Over the years, LinkedIn has transformed from being that social media platform everyone thought is suitable for job hunting into the one where businesses and freelancers promote their services.
And this is why developing a LinkedIn marketing strategy is crucial to make sure your campaign gains the traction it deserves.
In what follows, we will find out more on how to develop a LinkedIn marketing strategy and what tool can help you ease your work.
21 tips to create a successful LinkedIn marketing strategy
- What is a LinkedIn marketing strategy and how can it help
- How to develop a LinkedIn marketing strategy
- A step-by-step guide on crafting a successful LinkedIn marketing strategy
- 3.1. Create a company profile
- 3.2. Define your goals
- 3.3. Know your audience
- 3.4. Post relevant and engaging content
- 3.5. Build brand awareness
- 3.6. Use LinkedIn newsletter
- 3.7. Use polls to increase engagement
- 3.8. Promote your LinkedIn page through ads
- 3.9. Learn about LinkedIn algorithm
- 3.10. Encourage your employees to become brand advocates
- 3.11. Tag people in your posts
- 3.12. Upload native videos
- 3.13. Use LinkedIn hashtags
- 3.14. Measure your LinkedIn performance with analytics
- 3.15. Study your LinkedIn competitors
- 3.16. Get inspired from influencers
- 3.17. Connect with users you want to impress
- 3.18. Promote your brand’s LinkedIn page through your personal profile
- 3.19. Use links in carousel posts
- 3.20. Use LinkedIn live feature
- 3.21. Learn how to use Best time to post metric
1. What is a LinkedIn marketing strategy and how can it help
A LinkedIn marketing strategy is a plan to help you market your brand’s products and services on LinkedIn.
Starting from scratch means spending a lot of resources, like time and finances, to grow your business and let everyone know you exist.
When developing your company’s LinkedIn account, you need to prepare a LinkedIn marketing strategy meant to propel you into your industry, among your competitors.
The main purpose, before wishing to surpass them, is to show people what your brand is about and why they need you.
Then, by setting your brand’s goals and values, you learn exactly what path to follow to conquer your audience’s heart.
Your goals will guide you, increasing your community along the way, as more and more people start showing their interest in your products and services.
Your LinkedIn marketing strategy will help you stick to a plan with finite end points, while you also assess your work.
A strategy for marketing can come in handy when you want to evaluate your brand’s and teams’ ability to improve what you are doing for the benefit of your clients.
Your prospective customers and existing clients will be more than happy to work with you if they see you as a true professional, offering quality services.
2. How to develop a LinkedIn marketing strategy
If you have understood the importance of a LinkedIn marketing strategy and now you are wondering how you could implement one, you are in the right place.
Even if you do not have yet a success story to tell, you still have SOMETHING to say and that also counts.
The difficulty lies in learning how to say it to attract people into your universe, making them curious about your brand.
Being present and consistent on your brand’s LinkedIn page is just as important as showing up to work every day.
To build a LinkedIn marketing strategy, you need to establish your goals, thinking about what you want to achieve by posting on LinkedIn.
After you set your business account, create quality content that reflects your brand’s values.
Your content will propel you into the LinkedIn world and more people will engage with your posts.
Our newest LinkedIn study shows you which type of content performs best.
To be more specific about how to develop a Linkedin marketing strategy, I invite you to check this complete guide below on creating an effective marketing strategy.
3. A step-by-step guide on crafting a successful marketing strategy
Wanting to spark a light for followers into the darkness of your industry, it can be challenging.
Remember that everything you are trying to say might have already been said by somebody else.
Maybe you do not have to come up with something completely new, but you find a human side to the problem to share solutions for users who could turn into prospective clients.
By following this step-by-step guide, you will be able to develop a H2H brand (Human to Human), completely changing customers’ experience.
3.1. Create a company profile
If you want to promote your business on social media, having a LinkedIn company page, is a must.
You'll be able to build brand recognition by providing a way to promote your products and services to customers and potential clients.
Step 1. Create a page
- Click the "For Business" from the top right corner of your homepage
- Scroll down and select "Create a Company Page"
- You have the option to select the page type you’d like to create
- Small business (under 200 employees))
- Medium to large business (over 200 employees)
- Showcase page
- Educational institution (high school or university/college)
Step 2. Set up your page identity
Branding is essential so pay attention to this step. Next, you’ll be asked to fill in fields like the industry, company size, company type (public, non-profit, educational, and others).
Step 3. Configure the visual identity and slogan
Upload a logo and standard image for your LinkedIn company page, because these elements will make your page stand out. Make sure you follow the photo standards.
- LinkedIn logo size: 300 x 300 pixels
- LinkedIn business cover photo: 1536 x 768 pixels
Step 4. Create a company description
Your company description is the first thing someone sees when they get in contact with your LinkedIn business profile.
Make sure you mention all your product features, and services. Also don't forget to tell what's your added value to the industry you're in. However, don't get carried away with the description.
LinkedIn allows you to preview how your page is gonna look like, so make sure everything is set up and click the "Create page" button - Your page is now live!
3.2. Define your goals
If you don’t know where you’re going, you will never know what’s your next step. Therefore, after setting up your business’ LinkedIn page, make sure you establish your goals.
This is how you will also come up with ideas regarding how you will be accomplishing them.
Develop a list, together with your marketing team, but make sure you write realistic, attainable goals.
3.3. Know your audience
At first, when you set the pillars of your brand on LinkedIn, you tend to connect with everyone since you want to increase your following.
However, you should ask yourself who is your target audience and what are they searching for. This way, you will know exactly how to craft your content to win over their hearts.
Besides learning what kind of content they’d prefer, you also have to ask yourself who is your ideal customer.
Think about the fact that you need to connect with the right audience to trigger conversion and lead generation on LinkedIn.
3.4. Post relevant and engaging content
I bet you’re familiar with that meme circling the world by now that says “tell me everything in 7 seconds or I’ll keep scrolling”.
Well, if you don’t have a hook and a catchy story for your reader, you lost them. Time is precious.
You have to draw your audience’s attention and make them relate to your story.
Post quality content and carefully split the paragraphs because no one will read a bulk of text.
Your carousels should have an eye-candy design and every slide to offer a valuable insight.
If the reader scrolls through your LinkedIn post and doesn’t get value from the start, they will leave your page.
3.5. Build brand awareness
Keeping in mind the fact that you are not the only one in your niche and industry, you have to do something to stand out from the crowd.
One way to do it, besides sharing content that sets you apart from your competitors, is to invite people to follow your page.
You should be creative and personalize your request to increase your chances of success.
This LinkedIn marketing strategy will broaden your horizon and increase the number of connections who might want to follow your business.
If you want to increase your LinkedIn page connections, this is something you should try:
- Invite your connections to follow your page
- Promote your LinkedIn company page on other social media channels like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter
- Mention your LinkedIn page in your emails
- Personalize your connection requests - As a company page, you can't send LinkedIn connections, but your employees can. Make sure they mention your brand in that note.
3.6. Use LinkedIn newsletter
If you already send a newsletter on a weekly or monthly basis to your community, then you should know that two types of newsletters never hurt nobody.
You could also send a LinkedIn newsletter, but only for your LinkedIn followers to keep them engaged.
For instance, here at Socialinsider we publish a new issue of our Linkedin newlestter - The Social Dot - every other week.
The newsletter could play an important role in your LinkedIn marketing strategy if you choose to send the latest updates, services or products’ launches, new studies and maybe invites to your future webinars.
3.7. Use polls to increase engagement
By posting LinkedIn polls a few times per week, you manage to keep in touch with your community.
Polls also help increase brand awareness. Every time a LinkedIn users interacts with your poll, your engagement increases.
Moreover, if you use the following trick, you will build a solid community around your brand: As a last choice in your poll, ask readers to offer you their opinion in the comment section.
In this way, you will not only engage with your audience, but you will also display the human side of your brand.
3.8. Promote your LinkedIn page through ads
If your LinkedIn marketing strategy would be a cake, then LinkedIn Ads would be the cherry on top.
Consider investing in your LinkedIn posts if you want your content to reach as many people as possible. This way, all those interested in your industry will get to see your ads from your brand.
You could also boost some LinkedIn posts which are relevant for your followers. Besides posts, LinkedIn ads also consist in sending your community direct messages about your latest products or achievements.
Through targeted advertising, you increase your chances of getting noticed, reaching more people.
You can target followers by industry, location, job title, name and many more. Depending on your goals, you can use:
- text ads - that appear on search results, notifications, group pages and profile pages.
- sponsored InMail - for personalized messages.
- sponsored content - to spread your posts to a larger audience.
3.9. Learn about LinkedIn algorithm
When posting, scheduling and developing new content, you need to know how LinkedIn algorithm works.
Firstly, LinkedIn bots will check your content to make sure it’s not spam.
Then, your post will be shown to a trial audience to see how interested they are in the topic. The post will appear in more users’ feeds if it gathers enough interactions.
Lastly, Linkedin editors will oversee your work and then show it to an even wider audience.
If you place several links in your posts, you should know that LinkedIn’s algorithm will hide that content as much as possible. External links can only distract users' attention to other websites.
This social media platform will overlook your choice of adding links and consider you should keep your community engaged with just your content.
Moreover, if you tag too many people in your content, the chances for virality will drop.
LinkedIn's algorythm is continously changing and you will always see announcements about new updates.
Some of the newest updates indicate that "viral strategies aimed at gaining maximum likes and followers will be less effective in the updated LinkedIn environment".
3.10. Encourage your employees to become brand advocates
You should know that your brand's best ambassadors are your employees.
Your LinkedIn marketing strategy also relies on boosting your presence in the online world.
And you can do that by asking them to share articles from the company's blog, new features, events, - mentioning the company name in the post.
Make your employees your brand ambassadors and the face of your company. People engage 10x more likely with employee profiles than with company pages. - Dr. Natalia Wiechowski, Personal Branding Coach
LinkedIn has a feature related to employee advocacy where you can see your employees' posts' performance.
If your employees are happy to share posts about your brand's milestones, then it is clear that more users will be interested to find out about your brand's mission.
3.11. Tag people in your posts
Tagging people you’ve quoted or you’ve referenced in the content you're sharing is an essential step in your LinkedIn marketing strategy.
The people you've tagged will be notified, along with their connections, and people who follow them, so your content will be seen by more people.
However, it is really important to not abuse this feature. Tags are not meant to be spammy. The key here is to provide value to both your content and to the people you tag in your LinkedIn posts.
This LinkedIn marketing strategy will help your posts become more visible and ultimately contribute to the increase of your page engagement.
3.12. Upload native videos
LinkedIn native videos are five times more likely than other types of content to start a conversation among LinkedIn members, according to LinkedIn stats.
Videos are among those pieces of content which stand out of the crowd. They are vital in today's social media strategy.
Moreover, native documents receive 3 x more clicks than any other type of content. In 2022, LinkedIn’s click-through rate across all types of content is 2.20% on average.
Be as creative as possible: give some advice in your niche, share an opinion about the latest trends or share a few tips & tricks to determine your followers to engage with your content.
3.13. Use LinkedIn hashtags
Hashtags help users find content on a specific topic and can become really effective when developing a LinkedIn marketing strategy.
There are a few types of hashtags you can use:
- branded hashtags
- niche hashtags
- campaign hashtags
Branded hashtags are those hashtags that include your brand's name, generating brand awareness.
Niche hashtags are generally used by a majority of brands in your industry and niche, grouping posts related to the same topic. This way, your post will be easier to be found if it's part of a cluster.
When you add hashtags to your posts, those posts will get a higher chance of being discovered by LinkedIn members who follow or search for the hashtag you’ve used.
If you are using hashtags when posting something on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, you should use them with your LinkedIn posts as well.
When you upload something (photo or video), LinkedIn will suggest you some hashtags according to the topic you're sharing. You have the option to use those, or you can write your own using the # symbol.
Experts say that it is better if you include your hashtags in the first comment of your post.
3.14. Measure your LinkedIn performance with analytics
Another thing to include in your LinkedIn marketing strategy is evaluating your work.
Keeping an eye on your LinkedIn analytics dashboard can help you make informed decisions that lead to better results.
Remember that your LinkedIn marketing strategy is best to be based on data, with your content tailored on what you saw your audience resonates to.
Track LinkedIn KPIs - followers demographic, number of followers, impressions and reach, engagement rate, profile views by job title, etc. It will help you increase your reach in your industry.
Ready to dive deeper into your LinkedIn performance insights? Try benchmarking against your direct competitors.
Now you can compare your engagement with that of your competition, and be extra precise by taking into consideration the number of clicks your posts get. Or not. It's up to you!
You can select all the metrics you want to include in your benchmark overview, from the right sidebar.
Diving into deep waters without guidance might be hard. This is why it’s better to use an analytics tool like Socialinsider that provides you with the data needed to properly analyze your performance and grow your company page. Plus, you have the following benefits:
- Measure your LinkedIn performance and track analytics for your business page
- Track key metrics of each post on LinkedIn
- Understand your demographics on LinkedIn
3.15. Study your LinkedIn competitors
When building your LinkedIn strategy, inspiration comes in many forms. Sometimes, you find it when looking at your competitors.
You just need a close look at their posts to see how they interact with their audience, what type of content they use most and what’s their tone of voice.
Luckily, LinkedIn native analytics offers you a handful of insights that you can use to adapt your LinkedIn marketing strategy.
When creating your LinkedIn page, the platform will allow you to add some of your LinkedIn competitors, and then it will display data about their progress.
In this section in the native app, you can see data like follower metrics, organic content metrics, like engagement and total posts.
Lastly, you can also check trending competitor posts to get inspired.
3.16. Get inspired from influencers
Another source of inspiration you can use are influencers. They basically show you their recipes for success when posting about their clients and all the brands they are working with.
Scroll through their posts and pick the most useful tips & tricks. The lessons you learn and the inspiration you find there will help you craft a better content strategy.
Studying influential people on LinkedIn is a sport you should play regularly. It’s like going to the gym, but the “health” benefits you get are actually for your brand.
Look at everyone who is posting great content in your niche and take notes that will help you improve your LinkedIn marketing strategy.
3.17. Connect with users you want to impress
To be able to connect with the right people on LinkedIn who are interested in your brand, you need to know your audience.
Learning everything about demographics and followers with Socialinsider is as easy as a Sunday morning.
Think about your new connections as they were your friends, peers who share the same interests as you do.
If some of them become clients, then you’ve done well. It means that your LinkedIn content worked its magic on them.
Your posts get higher engagement AND leads. What else could you ask for?
3.18. Promote your brand’s LinkedIn page through your personal profile
Social media directors know exactly what I’m talking about.
When you switch accounts and go like and comment that work post from your LinkedIn personal profile, that’s when you know you’ve worked a lot to create it.
It’s not a shame to like your own post. It’s only natural. You should also reshare LinkedIn posts from your company’s page to your personal profile and sometimes tag your company’s LinkedIn page in relevant posts.
3.19. Use links in carousel posts
The LinkedIn algorythm is changing periodically, morphing once every few months.
One of our studies regarding placing links in LinkedIn posts, based on an analysis of 86,504 LinkedIn posts, shows that brands that have a LinkedIn presence don't usually add links in comments.
Most of these brands use scheduling tools for their LinkedIn content.
Moreover, data shows that posts with no links perform better across LinkedIn compared to the ones that feature links.
It seems that the trick indicating that you should put your links in the first comment is not really working.
However, if you use links in your carousel posts, you increase your content chances of becoming viral.
3.20. Use LinkedIn live feature
Making use of all the features LinkedIn has to provide can really help you be seen. Since we're speaking about being seen, when people associate a face to a brand, they tend to pay more attention to their posts.
Scheduling to go live once in a while can boost your engagement and increase your community.
LinkedIn live events are a great opportunity for you to make your brand heard and engage with people who are interested in the same topics as you are.
Plan ahead some topics that could be of great interest for your audience and invite people from your industry to discuss those aspects.
You will be surprised at how many people would want to interact with your brand.
3.21. Learn how to use Best time to post metric
When trying to improve your content strategy on LinkedIn and grow your audience, it’s important to look at this KPI in your LinkedIn analytics tool.
By learning what’s the best time to post, you will know when your audience is most active on LinkedIn, increasing your content’s chances of being seen. Thus, your impressions and engagement will increase.
It is important to use the metrics best time to post as guidance when you post your content. However, depending on your industry and niche, but also on your audience’s presence online, the best time to post may vary.
It’s important to use a social media analytics tool to find out when it’s the appropriate time to post your LinkedIn content to increase your engagement.
4. How to craft your LinkedIn strategy with Socialinsider
Being on top of your LinkedIn is not easy work. You have to constantly keep your eyes on your LinkedIn analytics to check your performance.
Sometimes you have to face it that your LinkedIn marketing strategy was not perfect from the start. Adapting is always a good idea as long as you score greater results.
For today’s example for LinkedIn marketing strategy, I chose to do a head-to-head comparison on LinkedIn by comparing Ahrefs and Semrush's strategy.
First, I went to the Posts feature and tagged a campaign that is common for both brands, with the word “seo”.
It seems that in the last 6 months, Semrush and Ahrefs published 415 posts on LinkedIn and 116 of them are tagged with “seo”.
To make sure I don’t miss out on posts about SEO, I decided to use the Auto Tag feature, right next to the search bar.
Here you can see individual key metrics for each LinkedIn post, like engagement, likes, comments and shares.
Next, I used the Strategy feature to look at the new campaign I tagged for both brands.
In Campaign Benchmarks, you can compare social media campaigns from competitors and understand the volume of postings with that keyword, learning what's the engagement rate for that social media campaign.
When clicking Campaign Details, here you can see the split for the two brands, checking engagement, clicks and comments separately for Semrush and Ahrefs.
By scrolling down, you can see the values for a lot of metrics like hashtags, posts distribution, engagement distribution and more.
All these insights about your on-going LinkedIn campaign can help you craft a strategy worth the effort.
When you have the chance to see exactly what works and what doesn’t work for your current LinkedIn strategy, you will know how to use the actionable insights in the dashboard to improve your marketing game.
The in-depth analysis on your LinkedIn posts can help you find patterns and discover more metrics about your audience.
With the data you gather from Socialinsider, you can easily develop your weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual reports.
Final Thoughts
A LinkedIn marketing strategy could be life saving when you are trying to market your brand’s products and services.
You need to understand that your LinkedIn profile is not a LinkedIn CV. That is why you should tell more stories about your brand, and use call-to-action to attract more people.
The most important pillar you should rely on is creating quality content. The sense of newness is infinite if you always come up with useful ways in which you express your ideas.
Frequently Asked Questions
1.What is a good LinkedIn posting strategy?
Focus on posting when your audience is most active to boost the number of engagements on your LinkedIn posts. Use LinkedIn Analytics to get insights on which posts performed the best and take note of when you published them. Use these insights to tweak your future posts and posting schedule.
2.What is the 5 3 2 rule in LinkedIn?
So for example, if you publish 10 posts per week then: 5: Should be content from others that is relevant to your audience. 3: Should be content from you that is relevant to your audience but not sales focused. 2: Should be personal, fun content that helps humanise your brand.
3. How do I get LinkedIn growth?
Top 10 ways to grow your Linkedin followers
- Longer posts outperform shorter posts.
- Avoid posting links on your post, if you can.
- Image and video content works really well.
- Images & videos of you perform even better.
- Use #hashtags sparingly.
- Use polls as an additional content type.
- Post from your personal account.
4.How to get 1,000 LinkedIn followers?
- Be intentional about your audience.
- Block your calendar for LinkedIn.
- Keep your LinkedIn Profile updated.
- Find the right people to follow.
- Create Content.
- Build your engagement and commenting strategy.
- Focus on the outbound.
