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Increasing LinkedIn Engagement and Starting with Ads

Most business people are on LinkedIn, but how many of those are actually using it? The ones that do use it find a lot of engagement and connection with their targeted audiences. Consider these numbers:

So, this platform is clearly a place to be, especially for B2B. (Bonus that you can mostly avoid cat videos, political memes, and local mask mandate arguments, although all those things have seemed to increase recently.)

Here are some best practices for increasing LinkedIn engagement and getting started with advertising on LinkedIn.  

Increasing LinkedIn Engagement 

The LinkedIn feed is designed to display posts from people and pages that you interact with frequently or are likely to interest you based on prior interactions. So, to increase your exposure on this platform, you must increase your engagement. Here are my favorite LinkedIn tips for doing this: 

Use native content. Post directly to LinkedIn rather than linking to your website, YouTube, or another source, as this platform highly prefers native content. I know this goes against the typical marketing strategy of getting people to your website, and I’m bad about remembering to do it, but follow what the algorithm likes most of the time. Of course, I still recommend posting a direct link to your blog every now and then to get your active LinkedIn readers to your website.

Use hashtags. Hashtags on LinkedIn are like how they work on Instagram. But while some tags on Instagram can tend to be funny and are often used as an extension of content, hashtags on LinkedIn should be relevant and professional. Find hashtags that are very specific to your content and research the number of followers they have. Often, we pick the biggest hashtags, but that means your competing with more content. Use at least three hashtags and no more than 10.   

Tag. You can tag people in the actual post or in the comments. If the post is about the person or directly related to it (think employees, brand ambassadors, etc.), I recommend tagging the post. If you think someone might be interested in reading the post, but it isn’t really about them, tag them in the comments instead. Tagging increases your engagement by showing the post to their following, but they are also more likely to reshare. 

Post consistently and at busy times. If you want to increase engagement, you need to be posting at least once a week. Also, consider when people are most likely to be on the platform. For example, I prefer posting Tuesday to Thursday between 8 am and 2 pm, but that isn’t always possible. In that case, use common sense and realize that the post you are thinking about posting during happy hour on a Friday afternoon would probably do better the following week during working hours. 

This will take regular posting and daily check-ins to the platform, but bottom line, it’s worth the effort to increase your LinkedIn engagement.

What about LinkedIn ads?

Ads on LinkedIn are usually more expensive than other platforms, but any ad is worth it if it converts to meet your goals. If I can prove that the client’s ad budget brings in more money than they are spending, the client usually wants to add to the budget. Makes sense, right? That said, too often, we throw money at something to see if something happens without taking the proper steps to optimize and convert the ad. On LinkedIn, I recommend starting with a budget of $500, but it is essential that you know three things before starting:

  • What is your target audience? Consider industry, title, location, etc. 
  • What do you want them to do? Consider actions like call, buy, download, visit a landing page, etc.
  • What is the best type of ad to encourage this action? LinkedIn does a good job of explaining their options and walking through the process here and here.
  • How can you measure this action? This includes results like purchases made, leads generated, conversion rate, and engagement rate. 
  • What is your follow-up plan? If the ad isn’t working, what can you do to adjust it? With any ad, you must pay attention to the incoming results. If it isn’t working, modify or stop spending. If the ad is working, I still recommend a follow-up plan. Too often, marketers collect the lead without engaging in timely and relevant next steps. 

Any other tips for LinkedIn?

Rather than ads, you could consider investing in a LinkedIn sales tool to help you prospect. Take a look at LinkedIn Sales Navigator and Dux-Soup.  

What are your best tips for LinkedIn? If you find yourself needing help, feel free to give us a call.

Thanks to Amanda Foster for submitting this question during our A Good Pour conversation.