Believe it or not, you already have a personal brand. The question is, are you leveraging your personal brand to monetize your expertise or accelerate your success?
LinkedIn can be a great channel to build your personal brand, and even establish yourself as an influential thought leader within your niche. But to maximize the benefits of the platform, you need to understand what generates the best responses, and how you can utilize its various tools to optimal effect.
To help with this, we will go over things that you can do, and you’ll be well on your way to building a stronger LinkedIn presence in 2021.
- Post regularly but not too much
Maintaining a consistent posting process is important on LinkedIn – but posting too much can hurt your presence.
Recommended post at least 2-3 times a week – but no more than 30 times a month for optimal engagement. And, when your post is also significant – try to post in the mornings, perhaps on your way to work. (Please do not post and drive)
- Avoid using lots of automation
Automation can be a great time-saver – but it can also be damaging to your visibility.
As noted in the previous point, posting too much on LinkedIn can reduce your engagement. Please acknowledge the fact that LinkedIn’s systems can spot when people are using automation and can hide your posts so no one will see them.
If you are going to use automation tools on LinkedIn, you should still look to limit the number of posts to no more than 30 times a month.
- Share video and visual content
Research shows that articles with images get 94% more views. It is not just including images though, you can also add videos, slides, or podcasts to a post – or even documents, which LinkedIn added back in 2019.
When adding content, it is worth noting that LinkedIn prefers users to upload their content directly to their platform, rather than posting a link to another site that hosts it. For example, it is better to post a video to LinkedIn, rather than posting a YouTube link.
- Don’t be salesy
Although you are obviously looking to market yourself and your business, it’s best to avoid being too pushy on your LinkedIn posts.
Try not to post directly about your product, as it can feel like an advert and turn people away. It is better to engage in thought leadership-style conversations, and if people like what you are saying, they’ll go and check out your website and product offering.
As it is more about building relationships and making new contacts.
- Tag influencers and employees
It is recommended to tag influencers and brands to put yourself on their radar. Another unique trait about LinkedIn is that you do not need to be directly connected to people you tag, you can tag people who are second-degree connections as well. It is important, however, to only tag people who are relevant to the post, otherwise, it could be seen as spam.
Be strategic in who you mention and try not to over-mention the same people all the time. Do not tag too many people in the post either – a post containing a long list of names looks a bit spammy.
- Use hashtags
Adding hashtags to your posts will help your content get discovered, as well as help LinkedIn to categorize your posts and differentiate them from other content.
However, it is necessary to always add relevant hashtags, not just popular ones. Once hashtags are used well it enables others to find your content more easily in their searches.
Try putting these tips into action to take your LinkedIn presence to the next level. If you would like to know more, please let our team of experts help you!