How To Grow An Audience on LinkedIn Organically
In this article, I will share with you the proven ways to get the result when growing your audience on the LinkedIn platform.
Growing a Linkedin audience is a very sure way to get leads and new career opportunities. There is no platform that exceeds LinkedIn in professional networking. It is the only platform yet with the highest number of fortune 500 companies participating actively. This is understandable because a lot of recruiting these days is done through LinkedIn.
The 5 Proven ways to grow your audience
1. Optimize your profile page
Before anything else you will do with LinkedIn, you must start with optimizing your page. Linkedin is a professional networking site and you can’t be taken seriously if you are not acting like one. From the picture you use on your profile to the headline that tells about your degrees, certification, awards and expert areas to the “About me” page should all be written with care.
Linkedin rewards every page with a complete profile with 30% more weekly views than pages with incomplete profiles.
Profile Image: Your profile image should depict your profession at its best. Be conscious to go for images that are clear and of high quality. Peep into other professionals' pages and see their profile if you need some help.
Cover Image: Cover images serve as brand extension. Your cover image should show in action, it can be with your team or at an events or seminars
Headline: Your LinkedIn headline allows only 200 words. The first three words you use on your headline must be carefully thought out, because they will be the only word that will show when you are commenting or making posts. Besides, when people visit your page, they need to see the accolades that made you a professional.
Your headline is not written in stone, do come by to review and update your headline.
Bio/About me: Always remember that “About Me” is not really about you. “About me” page is all about the reader who wants to know why they will need your services. It is always advisable to use your prospective customers' language to describe your service and how you can use it in solving your client’s problem.
Industry Recommendations: Some experts suggest you change your cover images once in 6 months.
2. Connect With People
After you register on LinkedIn and set up your profile, LinkedIn comes up with what we call first-degree connection. This is a LinkedIn recommendation of people who had similar profile details and career similarities. It is a good idea to start from there. Send them a connection request and let them accept or do what they deem fit. At this point, many people may be tempted to send out connection requests recklessly and aimlessly, however, you shouldn’t do this. You don’t need to throw your net wide to catch anything that says “I’m a professional” on linkedin. Here, it will be reasonable to seek and connect first with people you know already. Connecting with your previous friends or clients or colleagues exposes you to their friends, groups and pages or company they are following already. This positions you to get recommendations from your friends.
It should be worthy to note that your connections on LinkedIn should purely be based on business or career. It’s still a professional network, so behave like one.
Don’t connect with people just to sell them. You don’t want to make the mistake of appearing salsy to your connections. Don’t just do that.
Don’t use LinkedIn as a dating site or send out a sexist comment
3. Publish Quality Contents
It is baffling that 99% of LinkedIn users are just consuming content, the remaining 1% are the real content creators, yet, up to 91% of executives on LinkedIn uses the platform as their chief content source. This is a challenge linkedin company is seriously trying to solve. So, the linkedin algorithm rewards any user that creates content with more visibility. This is quite understandable.
The content creator gap is a huge opportunity for professionals to establish themselves as thought leaders in their field by just curating and posting relevant content on a consistent basis.
When creating contents:
Use rich media because images and videos command more attention than just text-based posts.
For text-based content, use enough spaces to make your content easy to consume and readable. You should go directly to the point with your content, most social media users have a short attention span and can not endure long aimless content. The bad side to it is that they may attach the same sentiment to your next similar posts, so don’t make an unnecessarily long post.
When you can, upload video content but keep them within 2-3 minutes at maximum.
Posting rule: Be generous with content. The rule is to share more contents written by others and few of yours. This makes your page more like people minded and takes the focus away from you. It gives your audience an impression that you source your contents from various relevant places and they will not want to miss the next big thing you will discover.
Use hashTags when you post as this not only makes your post findable but also shows at a glance what it is your post is talking about.
4. Engage
Just like in real life; to be listened to, you must have to listen too. Social media is not a one way megaphone where you say what you want and just leave. Engaging with your followers or in groups is often ignored by people seeking to grow their audience. You can engage with reactions(like,) or comments. However, how you engage also counts. The few guidelines to follow when engaging are:
Don’t send in comments that are out of place(sexist, funny joke),
Add hashtags on your comments when you respond to a group’s question, air your opinion or answer a random user’s question. This exposes you to new connections.
In your own post, when people comment on your content, respond back
In other people’s content, ask thoughtful questions about their posts.
5. Give Freely
Give career advice, give daily tips, and share contents and tools that your audience may find useful. Give quality articles, give quality content.
Remember that more people are on Linkedin to consume than create. Take advantage of that fact and be rewarded with growth.
In summary, a linked audience doesn't just get you leads, they can connect you to new areas of your career, keep you updated on recent trends that concern your profession, and or offer you a pool of talented professionals to get your next recruit from