Creating an engaging LinkedIn marketing strategy is the key to achieving a strong online brand presence. 

Although launched nearly 20 years ago, LinkedIn has only really properly taken off in the last few years, where individuals and businesses have used the platform to build and engage with their professional networks. It’s moved away from being just a hub for job seekers and recruiters to connect. It’s now being used as a place where brands can market themselves, but with so many companies trying to stand out it’s easy for your content to get lost amongst others. From sharing stories to perfecting post layouts we’ve picked out our top 10 tips to boost your LinkedIn marketing strategy by creating engaging social content. 

1. Update your profile 

The first thing to review before you begin posting or sharing content is your profile. Most people’s first impressions of you are based on your profile, and a lot can be decided in those short moments where someone is reading about your career and checking out your profile picture. You want to give people what they’re looking for, direct and professional information about you. People want to see what you’re talking about and that all the details match up how they should. 

This entails making sure you have a professional profile picture, where fake accounts and bots are rife, people most likely aren’t going to bother with you if you don’t have a picture up and remember LinkedIn isn’t like Facebook or Instagram, so we don’t want to see pictures of you in the club or with a group of friends on holiday. The picture must be professional if you want to improve your LinkedIn marketing strategy. 

The next step is to include a headline and a short bio that describes your experience and professional history. It needs to be short and impactful, nobody wants to read essays on everything you’ve achieved from the moment you were born. It should be a quick round-up summary of your career developments. 

There’s also nothing more frustrating than outdated information, double check to make sure your experience section is up to date with current and previous work history on show, as well as your education section.  

Make it visually appealing by adding photos to your roles, and if you can’t use photos include PDF’s and other relevant links. You should also update your profile regularly with any licences or certificates you’ve earnt throughout your career.

Check out Neil Patel’s LinkedIn marketing guide, which has a full rundown on how to update your profile step by step. 

2. Discuss topical issues 

If you really want to improve your LinkedIn marketing strategy you should be discussing topical issues on your LinkedIn account. This will not only make you relatable, as you discuss topics that will be affecting a lot of people and businesses alike. It’s also a great way to show people your ethos and what you care about outside of the world of business.

You don’t want to be that person that remains silent on certain issues, as people won’t forget this and they want to feel connected to a brand that has heart and cares at the end of the day. Mentioning environmental sustainability is a great way to align your brand with these positive messages, and get the word out that your brand is sustainable, which perhaps people would not have found out unless a topic surrounding sustainability was brought up by you on LinkedIn. 

3. React to relevant industry content 

Everyone has opinions and reacting to relevant industry content is a good way for you to get yours across in a professional way. By reacting to these types of content and posts you’ll also get noticed by people or businesses who are in similar industries, opening you up to multiple networking opportunities and ensuring your LinkedIn content and followers have a direct link to your industry. 

4. Perfect your LinkedIn posts 

LinkedIn is different compared to Facebook and Instagram. Where photos do better on those types of platforms, text-only posts do better on LinkedIn and this is key to remember when developing your LinkedIn marketing strategy. 

When creating your posts you need to keep in mind the fact that the first 2-3 lines need to say the most as everything after this is hidden unless the viewer clicks the see more button. Who’s going to want to read more if they aren’t fully engaged within the first few lines they can read? As well as this you must make sure your text is visually fun to look at and easy to read. With short sentences and emojis throughout being the preference over a chunk of plain, wordy text. 

The last thing you must consider when perfecting your LinkedIn posts is hashtags. These must be as relevant as possible to your content, company, and industry. You should also aim to use no more than 5–6 hashtags per post. 

And there you have it, the perfect LinkedIn post structure! 

LinkedIn themselves have great tips on how to create great posts, here. 

5. Use statistics 

Statistics are a great way to mix up your LinkedIn content and also shows your knowledge of your industry if the statistic is referring to something in your field. A statistic can do a lot of the talking for you too, and can be a nice break from text-heavy posts. 

Statistics Canada is great at using statistics in an engaging way. They’re punchy, straight to the point and they use them to spread information and inform a wide range of people in a simple way.  

6. Write your own article  

Be sure to share your blog post links on LinkedIn to help drive traffic to your website. 

You could also take it one step further if you want your followers and other people on LinkedIn to engage with your content, write your own article and publish it directly to LinkedIn. Not many people are posting value article content on LinkedIn, so you should take the opportunity whilst it’s there, to grab the attention of other LinkedIn users in order to boost your LinkedIn marketing strategy. The great thing about this is that they’ll be able to engage with your article and share it too, so it reaches even more people. 

Remember LinkedIn content is public so anyone with an account can view your content. Take advantage of this and make it count. 

Nathanial Bibby provides a great guide on how to write LinkedIn content that reaches a lot of people, here. 

7. Commemorate an anniversary 

Celebrate your work anniversary or your career anniversary with a post expressing your gratitude to your current employer or to the people instrumental in your career. This is a brilliant way to gain attraction and make your account feel more personal and human, which is a great way to develop your LinkedIn marketing strategy. 

The Lego Group recently celebrated their 90th anniversary on LinkedIn with a colourful and imaginative world play day that they included images of with the hashtag #LEGO90Years. 

8. Share your story 

Talking of personal, it doesn’t get much more personal than sharing your story. Storytelling allows you to connect with your target audience on a personal level, making you and your brand more relatable. There’s evidence to support the idea that LinkedIn users will engage with your status updates when you get personal and you’re willing to show your vulnerable side.

The way you structure this is important, nobody wants an essay length sob story that feels manufactured. People want to read a genuine story that has the right amount of emotion, and by the end of it they want to feel as if they’ve learnt something from reading your story, or felt something that’s changed their mind or made them question their original thoughts. Make sure your story uses clever one liners and short sentences to make it easier to read, especially for mobile users. 

Steven Bartlett is great at getting this balance and sharing his story. 

9. Spotlight a project or client  

This is a great way to show off the work that you have completed for a project or for a client. It gives you the opportunity to Share what your company has accomplished, through photos and a short description. 

Putting the spotlight on this is a way of promoting your brand’s work and the company’s abilities, brilliant for boosting your LinkedIn marketing strategy. 

10. Curate your network

It’s very important that you curate your network on LinkedIn. This allows you to keep track of your network and ensures you’re only seeing content that is relevant to you and your brand. 

It may be tempting to accept any and all network requests to make yourself more visible but when you take the time to properly curate your network it allows you to only interact with people who have a mutual purpose or passion. This will help a lot more to develop your LinkedIn marketing strategy than to add anyone and everyone to your network. It means you don’t have to filter through loads of people and brands to impactfully network and you can build relevant professional connections.

Feeling inspired to create some engaging LinkedIn content? If you want to kick start your brand’s online presence, have the ideas but don’t know where to start or you’re in need of a new LinkedIn marketing strategy, we’re here to help. Get in touch with us here at Rawww.