LinkedIn is a great place to engage with a community of people in your chosen industry, engaging with your connections should involve; Sharing stories, advice and information that resonates with those people in your field of expertise. It’s the ultimate way to foster relationships and spark conversations. If you’re looking for different ways to get started and stand out from the crowd, here are four tips that can help.
1. Highlight and feature your work
You should tell your professional story, the platform now allows you to take that a few steps further with the Featured section, it’s an area on your profile where you can showcase posts you’ve authored or reshared, articles you have published as well as images, documents and links to resources on your website. It’s a great way to showcase your expertise to your networks via all the work you have done on the platform. It also will help connections who visit your profile discover and consume your content more easily. Your LinkedIn profile is one of the first places your community will visit to learn more about you and your business and keeping your profile updated is also a key feature in keeping your branding and message on point.
2. List your services with Open for Business
If you are a small business owner you can also use your profile to help grow the business, in addition to featuring some of your work on your featured section you can list all of your services on your profile, this will indicate that you are open for business.
Most small businesses rely heavily on word of mouth to bring in new customers. We recognise that this traditional marketing strategy is changing and small businesses can, and should, take advantage of the new digital “word of mouth” conversation.
Linkedin will allow you to share what services you provide on your profile, it will allow you to indicate to your connections that you are “open for business”
So you provide coaching services? Make sure to share it on your profile so other people can contact you to learn more about your business and the work you do.
To make this update, simply:
- Visit your profile page from your mobile app or desktop, and if this feature is turned on for you, you’ll see a box under your profile photo/headline that talks about how to showcase the services you provide.
- Click “Add Services,” and then fill out the form to provide details about the services you provide. Be as detailed as possible so members who view this section have a good sense of what you provide.
- Click “continue” and this will automatically be added to your profile.
3. Create relevant content and mix it up
To keep your audience engaged and informed, it’s a good idea to create a custom content strategy and consider a variety of content types. Here are a few insider tips:
- Use short-form posts to share “whats new” in your industy or to ask for advice or ideas, and make sure to use hashtags.
- If you want to start a conversation, use video, which is the most likely format to get interactions.
- Create your own company newsletter, it will allow you to build your community and talk about topics that resonate with your audience.
- Get creative and use polls, make sure they are specific and targeted for your audience and around one of your products or services.
- Create a content planner and schedule, ensure you are posting regularly to your audience to keep them engaged and following. Ensure to use niche topics and always use hashtags.
4. Be yourself and position yourself as an expert in your field
When people browse through their LinkedIn feed, they look for posts that are innovative – something of a game-changer. It doesn’t matter which industry you work in, if you can show up as an expert in your field, you will, without a doubt, attract more engagement.
Knowing your clients’ needs and demands is essential in establishing yourself as an expert.
Whip up a video in which you talk about your industry’s development, which other experts haven’t discussed yet, or use a LinkedIn newsletter to build a community of subscribers to your content. People will start interacting with your posts, blogs, and videos through likes and comments if they find your content interesting and useful.
When you join industry-related groups, you will be able to monitor your potential clients and your competitors. Monitoring such groups will help you understand your target demographic a bit better. Plus, you will be able to fill up the information gap left by your competitors. This will instantly make you an expert in the eyes of your target audience
But be careful about not being too pushy. A lot of the time, experts make this simple mistake, which can be very costly. If anyone feels that you are trying to invade their ecosystem, you will lose the interest of that individual. It’s not always about the likes and comments you get. Sometimes, the passive impact you have on your audience can bolster your position as an expert.
Lastly make sure you be yourself, all too often business get caught up in being something they are not and it all falls flat, make sure you are always genuine, find your voice and consistently stay on brand to build that trust up with your community.
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