“LinkedIn is getting very crowded,” a colleague said recently to explain her reduction in LinkedIn posting.

Yet, the facts don’t bear this out. There is still a huge chunk of the LinkedIn membership not utilising the platform as well as they might. And that represents a golden opportunity for you, your brand and your company.

The new report State of Digital Selling with LinkedIn 2019 from Vengreso found that more than a third of LinkedIn members (39%) never share content on their LinkedIn network and only 16% share several times a week.

It goes on to contend that this is a major missed opportunity given that companies which use editorial content as part of their sales strategy have a higher sales win rate than those which don’t. Further, more than 80% of buyers consume five or more articles or content from the vendor they ultimately select to provide the product or service they choose to buy.

So, if a company isn’t sharing content on LinkedIn, their chances of securing a sale are reduced. Now, if your average sale price is $5.50, producing content on LinkedIn probably isn’t worth the effort unless you sell bucket loads to business professionals. But if high ticket items are your game or the lifetime sales value is considerable, then ignoring LinkedIn is indeed a major missed opportunity.

Tamara Schenk, research director of CSO Insights, says that engaging buyers successfully via social media requires valuable, relevant and differentiating content. To do that you need a strategy that offers tailored content and an integrated social selling approach.

Whether it’s a relevant article, report, presentation or a video, it’s crucial that you consistently publish updates and share content to your network to earn trust and attract qualified buyers, the report adds.

All that is very well and fine, but how exactly should we go about this?

Creating Attention-grabbing Content

First, what’s needed is a strategy that has buy-in from those with sufficient authority in the organisation to make it happen. A ‘we’ll maybe do a post a week if we get around to it’ attitude isn’t going to be successful. It will not help you stand out from your competitors. Instead, a commitment to posting high quality content on a regular, if not frequent basis, is required.

Second, you need a champion. Someone who understands the value of LinkedIn posting and using the platform to differentiate the organisation. Someone who knows that it’s important for gaining credibility, building trust and being seen as the go-to organisation in your industry. This person should be in charge of ensuring that the agreed upon LinkedIn strategy is implemented.

Third, you need a content plan and someone sufficiently experienced to carry it out. A plan will help you organise your posts, decide on suitable content that meets the strategy’s goals and encourage engagement that will get the posts noticed. It will also make sure you are using all the types of posting available on the platform.

The LinkedIn posting options are:

1. Articles
2. Text only posts
3. Video only posts
4. Video and text posts
5. Image only posts
6. Image and text posts
7. Document only posts
8. Document and text posts

(in reality, numbers 3 and 7 are not effective and I wouldn’t advise using these.)

Of these types of posts, the two that receive the highest view numbers and engagement are text-only and video and text posts. It’s impossible to know which receives the most views because LinkedIn measures each in a different way. Text post views are the number of times the post has been placed in a newsfeed – regardless of whether the person has seen or read the post. A view on a video post is counted when a person watches the first 3 seconds of the video.

What is clear is that having a variety of post types is more attractive to your LinkedIn followers than constantly relying on one.

Also important is having a plan of posts that ensures the timetable is adhered to. What you don’t want is the day and time for a scheduled post to roll around with no idea whatsoever what it will be. The best content plans have posts marked out several weeks or even months ahead.

Depending on your situation, the strategy informing your plan might be to:

• Build authority
• Create trust
• Promote others
• Promote yourself or your organisation
• Create controversy (be careful with this one)
• Entertain
• Know what’s happening in your industry
• Engage with others

Not all of these strategies will be useful for your business and those that are may not be useful all the time. For instance, constantly attempting to entertain without informing will not help build authority.

Things to take into account when preparing a LinkedIn posting plan:

• The variety of post formats (text, video, image, document)
• Seasonal events that might spark post content (e.g. spring or holidays)
• Company events or milestones that can be taken advantage of (new premises or office)
• Industry changes or news that could be used as gap fillers (as news tends not to be planned!)
• Personnel achievements that reflect well on the person and the organisation. (A successful fundraiser, sports win or award)
• General news that has a bearing on your industry such as, if you’re in the insurance business, a major earthquake/hurricane/forest fire that could have longer term effects on policyholders.

Barriers to LinkedIn Posting Plans

The scope required of a content plan can be off-putting and is often the barrier to a successful long-term posting strategy. However, it is relatively easy to overcome. Simply bring together a range of people from the organisation for a brainstorming session and write down every idea – no matter how oddball – that participants come up with. Give these to your content creator (who can be in-house or external) who will draft these up for approval.

Text and image posts are the easiest to produce, video and documents will take some longer-term planning to put together. However, with the huge amount of content online now in video format, every company should be thinking about how to produce quality video content at an affordable price. But make no mistake, company videos need to be professional. A selfie-video might cut it for smaller organisations, but not for those wanting to present themselves as credible, industry-leading and – professional.

Because of the complexity of setting up and administering a content plan, to say nothing of the writing required, many organisations who recognise the advantages of LinkedIn posting choose to outsource the management of their LinkedIn. In fact, because of demand, this a service that Word Wizard now provides.

It works by combining quality posts regularly uploaded, timely engagement that increases reach, and targeted connection with potential clients. Business professionals or organisations wanting to maximise the advantages of LinkedIn see this as an opportunity to get ahead of the curve. LinkedIn use is on the rise and is the ideal platform to achieve your business goals.

If marketing on LinkedIn is something you or your company have been thinking about, then do read these articles which help explain why this is such a very good idea and how to go about it.

LinkedIn: Marketing’s Best Kept Secret

How to Stand Out from the Crowd Using LinkedIn

ConnectMe – a LinkedIn Marketing Program for Professionals and Businesses

And, if you want to know more about how we at Word Wizard help clients with their LinkedIn marketing, please do get in touch. Email us at lynnaire@wordwizard.co.nz or, of course, connect with us on LinkedIn.