By now, basically everyone and their boss and their boss’s boss are on LinkedIn. If you aren’t amongst these people, LinkedIn is a social network platform for professionals and businesses, in contrast to places like Facebook or Instagram which are far more casual settings. The goal of LinkedIn is to connect you with fellow professionals while also providing a platform where you can show off your skills, resume and/or CV, certificates and degrees, and so on. However, that’s not all you can do with LinkedIn. 

Marketing on LinkedIn has exploded over the years, and there’s little surprise as to why. LinkedIn has grown into a massive, interconnected social media platform, and they’ve made it easy to market and reach the people you want to reach. On top of that, beyond LinkedIn’s own marketing tools, there are plenty of methods in order to make your LinkedIn page attractive and reach the right people. 

Why Market on LinkedIn? 

There are plenty of reasons to start marketing on LinkedIn. For one, the very idea of LinkedIn is that if you’re on the platform, you’re connected to basically everyone in the business world. This is especially good for B2B businesses since there are no other large platforms that are geared towards meeting professionals and experts in this way. The numbers bear this out as well. LinkedIn estimates that there are over 750 million professionals on their platform, and 4 out of 5 out of those members drive business decisions. This means that not only are you connecting with professionals on LinkedIn, but you’re connecting with the movers and shakers on top of that. 

LinkedIn claims it’s the #1 platform for lead generation, and it’s difficult to argue against that. Linking blogs, corporate websites, and even landing link pages on LinkedIn generates huge results. Data suggests that 64% of corporate website visits come from LinkedIn. That’s a huge amount of potential traffic, just from one social media platform. 

LinkedIn Marketing Tools

Thankfully, for someone looking to enter the world of LinkedIn marketing, they have plenty of tools ready to go. There are a lot of options to ensure you get your message out there. 

  • Sponsored Content: This consists of native ads that pop up in people’s LinkedIn feeds. Basically, as someone is scrolling along, you can have one of your ads mixed in with everyone else’s posts. These ads can be a single image, a video, a swipeable series of cards (or a carousel), or for an event. 
  • Sponsored messaging: This is an ad that shows up as a direct message to your audience of choice. This engages a potential lead on a very personal level. 
  • Text ads: These are very basic, simple ads that pop up for an audience of your choice. 
  • Dynamic ads: These ads target people specifically, often using their LinkedIn data to connect them with whatever it is you want to advertise. This can be a particularly powerful form of advertising since personalization can really make an advertisement stand out. 

LinkedIn makes it easy to use their baked-in marketing tools, and they have different levels of ads for everyone to use. And, since the platform is so large, there’s a good chance that you’re able to make the right connections. 

Other Ways to Market on LinkedIn 

Of course, there are other ways to market yourself on LinkedIn, beyond their built-in tools. In fact, it’s important to make sure you diversify your marketing approach, and make sure that your LinkedIn profile is set up properly. 

This is why, first off, you should make sure that your LinkedIn page is looking its best. For one, it’s important that your page is optimized for search engines so that people can find you easily. This part is simple. Make sure your name, your company name, and other relevant information are displayed on your page. On top of that, it’s important to have a comprehensive rundown of your skills and experience. This is great for B2B marketing since people are looking for professionalism and expertise. Finally, a good profile picture is massively important. You want a picture that is clean, professional, and simple. 

Once your profile is set up, another powerful LinkedIn marketing tactic is content marketing. Basically, this means you create useful, intriguing content related to your brand in some way as a form of marketing. Then, all you need to do is post that content to your LinkedIn page. 

Next, a more direct form of marketing comes thanks to LinkedIn’s robust search feature. Using it, you can find people you want to work with and message them directly. This can be effective if you want to cut out the middleman and just talk to the people you want to talk to. 

Finally, it can be beneficial to your LinkedIn marketing experience to get your employees involved. On a very basic level, you can ask your employees to link your company on their profiles. Beyond that, however, you can have top employees participate in LinkedIn groups, share their expertise, and share stories of their time at the company. This is a way of directly demonstrating the professionalism and expertise of your business, thereby growing confidence in you and your employees. 

Conclusion

LinkedIn is a powerful platform for marketing, and one of the best for B2B marketing. There is a suite of marketing tools built into the LinkedIn platform, and several strategies to optimize your marketing through the platform. LinkedIn can prove to be a useful tool in your marketing toolkit.