In part one of my marketing experiment, ‘15 marketing tactics on a shoestring’, I am exploring all things LinkedIn. If you’ve followed the link here from LinkedIn, then I guess the fact that you are reading this means you are an active member of LinkedIn. While I have been on and off LinkedIn for years, it has always been one of those ‘ho hum’ platforms in my mind. When I joined LinkedIn, I thought it would be a great way to connect with other businesses and to hopefully gain new business but whenever I posted anything, I would only get maybe one or two likes and then if I ever went back to my post, I couldn’t find it!

It seemed less easy to navigate than Facebook at that time. Fast forward to today and I have decided to give it another go. My lovely friend, business coach Edward Zia, swears by LinkedIn. In fact, I think he should get commission from LinkedIn because he recommends it so much to all his business friends!

Edward’s top tips for getting the most out of LinkedIn are:

Content – make it relevant, informative and useful.
Find your voice – you need to speak from the ‘heart’, share what you love and know.
Follow-up – LinkedIn is the platform but it won’t do your sales for you – you need to follow-up all connections and bring them off-line. LinkedIn is essentially software - you’re the one who needs to make it work for you.
Regular posts – Edward suggests 2 – 3 times per day.
Build relationships – nurture your connections by commenting/sharing/liking.
Video – use it, LinkedIn likes it and it’s a great way to share your content.

As I don’t have a large number of connections on LinkedIn, I have decided to reach out and connect to more people, in particular people I would like to work with as potential clients. It feels a bit like stalking, sending a ‘connect’ message but I guess, whoever receives it can see I run a PR consultancy and so would have an idea of why I may be wanting to connect with them.

Objective

My LinkedIn objective, other than to enjoy connecting with the wider business community, is to get a new client. There – I said it – just one new client by the end of this year – a modest objective I think! I would like to do that and I will document and feed back here if it works or if it doesn’t and adjust my approach accordingly.

Tactics

So, I’ll start by writing a list of the businesses I want to connect with and their marketing managers and then I’ll hit connect. I’ll let you know how I go!

I guess I will need to then follow them up with a message or perhaps even a (gulp) phone-call! Question – does anybody actually pick up the ‘phone anymore?! It’s much easier to ‘hide’ behind email isn’t it. But if I’m approaching a journalist for a story, I’ll often pick up the ‘phone to pitch it in. We all know that emails can just scroll in and out of the viewing window on the inbox, so to me a phone call makes sense – I think I’ll give it a go!

After I’ve reached out and hopefully built up some more connections, I’m going to develop my LinkedIn content strategy.

Content Creation

Most of us know that video and original posts are favoured by LinkedIn. Video, I have some concerns with because so many people are doing it, it can feel quite uncomfortable and somewhat ‘salesey’ and ‘shouty’ – totally not me. I need to give it some thought.

In order to get the most out of LinkedIn, I will need to post every day. Note to self - I need to be very organised to plan ahead for this and carve out the time! (Another consideration when picking up the marketing pace for a small business!)

Feedback

I would love to get feedback on the type of content that would be useful, interesting and informative for my LinkedIn connections and wider LinkedIn audience to read. What would be of value and not just ‘more of the same’?