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How to build a successful LinkedIn strategy for your business

Posted: Wed 10th Mar 2021

Setting up a plan for your LinkedIn activity is something I always recommend to my clients. It helps to boost your efficiency by linking your activity to clearly defined objectives; it ensures direction and accountability; and it will also provide you with plenty of inspiration for your content.

Another important reason for having a LinkedIn marketing strategy in place is the fact that pushing a sales pitch or aggressively advertising is widely frowned upon. This social media platform requires a slightly different approach to get the results you want.

Giving your approach some thinking is definitely worth the effort, as LinkedIn users come to the platform 'to do business'. LinkedIn is known for its ability to generate 277% more leads on average than Facebook.

Think what you want to achieve on LinkedIn for your business

Some common goals include:

increasing brand awareness
expanding your business network to boost referrals
positioning yourself as a thought leader in your niche
sourcing talent
connecting with potential donors or sponsors

Who you want to connect with and why

Think who is an ideal connection for your business; in other words, who you want to do business with. Having a clear idea in your mind will help you to find these people through LinkedIn's search feature.

Important point here: The person you want to connect with may already be connected to one of your first-degree contacts, so don't forget to tactfully request introductions where possible.

Having a clear strategy for your LinkedIn activity will also have an impact on who you're 'following' – and following the right people will make your LinkedIn experience so much more rewarding.

Your newsfeed will display updates from people and sources you actually want to hear from – both for the purposes of learning and staying up to date with industry news, as well as building interactions with interesting prospects and industry influencers.

Liking and commenting on their updates may be a softer way of opening up a conversation and building a rapport. In other words, a good way of 'warming up the lead' before sending a connection request.

Being mindful of who you follow works the other way too. If you find your newsfeed cluttered with dull content, use the three dots in the top right-hand corner of the post to 'Unfollow'. This is a subtle way of removing content from specific contacts from your newsfeed, while remaining connected to them.

Finally, let's talk content strategy. What type of content will best reflect your expertise?

How you present yourself through the content your share on LinkedIn will directly affect your business and your personal brand.

Keeping your content relevant to your industry proves to your followers and potential customers that you're up to date with news and trends. It will also help you to establish yourself as a quality source of industry updates.

And remember, you don't need to be a 'business guru' to share helpful articles and insights. Your personal experience can also be of value, as long as it remains relevant and beneficial to your target audience.

Ideas for LinkedIn updates

What's happening behind the scenes of your business
Useful articles
Industry updates with your commentary
What you've read recently and what were the main lessons
Practical tips and lessons from your personal experience that would benefit your audience
You can include some promotional posts, but as a general rule of thumb these should not make up for more than a third of your overall posts

It's also worth pointing out, especially if your objective is to position yourself or your business as a thought leader, that you should consider creating your own long-form content on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn has changed substantially over the last few years and has now emerged as one of the leading content platforms, with articles gaining a lot of popularity.

Benefits of publishing articles on LinkedIn

They can help to establish your voice within a specific area and build trust as an expert
They provide more value to your network and help to form a first impression to anyone who visits your profile
They can be indexed by Google and show up in organic search, providing you with a wider opportunity for exposure and engagement
Your connections will be notified each time you publish a LinkedIn article, providing you and your business with much wider exposure than a regular update

To recap, everything you do on the platform should be purposeful and bring you closer to achieving your objectives.

I hope that these tips will help you to clarify your direction and strategy on LinkedIn. Should you need more advice on how to use LinkedIn to support your marketing efforts, please connect with me and send me a message.

Relevant resources

Joanna MichaelsBeyond Social Buzz

Hello, I’m Joanna, a Social Media Coach, speaker and a business mentor, with a desire to help your business succeed at social media. I promise to give you the energy and the enthusiasm needed to move from ideas to action, using insight which I gained from my hands-on experience and on-going education in marketing and social media. If you feel stuck, my perspective and positive approach will jump-start you from overwhelmed to optimised online. I founded Beyond Social Buzz, a digital marketing consultancy, seven years ago and I specialise in helping startups and small and medium businesses in their social media marketing journeys. Different businesses have different social media marketing needs and the character and the story of the business is at the core of my approach to each client. I also understand that a slower pace of training may be welcomed by those new to social media. Whatever you prior knowledge, my techniques are effective and easy to implement. I am a confident and informed speaker/ lecturer to large audiences. I am also an engaging and perceptive facilitator for smaller groups, and an encouraging yet incisive one-to-one trainer. I run monthly meet-ups for London based female founders with an eclectic range of business. My networking and interpersonal skills ensure that these events are spaces for women to make valuable connections, share advice and move forward, together. I also deliver social media marketing sessions for universities and startup hubs. I have spoken about social media marketing at many UK and international business events. The biggest to date being The International Bar Association Conference in Vienna in 2015.