It has been a while since I last blogged but I hope you noticed I did try and make up for it with some videos over on my Facebook page for you… I’ve been working on some new collaborations to bring you exciting content that will help your business grow. Watch this space for more info on that.
For today’s post I want to talk LinkedIn. I even have a guest blogger to share their expert opinion on the platform. This person works as a recruiter for a major global tech company, but for the purpose of this post they need to remain anonymous so let’s call him “Tim.”
For B2B marketing LinkedIn can be very effective but often it gets forgotten.
Did you know that there are two new LinkedIn users per second? LinkedIn has a total of 467 million users, (106m are active monthly users) and 40% of these users use LinkedIn daily. What’s more, 71% of professionals feel that LinkedIn is a credible source for professional content.
But, only a million people regularly publish content on LinkedIn… To me this sounds like an opportunity to get great cut-through.
Whether you want to raise your profile within the business community or position yourself as an expert, LinkedIn is the perfect platform. If you want to hear more about how to best use LinkedIn for b2b marketing, I can help so do get in touch.
Now, for the expert position on using LinkedIn as a tool for attracting talent to work either for you, or with you…
Here’s what Tim has to say about it:
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LinkedIn is a great platform for any sized business to integrate into their recruitment strategy. With 60% of people using online job boards such as LinkedIn to look for new jobs and over 75% of people who recently changed jobs, using LinkedIn to inform their career decision, it’s imperative to use LinkedIn, but use it correctly. If you’re looking to reach or recruit marketing specialists, especially those with digital skills, then LinkedIn should be one of your first points of reference. As a recruiter, it is singlehandedly one of the most effective tools I used on a day-to-day basis to reach local and global talent – whether they’re actively looking for a new role, by a applying to a job positing, or enabling you to reach out to passive candidates. It’s also a great way to keep up-to-date with other competitor’s hiring strategies (whether you notice trends in when people join their company and how long people stay).
To get the most of the platform, you have to ensure that your personal or company profile is up-to-date and informative. Try and connect with as many people as you can that are relevant to your industry so that your network expands (with 2nd and 3rd connections growing in visibility once you connect with 1st connections). It’s also great to ‘Follow’ other company profiles to see what they’re doing well so, you can replicate this.
Status updates are important to gain visibility but make sure it’s relevant. LinkedIn is increasingly used for personal updates (that you’d normally see on Facebook) so, focus on something that asks the audience to engage with your business (a question or competition etc.) or, have a relevant image to add to draw the audience’s attention. The key to an engaged community is to have a style that is consistent so, people get used to seeing your posts on their feed and can quickly identify that the post is connected to your business.
Always ensure your content is proofread for any grammar and/or spelling mistakes. Having hired for digital content marketing specialists and copywriters, there’s nothing worse than seeing mistakes for someone that makes their living out of writing for others!
When trying to recruit for your brand using LinkedIn, feel free to InMail profiles that are of interest to you. Sometimes, people put at the bottom of their LinkedIn what they’re interested in people contacting them for and if “career opportunities” is one of them, feel free to reach out mentioning that you saw this. Make sure however, that you make your InMails personal to them, perhaps mention something that you found interesting on their profile and be short and concise about why you’re getting in touch. Ensure you’re contacting them during the weekday, as InMail messages sent on Saturdays are 16% less likely to get a response.
If you’re using a LinkedIn recruiting licence and posting jobs, make sure you structure the advert with the opportunity or ‘sell’ first, then a short amount of info about what skills are required to do the job. 70% of the global workforce on LinkedIn is passive talent, not looking for a new role so you’ll need to give them a compelling reason to apply. Compensation, professional development and work/life balance are the top three factors in people accepting a new job – ensure that you feature these things in the body of your advert.
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This is excellent advice and it can be applied to outreach of different kinds on LinkedIn, not just recruiting new staff. This can be used when generally broadening your network and making contact with users who could be of benefit to your business and brand.
Many thanks to anonymous, aka Tim, for sharing this with us. I do hope it is useful to readers and that this insight will help hone LinkedIn usage and techniques.
Remember, if you would like to find out more about LinkedIn marketing I can help, contact me on charlotte@charlottesays.co.uk
