Why You Should Be Using LinkedIn for Your Business
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Cassandra Thompson on How to Grow Your Audience on LinkedIn and Get More Customers
Did you know LinkedIn was a whole lot more useful than just applying to jobs at Target? It is! It is absolutely a platform that you need to be on and using for your business, because it’s THE social media platform that’s made for business. In this episode, LinkedIn expert and career coach Cassandra Thompson is sharing all the best practices for using LinkedIn for your business including tips for posting, how to set up and optimize your profile, and how to really make connections on the platform.
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Her Entrepreneur Journey
Cassandra is a career coach, and works full time at a university while also creating YouTube videos and content on the side. She loves creating this content because she remembers how hard the job search can be, so she wants to help. She says that her side hustle now has a side hustle, because after a YouTube-related conference, she realized how few people are truly using LinkedIn for all of it’s potential.
Since then, she’s been working with creative professionals and small business owners to harness the power of LinkedIn for their business and teaching them how it works, how to get started, and how to add it to your marketing strategy.
Why is LinkedIn a great platform for entrepreneurs?
Other than it being the only professional platform, you have an almost built-in audience because you have massive reach very quickly. When you start connecting with people on LinkedIn and they like your content, that content now goes in the feed of all their connections. That’s a massive built-in reach that you can’t really get on any other platform.
The beauty of LinkedIn is that they’re still figuring it out. It’s technically one of the oldest social media platforms, but it was very stagnant. Having a feed is very new on the platform. It’s kind of an “anything goes” scenario and it’s much less stressful than starting on any other platforms. There’s a lot of freedom to just try things and see what content works.
LinkedIn is the only professional social media platform. You're expected to talk about business.
Are there any proven strategies that you know to work?
There’s no super secret thing. You just HAVE to be consistent. You need to be on the platform every day. You don’t necessarily have to post every day, but you need to be showing up on the platform every single day. It almost matters as much how much you like, comment, and share other people’s things as it does posting your own content. The more you’re on the platform, the more you’ll get found.
Tuesday and Thursdays from 9am to 5pm are usually the heaviest traffic times because people tend to show up on the platform when they’re working. So if you’re nervous about LinkedIn start posting during the off times until you get the hang of it. You’ll get out of LinkedIn what you put in, but it truly is all about connecting with other people.
Is it acceptable to just repost content from other platforms?
Yes! Please do! Why reinvent the wheel? If you’ve been blogging for years, reuse those blogs and turn the first paragraph into a post, add the link, and schedule them out every week. Use your Instagram captions. Add the picture, don’t add the picture, it’s up to you. Just post everything and stay consistent in doing it. You don’t have to post original content every day, but just be on there and supporting your connections.
When should you use an article instead of a post?
A post goes in your feed, the same way it does on Facebook for example - and obviously has greater reach because of that, but it’s a limited number of characters. You’ll catch on that there’s a certain way people tend to write posts. Emojis are used heavily and people tend to write in couplets with 1-3 line paragraphs. With articles, think of it more like the platform Medium. You’re essentially writing a long-form article (like a blog post) that LinkedIn could then distribute as they like - meaning it could get picked up and put in their newsletter that goes to 260+ million people. It has potential greater reach, but that reach isn’t as guaranteed as the post. They seemed to have had a lot more weight years ago, and LinkedIn isn’t favoring them as much now.
What do we need to know about the profile?
You need a good photo that looks like you (preferably a professional headshot - don’t use anything over formal or a photo where you’ve cropped someone out) and reflects your business. Let what you do dictate what that photo looks like, but you definitely want it to be head-on, with you making eye contact with the camera.
Even more important, the thing that matter most is your headline. This is the line right under your name. When someone searches for you, the only thing that comes up is your name, photo, and headline, so it’s what everyone sees when they don’t see your profile. It is extremely SEO-friendly, so make sure you’re using a title that people are actually searching for (i.e. don’t write that you’re the Chief Fun Officer of your company) and then say who you work with. Example: Event Planner specializing in corporate events in the Nashville area.
Your about section of your profile is the place to get a little more creative. Write this as a detailed bio and make sure you write it in first person. Show your personality and tell your story from your brand voice, and let people know how to get in touch with you, what you’re looking for on LinkedIn, and anything else they should know about you.
The “Experience” section should be your resume. You should list every job you’ve held simply because by listing old jobs it’s still connecting you to more people. On your current job, say in detail what you do. Don’t call yourself CEO, President, or Owner because no one is searching for that. Under the Company description, make sure that you’re talking about what YOU do for the company, not what the company does as a whole. This whole area is very searchable and easily connects you with other people, so it’s important that you’re thorough and detailed.
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