There’s no doubt about it, LinkedIn is one of the most powerful social media platforms you can use when it comes to driving your business forward in a B2B market. (I’d argue LinkedIn is just as valuable for B2C businesses, but we’ll save that conversation for another day!) You can use LinkedIn to drive your personal brand as well as that of your business, connect with industry leaders on a global scale in a way you might not otherwise be able to, and find conversation with like-minded people in business. The only real issue comes, as it does with most social media platforms, with driving engagement. Making sure you get seen and standing out from the crowd are the things that guarantee success. However, in an overpopulated newsfeed, this can be tricky. Here are a few tips to help you drive engagement on LinkedIn.

Optimise Your LinkedIn Profile

If you want to stand out – it needs to be easy for people to find you. Make sure your LinkedIn profile is complete and up to date. Everything from an up-to-date professional headshot to an attention-grabbing professional headline, a keyword-rich summary and relevant skills and experiences. Making sure these things are good to go creates a strong foundation, as you’ll now be discoverable in search. To engage with you, people need to be able to find you first!

If you need help with getting your LinkedIn profile optimised – we put together an on-demand course to walk you through the process. Feel free to check it out.

Post regular updates on LinkedIn

How many times has a marketer used the words “Consistency is key”?!? In the case of posting updates on LinkedIn, it absolutely is. You should be posting daily; in fact, I’d encourage you to post twice a day. You can sit down on a weekly basis and schedule these posts ahead, or simply block time in your diary to make it happen. You can use an external social media scheduling tool, or LinkedIn now has its own in-platform scheduling feature – so there are no excuses!)

Something that happens from time to time with our clients who outsource LinkedIn to us is they start getting engagement and people telling them they’re seeing them regularly on the platform. The client then worries they’re posting too much. Forgetting that the reason that individual is only being served all that content from them is that they are engaging with it! Remember, LinkedIn shows its users content from people they care about on topics they care about. When you get feedback that says, ‘I see you all the time on LinkedIn…’ it’s a sign you’re doing a great job and getting engagement. Pat yourself on the back, and keep up the good work!

Use Engaging Visuals On LinkedIn

As your connections scan through their feeds, it’s the visuals that grab their attention. Bright colours and bold text continue to work well for static imagery. Make sure you’re also using video – horizontal is the standard, but there’s nothing wrong with mixing it up with a vertical video every now and then! Think about how you might post something like an infographic or use the carousel function in a meaningful way. I’m often talking about the fact we all have a favoured way of being communicated with, we’re visual, auditory or kinesthetic – the visuals you use can allow you to communicate in all of these ways in one, so take full advantage of the opportunity. Bland stock photos that communicate nothing won’t cut it any longer, I’m afraid.

Only Share Relevant Content

It’s easy to get caught up in a world of me, me, me and find yourself guilty of only sharing what’s important or relevant to you. If you want real engagement, understand people engage in things that meet their needs and their priorities. This could come in the form of industry news, opinion-led updates (that may or not be controversial), or insights into your audience – i.e. them! Relevant content is interesting and valuable, it educates, and it has the potential to entertain too!

Engage with others on LinkedIn

Being sociable usually means engaging with other people. Linkedin is no different. One of the first steps in a sales conversation requires you to build rapport; engaging with your prospects by looking at their content and offering up a cheeky comment of support will help you achieve rapport quickly once you do get into that sales conversation. It’s also an excellent way to build trust, raise your profile and ultimately drive your personal brand. There’s another thing with this, though, you see, if you’re not engaging with others, why on earth should they engage with you?

(Caveat on the last post… please avoid pods where a bunch of people get together and all engage with each other’s content in order to drive their engagement. It won’t serve you long-term.)

Use Relevant Hashtags

Using hashtags will increase the visibility of your posts and again help you be more discoverable. This, in turn, should increase reach and engagement, but only if the hashtags are both relevant and specific. Think about what hashtags people might be searching for, and also consider how saturated the use of a hashtag might be. We work with a lot of recruitment agencies, and using something like #MarketingJob is more specific than just #Job, but it’s still pretty general. Think how you can drill down another step and use combinations of hashtags to really benefit. (Tip: I’d never suggest going crazy with your hashtags. 3-5 should be enough.)

Invite Engagement On LinkedIn

If you don’t ask – you don’t get. Ask for the thoughts and opinions of your audience on your posts, and ask open questions. Tell them to share their experiences with you. You’ll likely have to give yours first, of course – give them something to bounce off, and you’re more likely to get responses.

Driving Engagement On LinkedIn Can Feel Like A Thankless Task

You will have a bunch of tumbleweed moments, but please don’t let this stop you – it takes time and effort to get engagement going, and not every post will achieve what you want it to. Maintaining the habits I’ve mentioned above will, over time, establish you as a leader in your subject area, so I encourage you to be persistent!