These conversations inspired me to write about why startups need to be on Linkedin and how they can make use of all the great features and capabilities available.
Why Linkedin
Linkedin has a lot to offer, for one it's the world's largest platform for professionals to interact, network, share, learn and grow. LinkedIn users are highly educated professionals that are working to create economic opportunities, build companies and create new businesses. If you are a startup looking to sell your product or create awareness this is your audience.
Below are some of the key features and tools that can help your startup reach a relevant audience at scale on Linkedin
Connections
Not all marketing is paid, building a strong network of connections on LinkedIn does not need a marketing budget but can help spread the word about your products. By regularly sharing content about your product and industry you can organically get their attention. Often your connections will be people working in the market that you are selling into and their "Likes" and "Shares" will help virally propel your content to their connections many of whom might also be in your target audience. Its important to remember your connections are a valuable asset and you should only share content that is useful and relevant.
Be proactive about growing your network, connect with all your current customers and everyone you are currently or previously worked with and have known in your professional life. Don’t hesitate to establish new connections through introductions or InMails. It helps to have a personalized reason for why you want to connect, you will find that often people are happy to connect through introductions or with people in their industry.
Linkedin Groups are another great way to build valuable relationships on Linkedin. There are a lot of very active groups out there find the ones that are related to your industry and aim to be helpful. Leverage your expertise to answer questions and point people in the right direction. Linkedin Groups is designed to award engaged user and you might just find your profile surfaced to other group members as a top contributor.
Company Pages
Be sure to setup a Company Page for your startup. LinkedIn company pages allow you to gain followers and keep them updated about your product. By following your company page they have expressed interest in your startup and are open to learning more.
Company pages have great features such as Analytics which lets you learn about your followers, Sponsored Updates that can help you promote posts that resonate with your current followers to a wider audience and Showcase Pages that lets you create beautiful highly focused pages, one for every product or target market segment if you wish.
In addition, LinkedIn will also actively surface your company page to the relevant audience as “Companies you may want to follow” displayed on the homepage which will help you gain new followers.
Linkedin Ads
LinkedIn Ads are a great way to advertise your company to the right audience. One of the biggest advantages of using LinkedIn Ads over others is the sophisticated targeting which allows you to target users of specific groups and companies, users with specific skills, in specific industries or with specific job titles like VPs. In addition to all this LinkedIn also leverages its own data to only show your ads to the most relevant users.
You can have text ads or video ads and you can use these ads to either direct traffic to your LinkedIn company page or your own website.
Sponsored Updates
Sponsored updates is the latest in LinkedIn’s collection of marketing tools and already one of the most popular. Any status update or link posted on your company page can be promoted and targeted to a wider audience. The sponsored update shows up in the users feed just like any other update. If the user likes the post, all of his connections will automatically see it and their "Likes" can help the post go viral - organically increasing your audience and exposure.
Sponsored Updates are also a great way to gain followers for your company page as a ‘follow company’ button is visible directly on the update in the users feed. Similar to LinkedIn Ads, Sponsored Updates also provides you with detailed analytics about who liked or engaged with your post.
A large percent of Linkedin users access Linkedin using their smart-phones or tablets and Sponsored Updates are visible to them on those devices so its important to make sure that the content you promote is accessible and readable on mobile devices.
Content Marketing @cyrustmybjaz29
LinkedIn is slowly opening up their publishing platform to everyone. While so far you may have enjoyed only reading posts from Linkedin influencers, now as you get the opportunity to blog on LinkedIn, you can project your own expertise and knowledge through your writings.
Content Marketing is an excellent way to influence and educate a wide audience, over time gaining a followership who trusts your expertise. Linkedin automatically catalogs posts into relevant channels such as Marketing Strategies, Healthcare, Professional Women which have millions of followers, thus instantly giving your writing massive exposure and engagement.
A recent post “Data For Social Good: A Beginners Guide For Nonprofits and Social Ventures” from a LinkedIn member got 10,000 views on a single day, 300 likes and was re-shared over 500 times which in my opinion is jaw dropping reach.
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