Linkedin is a great platform for generating leads. Despite being overlooked in the past, LinkedIn has been gaining popularity recently due to its good organic reach and major platform changes. These changes have been particularly beneficial to those who want to gain valuable leads, as there are now more ways than ever to boost your business.
We’ve compiled a list of seven tactics on how you can utilise this awesome platform to generate valuable leads for your small business:
1. Upload Video Content
Video is the most engaging content format. Wordstream states that ‘social video generates 1200% more shares than text and image content combined’. In terms of SMO (social media optimisation), video posts rank highly on LinkedIn’s algorithm which further boosts your chances of having your content seen.
Including video content will also make your posts stand out against the many text-heavy ramblings, shared articles and static images swarming around LinkedIn. Allowing you to showcase what your business is about in a matter of minutes, video saves the time and money of potential leads.
Use video to represent your personal brand as well as your professional brand. People want to buy from people, and video is a great way to represent the values, personality and services of both you and your brand.To learn how to get the most of your video content, we’ve recently released an ebook with Feature media explaining the best tactics for video promotion on social media!
2. Make Connections
Adding connections to your LinkedIn network will broaden your audience, but make sure that your connections are able to add value to your business. Avoid inviting strangers to connect. Not only can it make your business come across as salesy and ingenuine, it is also a waste of time when it comes to your long-term goals.
LinkedIn makes identifying potential connections easier. They are suggested to you based on your existing connections, contacts, interests and employment history.
There are also many offline opportunities to identify possible LinkedIn connections. It should be easy to gage any occasions where a connection request seems like a natural step. For instance, after a networking event where you’ve met someone.
3. Optimise Your Profile
Social media optimisation (SMO) can be just as important as SEO. For LinkedIn in particular, it is important to leave no stone unturned when it comes to your profile so that potential leads are able to find you.
Make yourself easy to discover by:
- Completing every section of your profile to achieve ‘All-Star’ status
- Listing all of your relevant work experience
- Using industry targeted keywords in your bio
- Cross-linking to your website and other social platforms
- Obtaining up to 10 or more written recommendations
4. Post Consistently
Consistency is key. By posting consistently every day at strategic times, you are able to maximize the organic reach that your LinkedIn posts have. Research optimal times to post, then trial and error various schedules until you see results. This process is much easier if you use a scheduling tool like Buffer. If you’d like advice on how to best manage posting consistently, we’ve written a guide on how to come up with a content plan.
5. Join Groups
No matter what your industry is, there will be a LinkedIn group for you to join. Participating in group conversations is a great way to network in general whilst also potentially discovering new leads. You are likely to come across professionals who have queries that you are able to provide answers to. This is a great way to subtly recommend your products and services to the people who need it most, ensuring that your leads are genuine and valuable.
Some examples of groups for small business owners are:
- Executive Suite
- A Startup Specialists Group
- Bright Ideas and Entrepreneurs
- Small Business Evolution
- Entrepreneurs Network
6. Create Lead Gen Forms
LinkedIn Lead Generation Forms are pre-filled lists that assist you in getting the most valuable leads possible. The pre-filled list format means that generating leads is a quick and easy process. Lead Gen Forms allow you to collect various data such as email addresses, which can be valuable to SME owners as email campaigns can be a great tool for boosting your business. By including links to your content in an email campaign, you are able to measure what performs best.
As part of LinkedIn’s paid advertising services, you are able to track the lead form fill rate, the number of leads you’re getting and your campaigns’ cost per lead, making it a great tool for measuring ROI.
7. Use Paid Advertising
Paid advertising can be extremely beneficial for lead generation. You are able to test if ads work for you whilst controlling your budget, spending a small daily amount for a short-term period or use PPC (pay-per-click).
There are multiple ways you can use paid advertising on LinkedIn:
- Self-service ads – Promote ads yourself using LinkedIn’s Campaign Manager – This is a great tool to start off with as it is easy to follow.
- Sponsored content – Promote your pre-existing posts to ensure they appear on people’s home feeds – This is an effective way to promote anything that you want to be seen as soon as possible, such as company news or upcoming events and promotions.
- Sponsored InMail – Promote personalised messages to users’ inboxes – This tool is useful for making your content more likely to be seen. Your audience is more likely to click on an inbox notification than scroll through their feed until they reach your content.
- LinkedIn text ads – Promote headlines that run on the right of the news feed (only applicable in desktop view) – This is another tool that’s great for beginners, as you are able to set your own budget.
- Marketing Partner ads – Run campaigns through working with a LinkedIn Partner – This can be useful for any beginner who is looking to get the help of an expert.
- Display ads – Promote content through LinkedIn’s programmatic advertising solution – these types of ads are great for using a variety of media formats, making them more engaging and interactive.
- Dynamic ads – Promote personalised ads that are dynamically generated based on the activity of your audience – These targeted ads are useful for building relationships with your audience.
- Video ads – Promoting content through video ads. Video content works really well with lead gen forms.
Wanna read more free content?
We hope you have a better understanding of how to generate leads LinkedIn. If you apply these tactics and want to see how they’ve worked for you, check out our post on how to run a social media report. If you’re interested in getting the most your other social media profiles, take a look at our post explaining social media optimisation.
