7 reasons why LinkedIn needs to be a major player in your social media strategy

So you’ve got your business’ Facebook and Instagram accounts down pat – but what about LinkedIn?

A LinkedIn account is basically an online business card with tremendous sharing power and massive reach across thousands of industries, which is why we encourage all our clients (particularly those in professional services or appealing to a professional target market) to get active on this channel.

What’s the difference then between LinkedIn and other social media sites?

While people sign up to most social media platforms for personal reasons, LinkedIn, however, is an ocean of professional networking opportunities and draws a specific crowd; users looking for valuable information, leads for jobs, and industry updates.

Put simply, there’s customer demand on LinkedIn and you could be supplying it with information.

With over three million users now banking on LinkedIn’s nine billion impressions per month, this business-orientated site is one you don’t want to forgo.

Read on for seven reasons why this channel should be a major part of your strategy.

1. Searching and targeting

Although Facebook and Instagram are among the most popular social media sites worldwide, LinkedIn holds a much smaller, but more targeted, audience of professionals.

Because people tend to build their profiles on the platform like resumes, you have the ability to run in-depth searches and generate lists based on different demographics and detail for a more refined audience.

LinkedIn offers a clear-cut way of searching for people by job title, skills, companies they currently work for, as well as companies they used to work for, interests and more.

Idea: Try searching your target market by job title and connecting with them. For example, we work with a lot of Marketing Managers. A quick search of this job title reveals over 100 pages of potential new leads (but who is counting!).

2. Strategic positioning

You wouldn’t pass up a great networking opportunity in person, so why would you pass up one you can access anywhere, at any time?

Discover the power of positioning your business among other professionals and brands using LinkedIn in a networking capacity.

Due to its business emphasis, the newsfeed algorithm favours insights, business updates and information, giving your company an opportunity to showcase their expertise in the field.

With almost 750 million members and over 55 million registered companies signed up to LinkedIn, it’s never been easier to find, reach and position your business among clients and influencers in your industry.

Research indicating, LinkedIn has helped at least 45% of marketers with customer acquisition as they use the platform to establish credibility, influence and develop relationships with clients.

Build a community and optimize your profile positioning by sharing content that fits with your message and branding.

Idea: Don’t just post those blog posts and thought leadership whitepapers on your website. Serve them up on LinkedIn too.

3. Plenty of posting options

Have you ever posted something to social media which has tanked in engagement? Don’t worry, us too.

Enter LinkedIn, your holy grail when it comes to ‘getting likes’ because it has one of the lowest percentages of content production compared to other sites.

This means, if you post, you’ll be seen, unlike other platforms (*cough* Facebook), where you won’t receive a peep out of your posts without paying.

While other sites have been made for personal photo, video and event sharing, LinkedIn offers brands an opportunity to showcase work and milestones through a variety of posting options fit for businesses.

Give your brand more visibility by sharing content like blogs, infographics, webinars, podcasts and more with multiple posting options that can link directly back to your website.

Whether you post in networking groups, job posts or even promotions – you can customize anything you put on this platform.

Idea: Create a content calendar and show up weekly on LinkedIn for a month and see what happens? Our bet? Heaps of new sales.

4. Generating leads and driving website traffic

What if we told you LinkedIn beats Facebook by a whopping 277% when it comes to generating tangible leads?

Since the people who choose to sign up to LinkedIn are generally more interested in furthering their education and bettering themselves, they’re more likely to fill out lead generation forms and less likely to unsubscribe from consequent emails.

We can also bank in you being pleasantly surprised at the traffic, which has a high chance of converting into leads and eventually sales, that comes through to your business website when using LinkedIn.

Don’t believe us? We’ve experienced it first-hand, with Media Mortar’s LinkedIn driving more than 60% of our website traffic.

You can also boost this by using LinkedIn Ads, designed to target specific professionals by job title, function, industry, and more.

Idea: Take a look at your analytics and see how much traffic LinkedIn is driving. If it’s significant like us, it’s time to put down your IG Reels.

5. Becoming a thought leader and tapping into industry news

If we were to guess the social media buzzword of the decade, it would be “authentic”.

With 66% of professionals more likely to recommend a business if they followed a company executive on social media, becoming a thought leader to show your authenticity clearly has merit.

Become a thought leader on LinkedIn by communicating your purpose and showing up for your audience.

This is a great way to showcase your expertise, educate and give followers the content they’re chasing.

It’s also important to keep tabs on other professionals and brands by following their activities and staying on their radar.

Simply scanning the newsfeed can give you valuable insights and data as well as perspectives from other professionals using the platform.

Idea: Start writing an opinion piece! If you’re serious about becoming a thought leader, see how to start a blog for your business here.

6. Growing your network by optimising LinkedIn groups

Have you heard the saying when you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room? Well, LinkedIn gives you plenty of smart rooms to find yourself in.

LinkedIn groups are a handy tool to maximise your opportunities to network with people you might otherwise never get the chance to meet.

Right now, you can join up to 50 interest-based LinkedIn Groups, all while improving your business’ branding, visibility and credibility.

Keep informed in top conversations, interact with other members in your field, and gain valuable insights into a particular topic or industry exclusively.

Did I forget to mention, I’m connected to Richard Branson? Yeah, he’s in my networking circle.

Idea: Start by following your favourite authors and see what they have to say.

7. Finding new clients and recruitments

If you’re not hiring new team members via LinkedIn, what are you doing? With 40% of members logging into the professional networking platform daily, it’s easy to see why 90% of recruiters use the platform.

Attract your next recruit (or top client) via the platform and discover everything you need to know about them.

LinkedIn’s next-level search tool can also help head-hunt potential recruits, clients and like-minded professionals.

For example, wanting to hire an event coordinator? Search Events Coordinators and hit that follow button to your heart’s content.

Utilise the dedicated tool or free features to search for potential candidates and promote advertisements through your business page, profile or group.

LinkedIn provides a number of useful tools, free and paid options worth discovering, for businesses to connect with top candidates.

Take it from us – we poached our last two Media Mortar recruits through LinkedIn.

Idea: Become your own head-hunter (minus the crazy recruitment costs) with LinkedIn’s search tool.