[LinkedIn Success Guide] UNIT 14: LINKEDIN - DO'S AND DON'TS

[LinkedIn Success Guide] UNIT 14: LINKEDIN - DO'S AND DON'TS

Note: You can read the full guide and resources in the carousel above ☝️

As with any business venture that you decide to partake in, LinkedIn marketing and doing
business on LinkedIn has its recommended practices and its things to avoid. Most marketers have to learn all of them the hard way through trial and error, but we have listed them here for you:

DO'S

Do keep your profiles and company pages professional.

Remember that both are crucial because they are designed to foster a community around your business, your products, and your services, and they’re also the very first thing that people will find when they are looking for your brand.

Do optimize your company pages for search engines. The company pages not only have to be tidy and professional looking, they also have to be functional, so remember to use your targeted keywords in the “about” section of your page, as this section is indexed by search engines.

Do participate on LinkedIn groups and discussions. This will not only help you to engage with your audience, but it will also help you to learn what is being said about your brand, your niche, your products, services, and about your competition.

Do make use of rich media to share your content. Professionals not only love it when relevant content is served through videos, presentations and well-crafted articles, it also helps them to perceive the messenger as an authority in the subject matter, so make sure to create relevant content that is well presented.

Do vary the type of content that you share with your business audience. People can easily gravitate towards other companies if you only talk about your business, so consider sharing other types of relevant content such as industry news and links to other pages.

Do keep your business invitation well thought out and professional. Nothing puts a prospective connection off like a dry invitational message. Forget about using the template invitation and instead take your time and personalize the invitations that you send to professionals that you look forward to making your connections with on the platform.

Do cross promote through your LinkedIn profiles and company pages. There is a reason why the “about” section is in there, so you can easily share your up to date company links with the people that are most likely to click there.

Do follow any other company in your industry with a LinkedIn profile or page. Remember that, on LinkedIn, these other pages are not necessarily your competition, but potential prospects as well. Keeping up to date with other companies is a great way to know whom to collaborate with when the time comes.

Do request other companies to link up with their current employees. This will not only increase your brand visibility, but it will also allow you to increase your business connections, which will in turn increase your opportunities of keeping up with future talent prospects!

Do stay connected on a much more personal level by using the “relationships tab”, which will allow you to set up personalized communications with your prospects. Remember that people are prone to become company champions when they receive personalized communication with a brand, which means that they will market your brand to others!

DON'TS

Don’t focus your LinkedIn marketing efforts on selling, ever. LinkedIn is a platform where people go to establish professional connections, and any sales approach will immediately put them off. If you want to sell on LinkedIn, focus on offering value first!

Don’t join just any LinkedIn group just because you can. Doing this will not only detract your time and effort from where they should be focused on, it will also make your company look like a scam. Focus instead only on groups that are specific to your industry.

Don’t forget to be proactive. What happens after you join a group on LinkedIn? You become an authority, that’s what. But you have to put in the effort by participating constantly, in a natural way. This will do wonders for your marketing efforts because people will gravitate to your brand thanks to its vocal, interactive nature.

Don’t forget about the human factor. A lot of companies fail miserably at communication because they forget to give a human touch to their online presence. Your interactions, your posts, your responses and your participation have to feel like a real human is doing it, so remember to be natural and friendly!

Don’t be too complex. Many businesses confuse being smart with being complicated, and they end up populating their marketing materials with long, overtly scripted, and full of company jargon copy. Instead, focus on being concise and to the point. People will appreciate it!

Don’t forget about tracking your marketing performance. There is data out there that will easily tell you when you are doing well and when you need to improve. Stuff such as leads generated, successful connections and strategic partnerships are great indicators of efficient LinkedIn marketing efforts!

Don’t spam on LinkedIn. Now, you might be used to the casual promotional sales message on other social networks, but even the smallest hint of a sale is considered spam on LinkedIn. Remember that here you need to communicate that you care about people more than your product, not the other way around!

Don’t let your profiles and company pages sit still. Groups are not the only way to stay active, as profiles and company pages are excellent marketing tools as long as you only use them to give relevant advice that can lead to a sale later on.

Don’t use LinkedIn to criticize other products or competing companies. Doing so simply looks unprofessional. On the other hand, mentioning bigger companies in a positive light can direct quality traffic from their pages to yours!

Don’t forget about nurturing your communications by always checking and replying to messages and comments left by LinkedIn members on your company pages. This seemingly simple action can be more effective than paid advertising in some instances!

Don't post those content

LinkedIn is a professional network and needs to be treated as such. The connections you make on LinkedIn have no interest in your social life, your family, knowing what your kids are up to right now, or looking at the endless cat photos that are prevalent on other social networks. All of that content has its place on other social networks like Facebook and Instagram.

LinkedIn is the place where you share information that serves your connections and followers. Everything that you add to this platform should be things that will benefit your connections in some way.

Don't forget your privacy settings

One of the most significant mistakes that you can make is setting all or part of your profile to Private. When you have all or part of your profile set to Private you are limiting the information people can obtain on your company. This is not something that you want to do, especially if your goal is to generate more leads and increase sales.

Don't add your connections to your email database

Aside from being illegal, this is a really bad idea. Just because someone has requested to connect with you, or have accepted your connection request, does not give you permission to add these people to any form of database. What you can do is contact them directly through LinkedIn. More and more emails that are being sent outside the LinkedIn platform are being reported as spam.

Don't Over-posting Updates and Publishing Too Many Articles

While you want to create content on LinkedIn and provide updates about your company, you want to do it sparingly. When you add too much content, either through posting links to content on your website, or publishing directly to LinkedIn, you run the risk of being seen as unprofessional and worse a spammer.

Sharing a minimal volume of content means you can save your best stuff for LinkedIn. Think of it like inviting your best customers to a dinner part where you bring out the best cutlery and plates. LinkedIn is your fine-dining experience, whereas Facebook and other social media platforms is for the block party.

Don't Spam Your Groups

When you are a member of a LinkedIn group, you have the ability to message other members directly, however, this doesn’t mean you should message them all the time. Before you message anyone in your groups you have to consider whether what you are sharing serves them more than it serves you.

Don't Send Generic Messages

LinkedIn allows you and encourages you to send messages to your connections on their birthdays or work anniversaries. This is a lot like a post they share, a reply to an InMail message, or a recommendation you have requested. LinkedIn will also provide you with a default message for each instance.

Sending one of the generic messages LinkedIn suggests is about as engaging as handing someone a birthday card that simply reads Happy Birthday without any personal message from you. The likelihood of the recipient feeling warm and thought of from these messages is highly unlikely.

Instead, you need to think of contacting your connections in a way that makes them feel appreciated. All you need is a few seconds to change the impersonal default message to something different that actually means something.

Don't Self-Promoting

Again, LinkedIn is a professional network, and to get the most out of it and generate new leads you have to provide your connections with value added content. This means that you shouldn’t only be posting self-promoting content or sending messages that don’t provide any value to your network. There is a big difference between social serving and self-promotion.

Conclusion

Using LinkedIn as a marketing tool is a great start for generating new leads and increasing sales. Creating an engaging and informative profile is critical for turning a casual browser into a highly targeted and qualified lead. Upgrading to a premium account will allow you to go farther in marketing your company...

Now that you’ve gained more information about the many features and tools you can utilize to generate more leads on LinkedIn and increase sales, the next step is for you to take this information and apply it to your business. Get started on creating a killer profile and gather your marketing data so you can create a solid brand strategy that will help you generate even more leads and increase your company sales.

Read more: You can read the full guide and resources in the carousel above ☝️