In today’s digital age, LinkedIn has become an indispensable platform for businesses looking to establish their professional brand, network with other professionals, attract talent, and generate leads. With over 722 million members worldwide as of April 2021, LinkedIn is the largest professional networking platform and continues to grow at a steady pace.
For businesses, LinkedIn offers a unique opportunity to directly engage with your target demographics in a professional context. Whether you’re a startup looking to build brand awareness, an established company aiming to recruit top talent, or a business targeting other businesses, LinkedIn provides a myriad of tools to help you achieve your goals.
Establishing Thought Leadership
One of the key benefits of LinkedIn for businesses is the ability to establish thought leadership and credibility. By regularly publishing long-form posts, insights, and articles on LinkedIn, businesses have an opportunity to position themselves as subject matter experts and build authority around topics relevant to their industry.
For B2B companies in particular, developing thought leadership is crucial in building trust and rapport with potential clients. According to a survey by Edelman, 61% of C-suite executives ranked thought leadership as very important when selecting an agency or consulting firm.
Some ways businesses can establish thought leadership on LinkedIn include:
- Sharing insights, trends, and best practices related to your industry
- Providing tips, how-tos, and strategic advice to your target audience
- Publishing in-depth reports, ebooks, and long-form articles using LinkedIn’s publishing platform
- Joining and participating in LinkedIn Groups related to your expertise
- Commenting on other posts and articles to provide informed perspectives
The long-form content format of LinkedIn provides a way for brands to demonstrate knowledge while establishing trust and credibility with their target audience.
Attracting Talent and Recruiting
With a base of over 722 million professionals, LinkedIn has become one of the most important platforms for attracting and recruiting talent.
91% of Fortune 500 companies use LinkedIn to recruit candidates. Features like LinkedIn Jobs and Recruiter make it possible to post openings, search for qualified candidates, and proactively reach out to potential hires.
Some key ways businesses can leverage LinkedIn for talent recruitment include:
- Posting job listings to reach targeted, professional audiences
- Searching LinkedIn profiles using filters to find qualified candidates
- Joining LinkedIn Groups for specific industries or niches to connect with relevant talent
- Using automated recruiting tools like LinkedIn Recruiter to manage talent pipelines
- Paying to promote job listings to reach more passive candidates
- Building talent communities to nurture relationships with high-demand skill sets
With LinkedIn recruitment, businesses can cut down costs associated with job boards while still reaching highly qualified, working professionals open to new opportunities.
Generating Leads
For companies focused on lead generation, LinkedIn advertising provides a self-serve platform to target your ads based on professional demographics, interests, company size, and more.
Some ways businesses can generate leads through LinkedIn include:
- Placing Sponsored Content to reach a targeted feed audience
- Running Sponsored InMail campaigns to engage professional contacts through personalized messages
- Showing display ads to audiences browsing industry-related content
- Retargeting website visitors through website conversion tracking
- Promoting content offers, like gated assets or events, to capture lead details
- Establishing advertising continuity to stay top of mind
With lead gen forms and conversion tracking, LinkedIn advertising provides transparency into your cost per lead as well as powerful segmentation to reach your ideal customers.
Driving Website Traffic
In addition to generating leads, LinkedIn ads can also drive significant traffic to your website. Website visitors originating from LinkedIn have high commercial intent and are actively researching topics related to your products or services.
Some of the ways businesses can leverage LinkedIn to increase website traffic include:
- Placing targeted Sponsored Content ads to reach audiences open to clicking
- Sharing links to website assets, offers, and blog content to gain engagement
- Running LinkedIn video ads to captivate professional audiences
- Promoting webinars and events to drive registrations
- Publishing relevant long-form content and including links back to site resources
- Retargeting website visitors based on pixels and custom audiences
According to LinkedIn, members are 3x more likely to visit a company page after seeing a LinkedIn ad. The platform provides an unparalleled avenue to get your website in front of motivated professionals.
Building Brand Awareness
In addition to owned content, companies can also advertise on LinkedIn to increase brand visibility and awareness.
With Sponsored Content and Sponsored InMail, brands can expand their reach and get their messaging in front of targeted audiences at every stage of the funnel. Display and video ads also allow brands to creatively showcase products and services.
Some other ways businesses can build their brand on LinkedIn include:
- Creating an eye-catching, optimized Company Page
- Engaging followers through news updates, articles, and content
- Getting visual with branded content using LinkedIn stories
- Running employee spotlights, leadership highlights, and culture videos
- Asking for recommendations from partners, customers, and employees
- Joining and participating in industry groups and discussions
With a complete suite of organic and paid opportunities – LinkedIn provides a multifaceted platform for businesses to inform, educate, inspire, and engage professionals.
Growing Your Network
At its heart, LinkedIn is a professional networking platform – designed to connect industry peers, foster relationships, and spark opportunities.
Businesses should encourage employees to grow their own networks on LinkedIn by connecting with colleagues, partners, customers, and more. Not only does this increase visibility – but it also surfaces new business opportunities through shared connections.
Some other ways businesses can grow their network include:
- Following other companies/business leaders to stay on their radar
- Joining alumni and industry groups relevant to your business
- Following influencers and thought leaders in your space
- Leveraging sales navigator to identify key decision makers
- Connecting with past employees and collaborators
- Reaching out directly to prospects via InMail
The broader your real, first-degree network – the more opportunities LinkedIn can provide in terms of relationships, partnerships, and word-of-mouth marketing.
Monitoring Your Brand
LinkedIn not only allows you to build your brand – but also to monitor brand perception and mentions.
By searching your brand name, keywords, and competitors – businesses can track relevant industry conversations happening on the platform. You can also set alerts to receive notifications when chosen keywords are mentioned.
Some ways brands can monitor their presence include:
- Monitoring Hashtag performance related to your brand or industry
- Joining Group conversations and monitoring discussion topics
- Setting up news alerts for your brand name and products
- Analyzing engagement on Company and Showcase Page content
- Measuring followers andpaid reach/engagement for ad campaigns
- Tracking website visits, leads, and conversions from LinkedIn
Regular monitoring provides insight into brand perception, competitor activity, and industry trends – enabling businesses to stay on pulse and ahead of the curve.
Showcasing Company Culture
Company culture has become a key factor for job seekers evaluating new opportunities. In fact, 94% of candidates say culture is important to them when choosing an employer.
LinkedIn provides a platform for businesses to give insider glimpses into company culture and work life. By showcasing culture, businesses become more attractive to prospective talent.
Some ways businesses can showcase company culture on LinkedIn include:
- Employee takeovers of the Company page
- Office photos, videos, and virtual tours
- Company event highlights and recaps
- Job shadow days and employee ridealongs
- Volunteering and community service initiatives
- Company value messaging and branding
- Diversity, equity, and inclusion spotlights
- Spotlights of unique benefits like pet friendly offices, remote work options, etc.
With LinkedIn spotlighting culture pages – businesses have a dedicated space to showcase their mission, values, and what makes their organization unique.
Promoting Events, Offers, and updates
LinkedIn provides multiple ways for businesses to promote special events, offers, product launches, and company news through both organic and paid tactics.
Organically, businesses can share event and offer details through posts, Company Page updates, and direct messaging. Paid promotion options include Sponsored Content ads, Sponsored InMail, and a variety of creative formats.
Here are some examples of how businesses can promote special updates on LinkedIn:
- InMail invites to webinars, conferences, and online events
- Sponsored Content ads for gated assets like eBooks, whitepapers, and reports
- Product launch videos showcasing new features or offerings
- Contests, sweepstakes, and giveaways driving leads and awareness
- Sponsored updates announcing company milestones
- Paid partnerships and collaborations with influencers
- Creative Showcase ads with special offers or discounts
With strategic messaging, businesses can align promotional campaigns on LinkedIn with key business objectives – whether driving registrations, downloads, inquiries or purchases.
Generating Referrals and Word-of-Mouth
Referrals and word-of-mouth marketing on LinkedIn stems from real connections built between businesses, partners, and networks.
Investing in relationships and engagement on the platform can pay dividends in generating recommendations, referrals, and organic promotion of your brand, products, and services.
Some ways businesses can facilitate referrals and word-of-mouth on LinkedIn include:
- Proactively endorsing and recommending partners, vendors, connections
- Authentically engaging with followers by liking and commenting on posts
- Encouraging customers and partners to organically mention your brand
- Recognizing employee milestones and achievements
- Creating and sharing case studies showcasing client success
- Soliciting testimonials and reviews from customers
- Building partnerships and integrating with other tools and platforms
The social proof provided by recommendations and mentions on LinkedIn can go a long way in establishing trust and credibility with target audiences.
Conclusion
LinkedIn has evolved into an indispensable platform for modern businesses – providing unparalleled access to professional audiences while offering tools to engage across the entire marketing and sales funnel.
From building awareness to generating leads, recruiting talent to driving referrals – LinkedIn enables businesses to:
- Establish thought leadership and credibility
- Distribute content to targeted audiences
- Identify and recruit top talent
- Drive website traffic and leads
- Promote brand, events, and offers
- Monitor brand presence and industry trends
- Showcase company culture to attract talent
- Grow real professional networks and partnerships
With over 722 million members – over 70% of B2B marketers say LinkedIn generates the highest ROI of any social platform.
Businesses that strategically tap into the potential of LinkedIn will be strongly positioned to engage professionals, nurture relationships, and unlock new opportunities across industries.