As a business professional, you’ve probably heard about LinkedIn. You know it’s a social networking platform that’s great for networking and connecting with other business professionals in your field, outside of your field or companies and jobs you may be interested in. You probably have a personal profile—you might even have a business page.
But there’s just one thing you can’t figure out: how to get people to actually connect with what you’re putting on LinkedIn. You share articles and thoughts, with little to no response rate. How can you drive natural interaction through your LinkedIn page and foster relationships? Today, we have some tips on how to maximize your LinkedIn engagement.
1. Share interesting articles.
If you want to increase engagement with your followers on LinkedIn, then you need to provide content that is actually worthwhile for them. As LinkedIn focuses on business networking, share interesting business articles that your followers can connect with. What are good networking tips? How do companies build their culture? How can individuals apply for their dream jobs?
Share articles related to topics like these and watch as comments, likes and shares come flooding in. Whether or not these articles are written by you personally, your small business blog or a top company is up to you, but sharing valuable content with others is a great way to get your engagement up and going.
2. Analyze, don’t just report.
When sharing information on LinkedIn, take some extra time to actually put your thoughts into the post. Don’t just report information, but actually analyze it. What does this mean for you personally? How can other people connect? How does it relate to different topics?
For example, if an article says, “5 Ways to Use Guerrilla Marketing,” mention an example of guerrilla marketing you’ve seen recently. When you connect the article with yourself and your followers, you’re more likely to drive engagement on the post.
3. Post often.
As with most social media sites, post often. Create a content calendar and schedule out your posts if you have to. You should be posting regularly—if not daily—on LinkedIn to demonstrate yourself as a professional in your field and gain more views for your profile. The more active you are, the more likely individuals are to stumble upon your page.
Of course, don’t oversaturate, and don’t post worthless content. But, do make an effort to really be active on the site and provide consistent value to your followers’ feeds.
4. Post at the right time of day.
It’s also important to consider what time of day drives the most engagement with your posts on LinkedIn. Sharing content willy nilly (say, perhaps at 1:30 in the morning when you can’t fall asleep) is not going to guarantee any more engagement for you.
Instead, post during “busy” times for social media—morning, lunch hour and evening time are all great options when users will have some downtime to check their feeds. Using a scheduling tool for LinkedIn is also a great option to have content regularly scheduled, without having to try and remember to post during these specific times.
5. Share video.
Finally, use video. WordStream states that 85% of the entire U.S. Internet audience watches video online. One-third of all online activity is spent watching video. That is a huge market to engage with. Whether you’re sharing your own video or a YouTube video, be sure to segment a portion of your posts to video. This will drive up your engagement and increase followers.
Now that you have a LinkedIn account, it’s time to start engaging with it. Use these tips to grow your follower base and expand your network of relationships.
