According to LinkedIn’s Sophisticated Marketer’s Guide to LinkedIn, 94% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn as a content distribution channel. Forbes author Nikita Cikaluk is a professional personal branding and Linkedin profile and content optimisation consultant. For the last 7 years, he has helped over 800 clients from 78 different countries.
Many marketers claim that advertising on LinkedIn is insanely expensive compared to other platforms. They even go as far as saying that if you’re selling something with a price tag below $100,000, then there’s no point in advertising it on LinkedIn. What’s your view?
The leads you are paying for on Facebook or Instagram are nothing compared to what you get on LinkedIn. You can only target a certain demographic, whereas LinkedIn provides you with prepared business leads. It’s a business platform above all. So you are not just paying for some leads that might not convert later. If you put emphasis on a specific niche, specific positions in a specific company – you’ll end up with a 90% conversion.
Moreover, let’s not forget about organic growth. It doesn’t cost you anything. If you are an interesting person with valid ideas you can expect the growth to follow (something LinkedIn took from Twitter). It doesn’t cost you anything. Apart from the personal page, you can also have a company page that replicates or in some cases, even replaces your webpage. You can host all that information on LinkedIn and grow your presence there.
Many experts say that people want to interact with other people, hence there is no need in having a company page. Instead, one should work on personal profiles for the key staff.
The fact that people prefer personal communication is obvious. When we’re looking for new business opportunities, the first thing we do is to look for the team and see how well advocated are those people. However, skimming your presence down to a personal profile is a big mistake in my view. When it comes to communication with people, your personal profile will of course be the main source. But people who are not reaching out directly to you via email or Facebook – they’re on LinkedIn. It’s their platform of choice. They are looking for all the information they can find on your company. Whenever they have found your personal profile, they will move on to learn more about what’s cooking in your team via a company profile. So by limiting your presence to a personal profile, your cutting them from the information they find interesting. For instance, if you have 50 people in your company and you may not be the person they are looking for, then a company page is a great source to finding the people they are interested in.
Interested in organic LinkedIn marketing? At our upcoming seminar in Riga, Nikita will cover the principles of organic LinkedIn marketing: building company profiles vs personal profiles, community building vs using existing communities, content creation and how to identify and reach the right decision makers.
Another aspect regards the low engagement. Again, if you compare LinkedIn to Facebook, then the amount of people engaging with one’s content is ridiculously low compared to the follower count. Why is that?
Because the essence of LinkedIn is different. Facebook and Instagram are almost pure entertainment. The audience on LinkedIn is much more picky and people are actually evaluating different factors. How active you are on the platform? What kind of information are you sharing? Whereas on Facebook, people are just scrolling infinitely, it’s a mindless activity. On LinkedIn, once you share interesting insight, people are willing to engage in discussions. I think all of us have seen posts where instead of posting five slides the discussion picks up in the comments section. People are willing to argue with you. And this is actually a point I often share with my clients: include a call-to-action in your post. Invite people to join the discussion. The quantity doesn't matter because the two likes or the two comments can be from your potential business partners.
What goes into an ideal LinkedIn post?
I’d bring it down to three elements that should be present in your structure. The first is the headline, which should be catchy and bold. Either a thought provoking question or some interesting facts that will get people thinking. If you go and take a look at your LinkedIn feed right now, then you will see that only three lines are visible by default. You have an option to see more. Your first task is to get people clicking that 'see more' option. The second element is obviously a value based body. If it’s just simple promotion or bragging then nobody will care and you will lose them quite quickly. And finally, the call-to-action or a simple question that invites people to interaction.
In terms of content, don’t shy away from being playful. You can use caps lock or emojis if you want to emphasise something. Don’t forget about hashtags which will boost your ranking on LinkedIn search. And if you can back up what you’re saying with relevant tags and numbers, be it people or company profiles, it will help lift your credentials.
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