LinkedIn holds a strong business community. From what we’ve seen using it, the best brands, companies, and people leverage the platform by adding value to their audiences. To build a great network on any social platform your focus should be one of two things: 

            • Entertainment
or

            • Education

Entertainment can come in the form of being funny or using great visuals and videos. You can inform your audience in a number of different ways through thought-leadership advice. It’s also important that the information you create does not seem self-promoting but includes knowledge your end users will enjoy. 

Here are 4 tactics that can be applied within LinkedIn to leverage the best of your content.

1.      Sponsored Native Content

Native content are articles written inside LinkedIn and for your LinkedIn audience. For example- let’s say you are an ice cream company that is posting colorful images on Instagram and delicious milkshake recipes on Facebook. On LinkedIn, you will be looking to publish articles about the dairy industry, research and development news, and corporate information. Or if you are a travel agency, your Instagram should be filled with glamorous photos from around the world. On LinkedIn however could write articles about something like, say, how CEOs can travel more efficiently. 

All native content written on LinkedIn should lead back traffic to your blog or a page on your corporate website.

Sponsored content requires setting a budget aside and designing ad visuals. Media cost varies depending on the target market we set. At a high-level, if we decide to spend $350 to sponsor 1 article per week, the post can reach between 3,000-11,000 impressions.

2.      LinkedIn Corporate Page Posts and Share

On your corporate LinkedIn page, you can either write a native article or write a short summary and attach an article you have published on your website’s blog.

You can also use your corporate LinkedIn page to post comments and your point of view on articles in the industry and other content you have found online (i.e. Forbes etc.)

3.      SMEs Re-Shared Articles

Look for personal connections and other small and medium-sized to extend your reach. The important part here is to add human value to your articles and your personal point of view. The idea is to share your knowledge and explore potential partners and key influencers that can help you repost and extend your brand’s reach.

4.      The $1.80 Strategy 

You can also actively participate in the top-performing posts and topics on LinkedIn. To do that you can use the  "What people are talking about now” section or explore the top hashtags in your industry/market.

Once you find an interesting article: like it, comment on it and share it with your network. By doing so you are leaving your “two cents” on popular topics and are becoming part of the conversation. If should do this with 9 posts, over your industry’s top10 hashtags each day

             $0.02 + 9 (x 10) = $1.80.

This “two cents” networking approach is a strategy Gary Vaynerchuk uses and has created for his own LinkedIn outreach.

Tactics 1 to 3 focus on what we produce. 4 is a way to engage already produced, popular topics and be seen as a voice in the community. It’s important to remember that no matter which one of these strategies we decide to follow, we must abide by two important rules:

- never send out spamming messages on LinkedIn 

- double-down on extending the links to the company page or profile pages of your team in their email signatures

We would love to help you create relevant content and engaging visuals for your social campaigns. For ideas, simply connect with us at hello@edesigninteractive.com. 
You can find examples of our work here.