Quit Pretending! 5 Methods to Ensure 2020 is the Year You’re Actually LinkedIn

A new year offers the ideal opportunity to review the returns of your business’ social media platforms and any marketing strategies you currently have in place. LinkedIn, as the world’s largest business and employment-oriented service with over 65 million users, should be a foundational part of your marketing this year.

Many professionals use LinkedIn. We hand our profiles around like a business card: a nifty way to find, and connect with other professionals. Unlike awkwardly attempting to hand out your business cards while networking in a crowded room, LinkedIn offers many opportunities to network authentically and purposefully.

A social network for professionals, LinkedIn is Facebook for your career. Built for those with an interest in taking their professional life more seriously, it offers opportunities to grow careers and connect with other professionals. In a world of small businesses and global marketing, LinkedIn provides the advantage of an enormous virtual networking event. With profiles that act as online resumes, a world-wide community and articles from professionals with a combined unlimited resource of information, LinkedIn allows users to build strategic relationships with other specialists in thousands of careers. 

Here are five tips for those looking to increase their LinkedIn proficiency in 2020:

1. Connections: Building Your LinkedIn Community

LinkedIn connects professionals to thousands of networks around the world and in your immediate community. Like any other form of networking, the more serious you are about your business and your brand, the more responses you will receive. 

LinkedIn makes it possible to easily demonstrate your expertise in today’s oversaturated business and job market through:

• education and skills

• endorsements

• branding

• easy-to-understand overviews of previous work

• work examples

Strategic sharing is essential for building a LinkedIn community. Share content with your friends and link to your email signature. By sending articles (whether your own posts or others pertinent to the field or topic) to your connections, you show them that they are on your mind. Strategic sharing can initiated conversations that may bring about leads or new connections. Always be aware, however, when to share and when you just need to drop a line with a genuine hello. Be selective about your shares: on-topic and on-time. No one wants spam. 

It is essential to avoid an idle network, so continually build your community. Who in your groups are consistent LinkedIn users and steadily share content? Connect with the serious users first. And don’t hesitate to engage real life contacts on this platform as well. An introductory email opens the door. Just don’t pitch them. Offer your help with whatever they need and keep it brief and personal. The LinkedIn Connect app allows you to stay in-the-know with all of those little personal details like birthdays and anniversaries, as well as events and job opportunities.

2. Frequency: Updating Your Profile and How Often to Post

If you want to increase your LinkedIn reach, then you must invest in your brand on this platform. That requires frequent and timely attention to your profile and feed. Like any social networking website, the time you devote to your account shows.  LinkedIn is a platform where time and effort is gainfully rewarded. Even though it can be easy to put off, fill out every section of your profile and come back to it every few months. LinkedIn will offer suggestions on how to create a stronger account, but only you know how your brand or business is changing and what clients are ideal for that month/quarter. Continue to update keywords, photos, and tweak your headlines. Make use of any new multimedia as a personal and current engagement tool. Even though it can be easy to sink all your focus into posts, your account is where the public learns who you and your brand are. On top of monthly updates, we emphasize taking the time to engage every single day. This may sound like an enormous time-sink, but just an hour each day will increase your reach tremendously. An updated feed shows that you are on top of your field. Posting relevant information shows that you and your brand are reputable and knowledgeable in your field. What is new for your business?  What helpful tips can you give to others about your field or the current market? Unlike other social media platforms, one post a day (with the optimum time being between 10 and 11 am) is all you need, with a bare minimum of once a week. This will keep your followers in the loop, but not overwhelmed.

3. Influence: Articles and Increasing Post Reach

Posting on LinkedIn is an essential skill and one that is gained over time. ‘Posts’ and ‘articles’ are only slightly different in format, but fill distinct roles and both of these should be in your LinkedIn repository for 2020. A post is the default mode of commentary on this platform. The image appears smaller beneath the text and the post, when published, appears in your feed at whatever level of visibility you choose. (This level is affected by how many followers you have and how well you choose your hashtags and play by LinkedIn’s algorithm rules.) An article, with the image larger and placed above your test, is created through LinkedIn’s Pulse Publishing, which offers a basic list of editing tools, such as larger headlines and spaced text. These articles are more like blog posts. While your posts are shown quickly and then tend to become buried, articles are far easier for your followers to find since you write fewer of them. They tend to increase your exposure/followers and reflect on your position as an expert in your field. Though company pages are not yet allowed to write articles, anyone with a personal page is able to do so and can then link to those articles on their company pages.

A few tips to increase your post/article-reach in 2020:

• Use both. Again, posts and articles should be used in tandem. Posts allow for quick updates and timely advice, while articles bring a deeper expertise to your profile.

• Solve a problem. Tutorials, roundups, quick tips and tricks, expert advice...all of these will draw others to your feed and to your brand. Make the best of every opportunity to use a catchy title and (obviously) avoid any spammy-sounding posts. Try ending your post with a question: these have 50% more engagement.

• Post relevant information. Always strive to keep your feed on-topic/on-brand. If you share a post to a group, make sure you are contributing to the conversation and not distracting from it.

• Share on multiple platforms. Cross-pollination between all your social media platforms brings continuity for your followers and your brand, and link to those posts on your website. There is 200% more engagement on posts that contain a link.

• Embrace video. LinkedIn videos are similar to those of Facebook, just keep the content more in the line of business advice, informal business blogs, and tidbits of pertinent information. 59% more executives prefer content via video rather than written copy.

4. Pay-to-Play: Boosting Posts

How to use boosted posts? It’s the million-dollar question asked by thousands of LinkedIn users stymied by the higher CPC of LinkedIn vs. Facebook and confused by ads vs. boosting. Pay-to-Play can be a nerve-wracking game for many businesses, especially smaller ones with limited resources who are looking for a reliable payoff. There are two things that you need to remember about LinkedIn pay-to-play:  First off, Facebook ads/boosting may be the cheaper option, but LinkedIn is 500% more likely to convert quality leads compared to Facebook.  It is important to remember that even though LinkedIn is the top B2B platform in lead-generation and closing sales, it is far less popular as a general social media website than Facebook and is not always given daily attention by your general audience. (If your goal is general views rather than lead generation, Facebook or another social media site would better serve you.

Still, while people spend time on other networks, they really invest in LinkedIn. This is because almost all your audience on this platform are professionals looking for business connections, instead of general consumers.

• 43% of marketers source from LinkedIn

• 92% of B2B marketers rank LinkedIn over their other social media platforms

• 46% of social media traffic to your website is from LinkedIn

The main drawbacks to LinkedIn boosted posts is the higher cost (though this is mollified by the higher quality of clicks/leads) and the fact that this platform does not offer goal-based pricing (which would allow optimizing a campaign for likes or boosting popularity of your page).

Second, boosting (or sponsoring) a post on LinkedIn is far better than an ad. A boosted post not only appears more natural and native to your feed, ads on this platform are tiny, with only 90 characters of text. 

When boosting a post, there are several options that you should take advantage of in 2020:

• Rich Media Options. When you craft a post you want to boost, use videos, slideshows, graphics, cover art, and screenshots to catch the eye of your audience and improve your message quality.

• Audience. When you boost a post, LinkedIn gives you the option to target a very specific audience, and this allows you to craft tight, effective content.

• Testing. Multiple trials are everything in an ad campaign and LinkedIn simplifies this process. When you choose variations (or the ‘creative’) of the same boosted post, you can optimize for the best-performing content using the platform’s Direct Sponsored Content. With this tool, you can test your copy length, language, format, imagery, link placement, etc.

5. 2020 LinkedIn: New Trends

LinkedIn is constantly varying and improving the features of its platform in order to adapt to the needs of its users and of the company itself. Like other social media sites, these can both benefit and complicate the user process. 

It is important to stay aware of changes to your social media platforms, either ones that are occurring this year or those that may materialize in the near future.  Here are a few trends that are expected to be up and coming:

• Local Connections. LinkedIn has always prided itself as being a world-wide social media site, but the future is in the local community. It is likely that a sub-platform, with emphasis on local networking, will be developed soon. This would clinch LinkedIn’s position as the most useful social media site.

• AI Analysis and Humanization of Profiles. Users should anticipate a rise of AI elements over this year and optimize their profiles with targeted words. Keywords and videos with closed captioning and transcripts to improve your SEO will not only be helpful, but necessary. Less sterile profiles will also become the norm in the near future, as LinkedIn strives to humanize its platform in order to promote the credibility of its users.

• Fee-based LinkedIn? With LinkedIn becoming a basic and crucial tool for every job-seeker and professional, there is a good chance that connection requests will become another feature of premium users. For now, all users should strive to make as many connections as possible while it is still free.

• Content Creation and Brand Authentication. There is new attention focused on hashtags, so make sure that you are taking advantage of them. LinkedIn is developing a sharper focus on users who create content, as the platform is no longer just about meeting other people. There is also a higher concentration on profile authentication, so users should focus on prioritizing their voice and their story in honest, open ways.

• Live Content. LinkedIn has now embraced the ability to livestream, either with picture and audio or video. Take advantage of this incredible opportunity to conduct webinars and stream pre-recorded content.

• Sharing Results & Successes. With users searching for more results-based knowledge and team-building encouragement, LinkedIn is emphasizing profiles and feeds that highlight these needs. Keep your profile fresh with results that show true ROI; share your success stories involving team synergy; and share tips on TED talks, YouTube, etc. 

As you contemplate your 2020 business resolutions, make time for LinkedIn in your social media efforts. Though every social media site should play a part in your business marketing, LinkedIn offers the unique ability for you to promote yourself and your brand among other professionals serious about networking and forming community. With frequent management of an authentic profile, regular posting, and the proper use of boosting, you will maximize your network and brand-reach in 2020.