LinkedIn is often thought of as the go-to social network for professionals, but it’s more than just a social media platform. It’s a powerful marketing tool for brands to engage with customers, employees and business partners.
With new features such as live video, polls and Team Moments, LinkedIn is offering innovative ways to foster engagement and share content on its platform. We asked the experts of Young Entrepreneur Council how business owners and other professionals can best leverage the platform’s new tools. Follow their tips to up your LinkedIn game in 2021.
Members of Young Entrepreneur Council offer tips on using LinkedIn's new outreach tools.
Photos courtesy of the individual members.1. Boost engagement through LinkedIn Slides.
LinkedIn Slides is a powerful tool that’s receiving a lot of attention (and amplification) through LinkedIn right now. Interactive slide decks provide in-depth insights in a creative form with an additional visibility boost through the platform. Slides from conference talks, slides that showcase the process of building a prototype—anything that benefits your audience is best visualized through slides right now. Over the past six months, we have seen 10 to 20 times the engagement we had been receiving for native video uploads on the platform! - Mario Peshev, DevriX
2. Tap into the data provided by live video and polls.
With each new feature revealed, you need to devote not one but several members of your content team to devising a strategy to reach out to your existing audience and create a lookalike audience. Live videos and polls are great because they offer real data and give more details as to who exactly is watching you and when. Both data sets are easily repurposed to sales or new content. Create new content that performs well in live video and based on polls. These new features offer advertisers more places to get data. Use this to your advantage: Even if you are not advertising, keep track of who is viewing, who is coming back and how you can change your personas based on this information. - Matthew Capala, Alphametic
3. Reach specific audiences through targeted content.
Many LinkedIn features give you the potential to connect with new leads and deepen existing relationships. I think the key is to create targeted content, whether you’re posting, creating videos or commenting in a group. You can use LinkedIn to make announcements and share news stories, but don’t overlook the opportunity to get more specific and target particular niches. If you’re going to make videos, for example, consider a segmented approach that provides solutions to people in different industries. Think in terms of sharing helpful information rather than directly trying to sell your services. - Kalin Kassabov, ProTexting
4. Mimic live interactions through live videos.
Communication is why these platforms exist; they create features to enhance human communication. I see live videos as a way to mimic live interactions with your target market. This builds urgency in viewers since whatever is going on is ongoing, fresh content. It also allows the viewer to have a conversation with the content creator or representative of the business in real time. These situations help to build trust and further solidify the relationship between a business and its customers. Polls and Team Moments also work in similar ways to encourage interaction between a business and its customers. When your audience feels heard they interpret it as care and respect, and that automatically strengthens the relationship. - Samuel Thimothy, OneIMS - Integrated Marketing Solutions
5. Use polls to gather customer feedback.
LinkedIn Polls provides a great way to receive feedback from your customers and other users who can give you insight into your business. You can ask them their preferences on your products, strategies, contests, emails and much more to assess how they feel about your marketing. The results can tell you a lot about what changes you need to make to better appeal to your target market and boost sales. - Jared Atchison, WPForms
6. Create a personalized experience for your network.
Businesses can leverage live video to build brand awareness, introduce new products, increase sales and much more. Live video creates a personalized experience for users to explore your brand in a unique way. On LinkedIn, you can do the same thing. It’s easier to connect with your audience when they can interact with you in real time. They get to see your business in a different way. It’s easier to boost engagement and interest in your brand with live video because it’s a quick and easy way for customers to interact with a business. You can use LinkedIn Live video to build a solid customer base. - Stephanie Wells, Formidable Forms
7. Stand out through early adoption of new features.
A user who understands the newest feature of any tool stands out. In a crowded job market and even more crowded social media space, using the latest features simply catches people’s eyes and helps you get more attention for your initiatives. There are so many companies and so many potential employees competing for each other’s attention that using live video, polls, Team Moments, etc. will allow your brand to appear on the cutting edge. In these crowded spaces, you can’t just keep doing the same boring posts. I was recently a guest on a LinkedIn Live show called “Career Therapy,” which was streamed to several social media channels, including Twitch. LinkedIn also helps promote those who use the latest tools because they want others to adopt the features. - Matt Wilson, Under30Experiences
8. Monitor comments while streaming to have a conversation.
When using LinkedIn Live, make sure you have two devices at your disposal before starting your video. The first one is for streaming and the second for monitoring comments. Shoot your video using a third-party resource such as Socialive, and make sure it is synced to the device you’re streaming from. Get a friend or colleague involved so you’re not doing two things at once (streaming and commenting), and make sure the environment around you is conducive to a high-quality video in terms of lighting, sound and background. - Andrew Schrage, Money Crashers Personal Finance
9. Get real-time reactions to new products and features.
LinkedIn has some amazing features that businesses can use for their marketing tactics. For example, they can use the LinkedIn Live video option to announce their latest offers, talk about new collections or promote a special feature or product that was recently launched. This gives them the opportunity to interact with the audience directly and get real-time reactions from them. If people express their dislike, they can even ask them what their expectations are and how the product or service can be improved. - Thomas Griffin, OptinMonster
10. Capture and keep attention through video stories.
Millions of senior-level influencers and decision-makers use LinkedIn. It is one of the unsaturated social media platforms. Through a new feature, businesses can now start posting 30- to 60-second videos as stories and cater to our attention-deficit society. People nowadays don’t like to read lengthy articles or watch long videos, so this feature can definitely get more eyeballs and increase one’s presence. - Kelly Richardson, Infobrandz
