As LinkedIn keeps evolving and gaining importance in the world of social media, your professional profile on the platform has to evolve accordingly. LinkedIn is the perfect tool to attract and connect with current and potential partners, clients, employees, interns and claim your thought leadership. It is the place to express your professional beliefs as a company and highlight corporate activities. People want to know who’s behind the brand, what it does for them and what it stands for. That’s why it’s time to clean up your LinkedIn-act. Right now.

With a remarkable increase of LinkedIn users this past year, the social media platform for professionals has reached 766 million active users in 2021. If you’re into business and want to connect with like-minded people, then LinkedIn is the place to be. From CEOs, consultants, graphic designers to interns – you can meet them all on this platform. 

Since the COVID-19 crisis, online visibility has without a doubt become the number one priority for businesses and entrepreneurs.  – the platform is no longer Facebook’s dusty older brother, but has taken a prominent spot in the world of social media. Unlike other social media platforms, people come to LinkedIn specifically to see, read and talk business. As a brand, you should grab this opportunity to nurture your network, build a sense of community and drive up those sales. So, you better start working on that “online business card”!

• Do: keep it real.

Just like on other social platforms, authenticity is key for LinkedIn. Business to business becomes human to human. Put your employees in the spotlight and share your beliefs in an authentic way. For instance, sustainability is part of your brand. Great, but don’t just talk about pumping time and resources into it. Give your audience some much needed real-world proof on how you’re doing, using numbers and mind-blowing content. Why does it work? Being transparent gains trust and sparks engagement.

Another great example is this one on the left: the VRT posts content about their colleagues. They give their audience a sneak peek behind the scenes and let their employees do the talking – allowing them to promote their brand and increase awareness.

• Do: tell your story in LinkedIn Stories.

Instagram has seen an 80% increase in the time that users spend watching videos on the platform, and those videos receive twice the engagement in comparison to photos. Since launching LinkedIn stories at the end of 2020, the platform has noticed the same evolution.

Being a fairly new feature on the platform, stories are a great opportunity for your brand to get noticed and experiment with the format in a professional atmosphere. Sidenote: Keep in mind that you can only use the Stories feature on the mobile app of LinkedIn, not on desktop. 

• Do: experiment with Livestreams.

2020 was the year of virtual events. With remote working being the new standard, virtual events and especially live events will continue to fill our feeds and agendas. Not only is it a very easy format to set up, it’s also a fairly budget friendly way to reach out to your followers and connections. Tip: whether you’re streaming straight from LinkedIn, linking to a webinar or using Facebook Live: showcase the event on LinkedIn. 

• LinkedIn Live streams increased by 437% in 2020. 

• Brands get 7x more reactions and 24x more comments on LinkedIn Live streams than regular video.

MMBSY created the LinkedIn webinar ‘Let’s talk about growth’ for Duval Union, where 13 Duval Union partners each shared their expertise to help their viewers in their professional endeavours and to keep them up to date on the latest trends in their industry. After the event, all 379 attendees received a recap of the webinar by email. Awareness for the webinar was mainly created on LinkedIn and by email. As a Duval Union partner ourselves, MMBSY held a session about influencer marketing. You can rewatch that session and all others by registering here. 

• Do: believe in organic reach and use advertising wisely.

There is a lot of buzz about advertised content versus organic posts. We believe it’s best to do both. Advertise the right content to your target audiences, but at the meantime fill your feed with professional and attractive organic content. People who might not know your company yet, can get lured to your company page by seeing an ad, and when they do, it should be worth their time and effort. 

At MMBSY we also post organic content on our LinkedIn business page to showcase our expertise and recent cases.

• Do: highlight your product or service

An easy way to do so is by linking extra pages for your products to your company page. This includes extra text and explanations, links to your web shop, the possibility to share a video and get reviews. This way you can present your products and use the reviews to optimize your product and showcase your clients’ satisfaction.

• Don’t: skip Campaign Manager for Advertising.

The LinkedIn campaign manager is similar to the one you know from Facebook and is an ad management tool that empowers anyone to create, launch and evaluate the performance of LinkedIn ad campaigns. The manager will improve this year as advertising campaigns on LinkedIn are more frequently used. 

Here are some stats on LinkedIn advertising you may not know yet:  

• An ad on LinkedIn can reach 13% of the world’s population.

• LinkedIn’s ad reach grew by 25 million people in Q4 2020.

• LinkedIn ads offer more than 200 targeting characteristics.

Just like Facebook advertising, you can choose the right call to action, image, video or carrousel.

• Don’t ignore the metrics.

Gather insights, adapt – do it again. There are a lot of different sources on LinkedIn that can help you gather a lot of insights about your brand, your target audience, your competitors, trends, the market and the world as a whole.

For example by using the LinkedIn Hashtag you can search hashtags and therefore know what’s trending on certain topics. Another interesting tool to look into is LinkedIn Learning Courses. This way you can check which course is most viewed. Not only can you update your skills but you gather insights on what users around the globe are learning.

And finally: the company engagement report.

The report gives you a lot of insights on how companies and clients you targeted responded to your advertised content. This offers you a lot of useful analytics to work with in the future. This way you can analyse your current ads and adjust your content or strategy accordingly.

Are you ready to dive into LinkedIn or still a bit unsure?  MMBSY  will gladly help you define your goals and LinkedIn strategy. Check our LinkedIn-page and contact us for a free intake meeting.