Are you making the most of the professional platform LinkedIn? LinkedIn marketing can be a huge stepping stone to propel your business forward.

Harrison Baron is the president of Baron Media Group, and host of the Brutally Honest podcast. His company helps small business owners and salespeople leverage a LinkedIn content strategy to make more sales and gain visibility in the marketplace.

Why LinkedIn Marketing:

So many business executives are on the LinkedIn platform and this is key because they are the decision makers. You are able to start building relationships faster and more effectively when you’re reaching out to the right people.

If your audience is business to business (or B2B) then LinkedIn marketing could be right for you.

When compared to other social platforms, LinkedIn data tends to be up to date & accurate pertaining to the individual. People really go out of their way to update their LinkedIn profiles when they get a promotion or change companies; this is not always true for other social media platforms.

Common LinkedIn Marketing Mistakes to avoid:

No self-promotion - don’t talk about you; let your content speak for itself
No family updates and posting about your kids - keep it professional
Not adding real value when you comment on others content - write tailored comments
No generic messages - make it personal connect authentically
Not filling out the entire profile - add a professional photo and relevant background image

Strategies for a Successful LinkedIn Marketing Strategy:

Ready to start leveraging LinkedIn marketing for your business? Harrison shared some simple, actionable tips for leveraging the power of LinkedIn to grow any B2B business.

Start With a Solid LinkedIn Profile:

Your professional title should tell people clearly what you do. Be specific what problems do you solve for others
Include your business success story in the about section.
Use a professional image and include a relevant background image.

Don’t Overlook LinkedIn SEO

LinkedIn is a search engine, and your LinkedIn marketing strategy should reflect that:

SEO impacts the searchability of your profile. The better you fill out your profile the better the LinkedIn search engine can optimize who you are and what others are potentially looking for.
LinkedIn articles are indexed in Google - It is not uncommon for an article to get ranked #1 - so get that content up there and have people find you! Content on LinkedIn has a much longer life than content on other social media platforms
PRO TIP for LinkedIn #1: Every time you connect with somebody on LinkedIn, your content is probably going to be shown to them and their content is going to be shown to you. So you don't even have to cold call them if you connect with them on LinkedIn. It's essentially a cold call without the call. Make your content count!
PRO TIP for LinkedIn #2: Make a video of yourself about how you help companies solve their problems; this is another authentic way to make a connection with your network while saving time and energy via cold calling. Some people are nervous about putting video out there; but would you rather make 100 cold calls or 1 10 min video for your network to see.

Be selective of who you let in to your circle:

LinkedIn open networker: Open networking means that you're open to receiving connection requests from people you don't know. While your objective as an open networker is to connect with many people, including people you do not know, you aren't required to accept all invitations to connect.
Choose connections based on your goals: If you want to keep your network small don’t accept an invitation from an open networker: they will have the acronym “LION” next to their name
Message wisely: It used to be that everyone responded to messages in LinkedIn, just know that only about 10% of folks will respond to your message, which is why keeping it authentic and specific to the recipient is important for effective LinkedIn marketing.

Best Practices for Messaging on LinkedIn:

Don’t give up after one message to someone. LinkedIn takes time some people get 100’s of messages per day, give them time
Keep messages short and simple, don’t jump right in to your pitch
Don’t automate your messages, keep them authentic

Final Thoughts on LinkedIn Marketing from Harrison Baron:

“Start using it...That's literally the biggest thing. Just go use it. And you will stumble upon everything that you should do.” - Harrison Baron

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