Although I’ve been promoting digital marketing services for a number of years, it’s only recently that I’ve started really promoting these on LinkedIn. This is because I was only doing digital marketing on a part-time basis whilst I did interim work and I was using LinkedIn to connect with recruiters and interim client contacts.
I’m now using LinkedIn to promote my digital marketing services and thought I’d share the functions that I have found most useful. I am only using the free version of LinkedIn, so there may be richer functionality and even better functions in the paid version, but I’m not able to comment on them at the moment.
LinkedIn Analytics
I’ve always been a fan of tracking your numbers, so being able to look at analytics on LinkedIn really appeals to me. As you can see from the picture, analytics are available from the home screen on the desktop version of LinkedIn. They are also available on the mobile app.
Analytics are mainly focused on profile views and post impressions. Profile views is quite limited in the free version but there is a lot available to look at and play with in the post impressions area. Well worth looking at on a regular basis.
Conversations Happening Now
I have included this function as it existed at the time I ran the workshop that this post is based on, but this function has since disappeared from my profile.
This is a section in the Post Impressions section of the analytics and shows you three posts from others that are currently performing well and are relevant to your business, encouraging you to wither interact with them or repost them with comments. This is a good way to boost your engagement and create a post if you’re struggling for an idea.
You need creator mode turned on for this. There is something similar in this section if you don’t have creator mode turned on too.
Notification Button
If you look at somebody’s profile on LinkedIn, you will see a little bell icon. If you turn this on, LinkedIn will notify you that when they have posted something. There are a couple of levels to this, you can either select being notified for all posts or just their top posts.
There are a number of uses for this.
If you want to learn from somebody who is already an expert in their field, then being notified of their posts is a sign you can learn something new.
If you want to support a friend, colleague or client, you can turn this on and then support their posts by adding comments and engaging with it (LinkedIn’s analytical term for likes, etc).
Recommendations
Another powerful function available from the profile page is the “request a recommendation” function, which allows you to request a recommendation from somebody. The main people you should be targeting are people who you have done work for where you know you’ve delivered a good service to them. The really good thing about this is that you get to review what they’ve written before you post it to your profile, so if you don’t like it you don’t have to share it.
You can also be proactive and give somebody a recommendation. It’s on the same drop down menu from the more button on their profile.
The LinkedIn Social Selling Index (SSI)
The 5th function to share here isn’t available from within LinkedIn, as it’s part of LinkedIn Sales Navigator, but it is free.
The SSI is LinkedIn’s gamification of your activity and is a score out of 100. The score is based on 4 main sections and you get a score out of 25 on each section.
The 4 sections are:
Establish your professional brand;
Find the right people;
Engage with insights; and
Build relationships.
As you can see from the picture, I need to build on my “Find the right people” score.
It does give some high level comparisons with others in your industry and in your network and as you can see I’m not doing too badly in comparison with them.
LinkedIn Profile QR Code
The final function I’m sharing here is only available on the mobile app and that is the profile QR code. This is a great way to get people to connect with you when you meet them face-to-face at business events, expo’s and networking meetings.
To get to the QR code for your profile open the LinkedIn mobile app, click into the search bar at the top of the screen. Then s little symbol will appear in the right hand side of the search bar on the next screen. Click on this and a QR code will appear. IF anybody then scans that with their mobile phone they will be taken to your profile and will be able to follow you and ask you to connect.
Final Thoughts
I’ve found using these functions has really improved my usability and visibility on LinkedIn and I’ve barely scratched the surface of the functions available. I hope you have found this useful and you go away and try them all out.
Video is great for promoting your business, but once you’ve made the decision to get one or more videos produced and you’ve been given the video files, what should you do with them?
The obvious answers are put it on your website and share it on all your social media channels – but how do you do all those things?
Posting your video on your website
When you put your video on your website, don’t make the mistake of loading the video file to your website, as your website hosting platform won’t be optimised for streaming video, so your video won’t play very well when people visit your website.
Video Hosting Platforms
The two most well-known video hosting platforms are YouTube and Vimeo, which both allow you to set up free accounts or channels. There are other video hosting platforms, such as Wistia, but these charge for their services.
I tend to use YouTube, because it is the second most used search engine on the internet, is owned by Google and you can link your Google Analytics for your website with your YouTube channel so you can get all your Google performance metrics in one place.
Once you have put your video on your hosting platform, you need to embed the video onto your website. It’s fairly easy to do this, on YouTube you click on the share button, go to the Embed tab, copy the line of HTML code that is shown and then copy this into your web page at the place you want to embed it on your web page. Note that there are some options available to you when you create the embed code, including video size, so choose the settings that you want.
When you embed the video on your web page, think about where you want the video to appear. In general, it is best to put the video as near to the top of your web page as possible, as you want website visitors to watch it and they are more likely to do this if they see it at the top of the page.
Posting your video on Social Media
Although it is possible to share your video from YouTube, it is better to post the video natively onto the social media channels you are looking to share it on, as the algorithms they use for deciding whether to share your post with others all favour video hosted locally over video links. Loading videos locally onto each social media platform will also give you access to post insights. Facebook in particular provides some very detailed insights to how your video is being watched and there is a second level of detail provided about the audience once the video has been viewed 100 times.
Uploading video works the same across all the platforms, but they do have some nuances that you need to be aware of.
Facebook
When you load a video onto Facebook, the system will select 10 thumbnail images from the video and you can choose which you want to use. You can also load a custom thumbnail if you don’t like any of the options available to you.
Facebook also has a very good tool for adding captions to videos and as over 90% of video views are made with the sound off, it is advisable to add captions if your video doesn’t have captions already. It is possible to export the captions file to reuse elsewhere, should you wish.
Twitter
Twitter is fussier about the video files you can load. It only allows you to load .mp4 and .mov formats and the video files must be less than 512 Mb in size.
Instagram
Instagram will only let you load videos that are less than 1-minute-long and you can only load files from your mobile device – there isn’t a facility to load a video from a desktop browser.
LinkedIn
LinkedIn is currently rolling out a facility to load videos natively, but this is only available from the mobile client.
What to do with your social media posts
Once you have your video on your social media platform, there are things you can do to increase their exposure. On Facebook you can share your post into relevant groups. On Twitter you can get people to like and/or retweet your posts and similarly you can do this on Instagram. Follow this link on more ideas for sharing content.
If you need more help or advice on what to do with your posts, please call me or leave a message and I will be happy to pass on my advice. If you are looking to get videos produced, let me know by calling the Red Knight Solutions offices on 02392 265725.
Are you a business owner who is frustrated by the impact of your posts on your Facebook business page? Despite working hard to gain lots of likes for your page, Facebook is hardly showing your posts to any of your followers – statistics show that often less than 1% of people who have liked your page will see your post.
If this sounds familiar, despair no longer, here are 5 tips to follow that will see your post reach increase dramatically.
Facebook loves Video.
Video is the number 1 way to boost your posts, as Facebook loves video and its algorithm is heavily weighted to extend the reach of posts that feature video. If you really want your post to reach its maximum potential use Facebook Live for the video feed, as Facebook is really promoting Facebook live.
If you’re not comfortable using Facebook live then produce a video, but load it onto Facebook if possible rather than hosting it on YouTube or any other video hosting platform, as Facebook does favour hosted video. If you are producing a video, it is also a good idea to include captions on the video or produce the video in such a way that it communicates its message without sound, as a high proportion of the people that will see your video on Facebook will do so with the sounds off.
A further benefit of having the video hosted on Facebook is the detailed analytics that Facebook provides you with.
Include a picture when you post on Facebook.
If you are unable or unwilling to include a video, include one or more photographs with your post. Facebook likes seeing photos with posts and it is also more eye catching in timelines that Facebook does add your post to.
If you can post several pictures that relate to a post, then you should use these to create a slideshow. There are facilities for doing this in Facebook or you could you a tool like Animoto or ripl. Facebook will treat a slideshow you have created as a video.
Encourage Interactions with your post.
If people are reacting to your post, the Facebook algorithm will give your post a boost. There are three types of interaction you should try to encourage, sharing, commenting and liking. They all have an impact.
Sharing your post.
You can extend the reach of your Facebook post by sharing your business page post into any groups you are a member of where your post will be of interest. You should also share your post on your timeline.
When sharing your post, you should include a comment that encourages interaction from group members – shares and comments seem to have the biggest impact on posts, but likes have influence too.
If you employ staff, you should encourage them to interact with your post and share it. If you know other business owners, then you should consider asking them to share your post too, with a reciprocal offer of sharing their posts too.
Page Settings
There are numerous business page settings that affect where and how your post will appear on Facebook, most notably your preferred page audience. Use these to let Facebook know who your target audience is and your posts are more likely to appear on the timeline of people who match this description. There are options available to help with selection across the 150 odd attributes that Facebook holds about its users.
Boosting your post
If all else fails, you can consider boosting your post. If you decide that you want to boost your post, don’t press the boost post button, but got into the ads manager to boost the post. This is because Facebook advertising manager lets you choose what the purpose of boosting your post is and if you look closely at the options available, boosting your post doesn’t necessarily achieve the outcome you would expect it to.
Helping you with Facebook
If you would like help with your Facebook marketing or any other aspects of your digital marketing, call Red Knight Solutions on 02392 265725 or e-mail us at enquiries@redknightsolutions.co.uk to find out more about how we can help your business thrive online.
