Here are a few of my best tips on getting yourself and your business seen on LinkedIn, the world’s best business networking platform.
Write text-only posts
Unlike other visual platforms, LinkedIn is one of the few social networks where text-only content still plays well.
A real killer for engagement is when you give readers ready-made exit signs, i.e. links out to the third-party content. Even if you have the best blog or other resource in the world to link to, your posts will perform much better if you can keep people on LinkedIn.
Find out more about sharing links the smart way here: https://espirian.co.uk/linkedin-links/
Comment on other people’s content
Try not to think that you’re an island on social media. Your success will depend in large part on how you can show up and help other people, and that means getting involved in supporting their content.
Commenting thoughtfully will get your name in front of new audiences, and it’s great for building your brand authority.
Find out more about effective commenting here: https://espirian.co.uk/linkedin-commenting/
Use captioned native video
The best way to build a bridge with your audience is to grasp the nettle and get on camera. A short personal video could be recorded on your smartphone, captioned via an app such as Apple Clips and uploaded to LinkedIn within a few minutes.
It’s a great way to put authentic pieces of content out there, and I’ve found that all the people who are most memorable on LinkedIn are those who use video to some extent.
Captions are an important part of the mix, as more than 80% of social video content is played with the sound turned off.
Find out more about creating videos here: https://espirian.co.uk/create-video/
Repurpose your website and blog content
Before you fret about creating new content for LinkedIn, think about how to get more mileage from your existing material. Your website and blog are likely to be full of information that could quite easily be republished on LinkedIn as a set of posts and articles.
Some people worry about doing this, on the false assumption that such actions could be seen as duplicate content that Google and other search engines would frown on. In fact, Google and co are rather smarter than that now, and duplicate content penalties tend to be reserved for the spammers and content thieves of this world (which you’re not, I assume).
Find out more about republishing your content on LinkedIn here: https://espirian.co.uk/blog-post-linkedin-article/
You can find out lots more about getting good LinkedIn engagement via my full guide, available free at https://espirian.co.uk/linkedin-improve-engagement/
A former Microsoft Mac MVP and former director of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders, John writes B2B web content to help clients explain how their products, services and processes work