5 Proven Ways to Improve your LinkedIn Marketing Strategy

We all know that LinkedIn is one of the fastest growing social networking sites that has been connecting like-minded professionals over the past 18 years.

But did you also know that 2 new professionals join the network every second? This means that 172,800 new users become members of the platform every day.

This clearly shows the impact it can have in shaping your professional life. This is true for almost all professionals. Whether you are an entrepreneur, job seeker, freelancer, or any other professional, LinkedIn is one platform that will help you grow professionally. 

But the problem is that unlike social networking sites like Facebook or YouTube, on average, a LinkedIn user spends just 17 minutes per month on the platform. 

This makes it extremely challenging for you to attract people’s attention. The good news, however, is that it’s not impossible if you have a powerful LinkedIn marketing strategy.

If you already have a strategy, let’s check out some of the ways to make it even more effective.

1. Understand your Audience

To build a powerful marketing strategy on LinkedIn, you first need to understand who your target audience is. There are various ways of identifying your target audience. One of them is on the basis of the industries, job titles, locations, etc. 

For example, say you are a content marketer. So your audience will definitely have job titles like a content marketer, copywriter, freelance writer, etc. Again to make your audience more specific, you can focus on the type of content that you are creating. 

Knowing your audience is important because it helps you understand their preferences, likes, dislikes, etc. You can then use this understanding to create content that aligns with your requirements. 

As a result, your engagement will increase. And you can use this opportunity to grow your traffic and increase your overall conversions. Probably that’s how B2B websites are attracting 50% of their traffic only through LinkedIn marketing.

2. Add a Strong LinkedIn Summary

The next effective tip to consider is to add a strong summary to your profile. Having a powerful LinkedIn summary can be a wonderful way to capture your visitor’s attention. It helps people understand why they should connect with you because it highlights your relevance. 

And not just that. It also helps you stand apart from your peers by telling them what makes you unique.

But in doing so, it’s important to remember that your summary will work only when your visitors connect to it. For that, you have to understand who your ideal audience is and what you want them to know about you. 

Then summarize your accomplishments, interests, values, and passions. To make things more interesting, you can also share fun facts about yourself. Talk about the things that differentiate you from your peers. Lastly, make sure that you include a few points to reinforce what you say about yourself.

Don’t forget to make it sound aspirational and authentic. A good way to do that is to write in the first person. Doing that helps you connect to your audience better. You should also try to hook your readers with a good opening sentence. Make it compelling or provocative. It’s a wonderful way to attract quick attention.

3. Create Relevant and Media-rich Content

Creating relevant and media-rich content is another very important tip to consider when it comes to improving your LinkedIn marketing strategy. 

According to sources, content with more media files receive 94% more views than those without them. And even amongst these media files, using real images over stock images can help you increase your conversion rate by a whopping 35%.

But are media files in your content enough to attract people’s attention? Of course not. Images and other media files in your content may definitely help you gain people’s attention, but what’s more important is to retain your users and engage them with your content. 

To do that, you have to first identify the type of content that is popular on LinkedIn. A few years ago, BuzzSumo conducted a study in which it analyzed 10 million articles shared on LinkedIn. In this study, it was found that the most popular content on LinkedIn falls under 3 categories.

They are ‘Industry trends’, ‘how-to’ articles, and ‘thought leadership articles. This means that people on LinkedIn are more inclined towards educational and informative content that keeps them up-to-date on the latest events and developments. 

So when you’re sharing your content on LinkedIn, make sure that it fulfills the user intent and is scannable. Making your content scannable is important because 73% of your visitors will just scan your content. And they will consider reading it entirely only if they find it interesting.

4. Know the Peak Hours to Post

This point is the most ignored ones by marketers. Knowing the perfect time to post on LinkedIn can help you get the best results. There have been various studies to find the best time to post on LinkedIn, but each differs from the other. 

However, there is a slight overlap in the timing found by these studies. For example, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays are ideal for posting on LinkedIn. This makes sense considering Mondays are the busiest day for office goers with the entire week ahead of them. Similarly, after working for the entire week, Friday seems to have the least engagement from users. 

When it comes to time, it’s important to note that being a professional platform, people are more inclined to use it during business hours. So the engagement sees an obvious decline post 5 pm. The engagement is usually high in the early hours of the day and around lunchtime in the afternoon.

Besides, you also have to consider the timezones of your visitors. If you have a global audience, it’s best to schedule your content considering the best time of the largest segment of your audience.

5. Leverage Social Proof

Whether you’re looking to develop a brand for yourself or for your company, social proof can help you achieve your goal faster. So why not use them in your LinkedIn profile? Doing that helps build credibility and boost your conversion rate too. Such social proof can help you convert your visitors based on the experience of your existing customers.

For example, if your business is selling a product or service, instead of creating promotional content for it, you can share positive customer reviews as social proof. Most buyers start their buying journey with research. And 83% of people trust reviews over paid advertisements. 

Similarly, if you’re trying to develop a personal brand, you can share client testimonials, social media mentions, etc., to build credibility for yourself. 

So now that you know how to improve your LinkedIn marketing strategy get the best out of this powerful platform to achieve your goals and be successful.