I had such great contributions as I was writing part 1 of this series, that I wanted to do an additional article with uncommon LinkedIn tips from various experts. Here are ten more things you can do to set yourself apart on LinkedIn:
(11) Don't Speak at Your Audience
"Don’t speak directly at your audience with posts and content. It’s more important to contribute to an already existing discussion and provide your thoughts. Sharing meaningful insight on existing commentary showcases that you are tuned into what’s going on in the world and passionate about the news and issues facing your target audience(s). One of the best things you can do on LinkedIn is provide value to your network, and by doing this, you will do just that."
(12) Know Thy Audience (Generic LinkedIn Advice Might Not Be Best For Your Audience)
"At Janus Henderson, our LinkedIn average engagement doubled in less than a year as we provided more timely and topical content on our blog. Given our sophisticated investor B2B audience, the more mathematical, the better it performed. But the kicker is while all guides say punchy and short works, the institutional content we produced that had a lot of “SAT” words actually performed best. We paid to target those content posts and they did phenomenally better than our average boosted content. And there were words the average person would have to Google to know what they meant. Lesson learned!"
(13) Create a Lead Magnet
I've been preaching this doctrine for almost a decade now, probably the single most important tip here:
"One tip that I still see to this day a lot of people missing out on is they do not tell their audience to go visit a 'squeeze' page for a lead magnet. People are leaving a lot of money on the table because this is a great lead generation tool for the prospects that do not connect with you. All you need is for them to visit the page, then you can follow them around the online space with 'retargeting' ads."
If your company isn't currently using lead magnets or retargeting, you are missing out on two of the most powerful tools in digital marketing right now.
(14) Publish Articles Natively on LinkedIn
"Very few people take the time to write LinkedIn articles. These are a great way to share your expertise and thought leadership for your particular industry. You can also make these articles much more self-promotional than earned media will be. Developing a unique voice through LinkedIn articles and being consistent will help grow your audience and attract the kind of attention you want."
I try to make sure that every article I post is republished on LinkedIn Publisher a week after it hits my blog. More distribution of your content with very little additional work.
(15) Don't You, Forget About Me
It's never too late to reconnect with your alma-matter.
"Stay in touch with your alumni group to gauge upcoming business leads and referrals. Many have amazing accelerators and business incubator programs with a plethora of top talent and ideas for the next generation of innovation in technology."
(16) LinkedIn's Mobile App Has Baked-in Surprises
Using the free LinkedIn mobile app isn't just more convenient, but it also has some unique functionality not available at LinkedIn.com:
"LinkedIn's mobile app has some of the really useful functionality, which will help them improve their networking results. Specifically, the use of the relatively new voice message and very recent introduction of being able to share a video message 1-to-1 with your connections. Why is this important? Because text is too one-dimensional, it lacks personality, tonality, quality of voice, expression etc. When people hear and see you, they see the real you (love you or hate you of course, so perhaps a risk?)
(17) Tag, You're It
"Use the tag functionality when sharing an article. Many people will share content but neglect to tag the author, which misses the opportunity for their post to get higher views and, most important, acknowledgment from the author. Adding tags is also a great way to pull like-minded professionals that you know into the conversation and increase the number of comments. Having quality comments on a post "tells" the LinkedIn algorithm that your post has engagement worth spreading to more people. More visibility leads to being able to consistently add value, so you can attract your target audience and be successful."
(18) "There's nothing more powerful than a good story." -Tyrion Lannister
"Create videos or articles that tell a story, which will relate to your reader, rather than simply "how to's" or "listicles", such as "7 ways to...". In a world where information is getting overloaded, storytelling - which has stood the test of time - still resonates with humans, no matter how high up at a big company they are."
(19) Quantify Your Accomplishment
"Be sure to include specific accomplishments from past positions, i.e. increase e-commerce revenue by 30% year-over-year. Many users tend to simply put their roles at previous positions, rather than what they achieved for the company as a whole. This will help set yourself apart and show your value to other professionals and companies."
(20) Same-day LinkedIn Connects
"Connect with every single person, every single day with whom you have a meaningful personal or business interaction. That's the first step. It's not just who you know, it's who they know. Nurture those relationships by acknowledging all life events and by sharing content every single day that makes your network more productive and successful. Proactively engage with people who you don't know through warm introduction whenever possible or via the content that they share on LinkedIn. You can reach out direct via a connection request but take the time to customize it to the recipient. Put yourself in their shoes. Why should they accept you into their network?"
(Bonus Tip) Design Posts with Multiple Built-in Audiences
This may seem overly meta, but when you write posts referencing and quoting multiple authors, not only do you benefit from their wisdom, but you also get a big bounce when you share the post to LinkedIn and tag each of those authors. They in turn with share with their audience and you gain some built-in viral traction for your posts. Trust me, it works.
