides value to your audience. This can include:
- Industry insights: Share your expertise and provide insights into industry trends and developments.
- Thought leadership articles: Publish articles that showcase your knowledge and position you or your company as a leader in your field.
- Company updates: Highlight important news, product launches and milestones within your organization.
- Employee stories: Share behind-the-scenes content and employee success stories to humanize your brand and showcase your company culture.
- Educational content: Offer tips, tutorials and how-to guides through videos and carousels that help your audience solve common problems or learn new skills.
💰 Two Cents from Sprinklr
Although social media management involves strategically overseeing and managing a brand's online presence across various social platforms, each platform has a different purpose.
For example, Twitter, a platform that thrives on content, tweets and trending topics, is distinct from LinkedIn, which is designed for professional connections. While Twitter keeps you in the loop with real-time updates, LinkedIn is a hub for finding and connecting with professionals in your field.
Although both platforms facilitate searching for content and people, Twitter's prowess lies in keyword-based searches and engaging with tweets, while LinkedIn stands out for its ability to identify and connect with relevant professionals within your industry.
Don’t Miss: Comprehensive Guide on Social Media Content Creation
Leverage LinkedIn analytics
Use LinkedIn’s analytics tools to monitor the performance of your content and advertising campaigns. Analyze social analytics common metrics and dimensions such as engagement rates, follower growth and click-through rates to understand what’s working and needs improvement. Adjust your LinkedIn marketing strategy based on these insights.
Utilize LinkedIn Ads
Consider using LinkedIn paid advertising to boost your reach. Sponsored Content, InMail and Text Ads can help you target specific audience segments and achieve your marketing goals faster. Experiment with different ad formats and messages to see what resonates best with your audience.
Read more: Compose LinkedIn Ads in 7 Steps
Can your employees help?
Employee advocacy, an integral part of LinkedIn marketing strategies involves empowering your employees to share company content and updates on their personal LinkedIn profiles. Instead of solely relying on your company pages, encourage your employees to act as brand ambassadors by sharing your brand content and engaging with company posts.
This amplification adds a human touch to your brand's LinkedIn presence and increases its visibility. When employees share content, it reaches their networks, extending the reach of your message and enhancing your brand's credibility and authenticity.
- Encourage your employees to share:
- Company news and updates
- Thought leadership articles and industry insights
- Job postings and recruitment efforts
- Behind-the-scenes glimpses into company culture
😊 Good to know
Sprinklr’s employee advocacy platform allows your employees to access and share approved content from a unified space. This allows them to amplify your social presence while elevating their personal brand.
Moreover, you can also incentivize your employee advocacy program with awards and badges for posts, likes, shares, comments and more to ensure active participation.
Editor’s Pick: Unlocking the Power of Employee Advocacy
What worked and what didn’t?
Measuring, analyzing and benchmarking key metrics is essential to understand the effectiveness of your LinkedIn marketing strategies. Focus on follower growth rate, engagement levels, reach and social media sentiment. These indicators provide valuable insights into how your audience interacts with your content.
💡 Pro Tip
Conduct A/B tests to understand how your audience responds to content and creative elements based on theme, tone and visual attributes. Test one variable at a time to ensure accurate results. Allow enough time for your tests to gather statistically significant data and identify winning variations.
Leverage Sprinklr's advanced A/B testing tool to display various pop-ups to your selected website visitors and determine which ones garner higher engagement. Additionally, use AI-led social listening solutions to uncover consumer insights, generate comprehensive reports and take informed action, all within one platform.
Related Read: How to Measure Social Media Engagement Effectively
Stay updated with LinkedIn trends
LinkedIn constantly introduces new tools and functionalities that can enhance your marketing efforts. By regularly following LinkedIn’s blog, subscribing to newsletters and engaging with industry influencers, you can stay ahead of the curve and incorporate the latest best practices into your LinkedIn marketing strategy.
For example, recent trends include:
- The rise of LinkedIn Live for real-time engagement.
- The increasing importance of LinkedIn Stories for more casual, behind-the-scenes content.
- The expansion of LinkedIn Learning for professional development.
Staying updated with these trends allows you to leverage new opportunities and keep your LinkedIn marketing strategy fresh and compelling.
8 Tips for businesses to create an engaging LinkedIn marketing strategy
We've covered how to create an effective LinkedIn marketing strategy. Now, let's give you some pro tips for taking your LinkedIn marketing to the next level.
✅ LinkedIn features
Tip #1: Create LinkedIn showcase pages
LinkedIn Showcase Pages allow you to promote specific products or services to targeted customer segments within your existing audience. Each Showcase Page operates independently with its own followers, status updates and functionalities and it appears as an “Affiliated Page” on your main LinkedIn page. This segmentation enables you to tailor your messaging and content to distinct audience groups, enhancing engagement and relevance.
Tip #2: Create and interact in LinkedIn groups
LinkedIn Groups are an excellent way to build an engaged community around your brand. By participating in discussions and sharing valuable information, you can establish your brand as a thought leader within your industry. Encourage active participation through user-generated content and self-help portals, fostering community and collaboration among group members. Engaging consistently in these groups can help you connect with potential customers, partners and industry influencers.
💡 Pro Tip
Consider leveraging community management software to engage with your LinkedIn audience. Populate your software with comprehensive self-service resources such as FAQs, knowledge bases and tutorials.
Tip #3: Thrive with LinkedIn Lives
Leverage LinkedIn Live to engage with your audience in real-time, as it is integral for certain types of content. For instance, if you’re hosting a conference and want to promote the keynote speaker, a LinkedIn Live collaboration with them can significantly expand your reach compared to a few in-feed posts. LinkedIn Live enables you to interact directly with your audience, answer questions and provide immediate value, fostering a deeper connection and increasing engagement.
📌 LinkedIn posting strategy
Tip #4: Use a content calendar
If you're seen, you're remembered; if you disappear, you're forgotten. So, post regularly to appear in your audience's LinkedIn feed. The best way to do this is through a social media calendar. While planning just a week's content is acceptable, ensure you have a concrete plan.
Tip #5: Polls for the win
The LinkedIn algorithm favors pages with high engagement rates and posting polls is an effective way to achieve this. Polls are simple yet interactive, requiring only a click from your audience to participate. They can immediately see the percentage of followers who agree with them, encouraging further interaction and discussion.
To publish LinkedIn polls efficiently, you can use tools like Sprinklr Social. The platform simplifies creating and managing polls, allowing you to engage your audience and gather valuable insights quickly. See how easy it is to create and publish LinkedIn polls from Sprinklr
Tip #6: Best time to post
Determining the optimal time to post for your audience requires deep diving into your data; however, there's no universal golden rule. Experiment by posting at different times and frequently, then analyze the data to identify the best times for your specific audience on LinkedIn.
Wait, does it sound tiring? Not exactly!
You can leverage Sprinklr Insights for this. Sprinklr Insights can effortlessly analyze data at scale with over 7,500 pre-configured queries. Once you've identified the optimal posting times, use Sprinklr Social's publishing and engagement tool to schedule your posts. This tool helps brands deliver content, engage customers, drive revenue and analyze performance across 30 social and messaging channels.
📚 Read More: Best times to post on social media for better ROI
📨 LinkedIn direct message strategy
Tip #7: Set a timeline
Direct messages (DMs) shouldn't be left unanswered in company inboxes, but it's easy to get too busy to attend to them promptly. Set a specific timeline for your business to answer customer queries to ensure consistent and timely responses. For example, designate a period, such as 5 to 6 PM, to handle all DMs. Messages received outside this window can be replied to the next business day.
Alternatively, consider deploying automated chatbots to be available 24/7. Chatbots can handle routine questions and resolve customer issues at scale, ensuring your audience receives immediate assistance even when your team is unavailable.
☕ Coffee Time Read: 15 Best Chatbot Examples from Groundbreaking Brands
Tip #8 Personalize those InMails
Always personalize the message when directly messaging potential collaborators, employees or even an unhappy customer. Including specific details shows that your message is not just generic bulk mail. This personal touch can significantly increase the likelihood of a positive response.
You can also use Sprinklr's 1:1 messaging for LinkedIn to reach your audience directly. This feature, known as Messaging for Pages, enables LinkedIn users to initiate direct conversations with organizations via direct messages. It unlocks direct 1:1 messaging capability for recruiting, customer service, sales and more.
Amp up your LinkedIn marketing with Sprinklr Social Navigating the complexities of LinkedIn marketing can take time and effort. From identifying your target audience and creating engaging content to staying updated with the latest trends and measuring your success, each step requires meticulous planning and execution. Despite your best efforts, you might find it challenging to keep up with LinkedIn's evolving landscape and that's where many businesses struggle.
The pain point? Achieving consistent engagement and tangible results on LinkedIn requires more than basic strategies; it demands advanced tools and actionable insights.
Sprinklr's AI-powered social media management software is designed to address these challenges head-on. With Sprinklr Social, you can:
- Leverage advanced analytics: Understand what works and what doesn't with precise metrics and over 7,500 pre-configured queries, allowing you to refine your strategy for optimal engagement.
- Automate and personalize engagement: Use AI-driven tools to automate routine interactions and personalize messages, ensuring timely and relevant communication with your audience.
- Streamline content management: Efficiently schedule and manage your posts across multiple social channels, ensuring consistent and impactful content delivery.
- Stay ahead with trends: Keep up with the latest LinkedIn features and trends, leveraging them to enhance your marketing efforts and maintain a competitive edge.
Transform your LinkedIn marketing approach with AI and drive meaningful engagement, growth and success. Discover how Sprinklr's comprehensive social media management software can make a difference.
Frequently Asked Questions
LinkedIn marketing involves using LinkedIn's platform to promote your brand, engage with a professional audience and drive business goals. It helps businesses increase brand awareness, generate leads, recruit talent and establish industry authority through targeted, professional networking and content strategies.
Businesses leverage LinkedIn marketing to build brand awareness, generate leads, establish themselves as thought leaders and engage with targeted audiences.
Personal accounts are valuable for LinkedIn marketing because they humanize your brand and foster genuine connections. When employees and leaders share content, it reaches their unique networks, enhancing your company’s visibility and credibility. Personal accounts allow for authentic engagement, thought leadership and direct communication with potential clients and partners, building trust and strengthening professional relationships in ways that company pages alone cannot achieve.
Following a LinkedIn marketing strategy offers numerous benefits, including increased brand awareness, targeted audience engagement and enhanced lead generation. A well-crafted strategy ensures your content is relevant and resonates with your audience, fostering higher engagement rates. It helps position your brand as an industry leader through consistent thought leadership and valuable insights.
