A Guide to do Effective Content Marketing on LinkedIn Don't always try to sell, instead be helpful by sharing your unique piece of knowledge with your target audience

LinkedIn marketing today is one of the most effective gimmicks to reach the target audience and one of the best places to meet professionals and connect with them.

The wider your network, the better are your prospects for reaching out to the target audience. With the growing content marketing trend on LinkedIn, people consider it as the finest platforms for sourcing professionally relevant content. No doubt, with such a targeted content format, LinkedIn surpassed Twitter for content marketing; and became a hub for promoting every kind of business related content.

LinkedIn serves as an essential platform for marketers to promote their products, but the question that is put forth is whether every kind of content gets the desired visibility or not.

To be honest, it is not always possible to get the exposure you want with the content, but if you are active enough on LinkedIn, you can target the audience of your choice and reach them quickly.

Content Marketing Planning Framework for LinkedIn

While content marketing primarily rides on the pillars of producing content that might resonate with the audience beyond your target audience, content marketing on LinkedIn works heavily on making content that helps you attract relevant industry stakeholders.

LinkedIn has emerged as the strongest and most desirable platform that brings you the most relevant business driven results. Be it bringing more gratification (engagement) from industry heavyweights or achieving credible leads, LinkedIn content marketing is slowly, but surely, making more business sense to business owners.

Thus said, LinkedIn's dynamics and attributes are independent of other social platforms' functioning. While more likes and shares on other social media, literally, represent how much your brand is being talked about in the digital social ecosystem, similar social actions on LinkedIn can be attributed to endorsements from stalwarts, which are considered more authoritative and consenting to fellow netizens.

Furthermore, brands have already shared statistics around key performing indexes directly proportional to business results, as a key differentiator between other LinkedIn and other social media. Hence, a content marketing platform for any business, B2C or B2C, should have an organic and independent content marketing strategy for LinkedIn.

There are various tactics & content marketing tools to strategize and deploy LinkedIn content marketing. With features like InMail, brands can focus on building awareness and affinity around their products, while feature like company and showcase pages should be attributed with intent to create thought/service leadership with the target audience.

On the other hand, sponsored posts can help brands promote their events/webinars/e-books with intent to bring more authority to their domain.

With such practices, a brand can make the best of LinkedIn content marketing and reach out to their relevant target audiences with the most satisfying results.

Organizations looking forward to getting most out of content on LinkedIn should consider the following steps:

Grow Your Network
LinkedIn is completely different from other social networks, and hence requires a different approach. While inviting like-minded people to connect with you on LinkedIn might the most basic form of growing your network, there are more things you can do. Make sure to complete your profile page, start sending personalized messages to get connected, add an email signature to your LinkedIn URL, finally join and participate in groups to grow your network.

With more than 400 million users as of January 2016 and almost two hundred members joining every minute, LinkedIn is a place having loads of relevant opportunities for professionals. After Microsoft bought LinkedIn, it's growing further and is poised for better growth. Apparently, the wide network lets your content get noticed by more number of people.

Set up Your Company Page
It's time to set up your business page, if you have not created it yet. The company page is an initial step to establish the position of your organization.

Your business page offers an identity to your organization and is a place where you should put details about the nature of your business. Add your company's logo for presenting it with an image to your followers.

As it is a core of your content distribution, it should be presented in the best possible manner. It also helps your brand to get visibility in search engines as well in LinkedIn search itself.

Through a company page, delivering news to followers becomes easier. Make a plan and make sure to share weekly updates on topics like:

• Business-related advice
• Company newsfeed
• Industry trends

Sharing regular updates keeps the interest of followers intact and helps them to stay updated.

Goal driven content marketing - To reach your audience effectively, you need to craft a content marketing strategy that must be goal driven. Your aim should be to:

• Provide original information to the readers- Don't always try to sell, instead be helpful by sharing your unique piece of knowledge with them. Always try to help them by sharing industry updates and ideas that they might put to good use
• Be interesting in your approach- We all know that nobody likes to read boring stuff. Why not add some bright and fun graphics to make it an enjoyable read for your followers
• Also, don't be self-centered- Try to be active in other groups and forums so that your content gets noticed by your peers. Only, if you will take the time to read and comment on their content, they will keep up with the pace and will certainly notice your content
• One thing to bear in mind is that the write-up should be worthy enough to spark a discussion. Engaging content always helps to attract more people

Create a Relevant Plan for Your Newsfeed

• You know that market is full of job seekers; why not share job tips with them or invite them for walk-in interviews in your firm?
• What about informing them regarding the other relevant job opportunities in the market? Don't you think it's an apt plan to frame?
• It would be great if you post something that informs about enhancing their skills
• Let them know about your company's prospects and what it has in its store for other professionals
• Sharing with them your website's link or video will work like an icing on the cake as it will encourage them to check the link

Hence, knowing what kind of content will prove to be useful for your marketing strategy will take your plan to a right direction.

Choose and Join the Right Group

Is your company dedicated to offering digital marketing services? If yes, then participating in a group related to your niche should be your primary aim. There are many such groups on LinkedIn that you can always join to connect with fellow competitors.

It will contribute to your business by boosting traffic of your company and will offer better visibility to your business at the same time. Share your ideas with them to get back related information in return.

To find a right group, look at the number of members there and the volume of interaction that is happening within the group. You can get the interaction related information by checking the statistics box on the right-hand side of the screen. Look for the number of articles that have been posted in the last month and the number of comments each of them has received. It offers an idea of the active members' ratio and their culture of interaction.

Don't Post Personal Messages or Thoughts

Not to forget that LinkedIn is a professional network and posting something personal and unprofessional appears weird and nonsensical. Even if you are blessed with a newborn in your family, don't share it here as your update like you do on other social networking sites. Remember, nobody will congratulate you for the recent development in your personal life but may block you from their connections list.

Keep your Content Posting Intact

Patience is a key to succeed in the world of content marketing. If you are not getting the expected response, don't get disheartened. Stay active, keep commenting on competitor's updates and you will notice an accelerating trend in your content's visibility in the nearest future. Remember, that the pattern of views and shares will vary from one country to another because of timezone differences.

Keep an Update Slab

Many people consider several updates in a single day on LinkedIn. Also, a lot of them don't mind sharing the same post again and again. LinkedIn is not a social network site like Facebook or Twitter. LinkedIn takes no time to label you as a spammer. It's ok to be on the left side of the road when dealing with LinkedIn. To be safe, post only 1-2 updates in a day that too relevant ones and with relevant yet different perspectives on an issue or subject of industry's interest.

Keep it Short

A short and crisp content always attracts more readers. Nobody has the time to read long stories! Use a bulleted list for the same. It increases readability. Write self-explanatory subheadings. A trick that always works.

Compelling Headline

An intriguing and accurate headline is the need of the game to reach your audience.

Be regular

Just imagine the impression that you may leave on your connections by being silent for more than a month and then hoard it with several updates in a day's time. Apparently, you are making a big mistake by doing so. Be regular with your updates and manage your posts accordingly.

Use Publish Platform (Linkedin Pulse)

Being in the industry for more than a decade, have always noticed that generating leads from Publish platform is easier on LinkedIn compared to other strategies. It hits the right audience, and you will always get more shares and views for your post. If you can offer value to your content and can ignite the interest of your followers through your write-up, you add to your fan following. Just click "Publish a Post" from "Home" dashboard and begin to write.

Incorporate Slideshare

Are your blogs and e-books not working in the desired way? LinkedIn has another viable solution in the form of slideShare. It was purchased by LinkedIn for assaying content marketers with an opportunity to post visual content through SlideShare. Just create your company's page on SlideShare and link it to your LinkedIn company page. Whenever you create a new presentation on SlideShare, it will automatically appear as an update on your LinkedIn Page.

Just a single successful SlideShare can lead to higher engagement with your content and as a result will add to your list of followers. Select a trending topic, mine it with a robust visual image and check for results regarding readability and shares. You can easily register with SlideShare, and share content in visually appealing manner.

Several content marketing teams are taking advantage of their potential by making use of the LinkedIn content strategy. Jump in the race today, being better equipped and surpass the competition.