Most marketing teams SUCK at LinkedIn, there I said it!
Now before you take that offensively, this may not apply to you (or it might be the tough love that you need to start using it right )
Out of the hundreds of companies that I’ve worked with over the last 5+ years, at least 80% of their marketing teams have sucked at using LinkedIn. (The sales teams have also been terrible at using it, but I’ll cover that in my next blog)
When I say they suck, this is what I mean:
- They’re generating MINIMAL (if any) results from it
- Their content gets MINIMAL (if any) engagement
- They’re generating MINIMAL (if any) leads from it
What’s WORSE is that they are then usually also responsible for training the sales team on how to use it!
So you’ve got people who DON’T know how to use LinkedIn training others how to use it
Look, I get it
You don’t know what you don’t know
But if you don’t know how to use it and you aren’t generating results from it then go out there and LEARN how to use it properly
I’ll help you get started…
Here are the top 3 mistakes most marketing teams make on LinkedIn (and how you can do it right):
1) They ONLY share boring corporate blogs and updates!
This is one of the worst things I see companies doing on LinkedIn. All they do, day in and day out, is share BORING company updates and blogs.
Firstly, those blogs get ZERO engagement and generate ZERO traffic and leads. Secondly, they then go and tell the sales team to just RE-SHARE them!!!
I hate to break it to you, but most people DON’T want to read your company blogs
They want value. They want interesting content, insightful, educational, motivational, and entertaining content.
My advice? At least 80% of your content going out from your company pages on LinkedIn should be VALUABLE to your audience. It shouldn’t be content about YOU, it should be content for THEM. Here are a few ideas:
- Share the latest industry news & insights
- Interview industry experts and share their tips
- Share an industry-relevant meme that your prospects/customers will find funny
- Share industry relevant statistics and data that’s interesting
2) They let the company team have SCRUFFY profiles
When you go onto a company page and look through the employee list, most companies look extremely scruffy.
- Some profiles have profile photos, some don’t
- Some profiles have backgrounds, some don’t
- Some profiles are filled in, some aren’t
It’s the equivalent of letting your prospects and customers walk into your office and see all of the employees dressed differently (with most not dressed very well). Some are in tracksuits, some are wearing old worn-out clothes, it doesn’t make a good impression at all!
Your company team should have great LinkedIn profiles that look uniform. Yes, each profile will be filled differently for the individual person, but they should all have the same style of professional profile photo. They should all have the same professional background.
You want your prospects and customers to see a professional-looking company when they visit your company page and look through the team.
- Create a strong background image for the team to use
- When you can, get professional photos done for everyone
- Guide them to fill out all sections
- Help them write engaging summaries
- Send them good media to upload onto their profile
3) They’re not driving the traffic in an EFFECTIVE way
If you want to turn LinkedIn into a lead generation tool, you need to have good processes to drive and convert that traffic.
Most marketing teams, unfortunately, have nothing in place and so end up quite literally flushing money down the toilet
There are 3 places you want to drive traffic on LinkedIn:
1) Drive them to your website where you can hopefully convert them into a lead
2) Drive them to follow your LinkedIn company page
3) Drive them to connect or follow individuals who work for the company
Good marketing teams should be doing all three of those things regularly. They should be sending lots of traffic to the website, they should be growing lots of followers for the company page on LinkedIn and they should be helping the team grow their individual audiences as well.
Now if you follow tip 1 and start creating GOOD value giving content, you’ll start to see an increase in traffic. Here are a few tips to help direct that traffic:
- Tag your team into posts when writing about them or sharing their insights to drive people to go to their profiles
- Have links to their LinkedIn profiles on the website and in email signatures
- Run competitions with the entry being to follow your company page
- Share successes from the team in posts and tag them in
So there you go, most marketing teams in my experience, unfortunately, suck at using LinkedIn. However, it’s not the end of the world, you have time to change!
Hopefully, this blog has given you some areas to start with
Next week I’ll be turning my attention to the SALES TEAM and will write about why most sales teams SUCK at using LinkedIn as well. Stay tuned
Would you like to learn how to get MORE from LinkedIn? More Leads, More Sales & More Revenue?
On Tuesday 6th October I am running the first-ever LIVE online LinkedIn Masterclass!!
This 2-hour webinar will cover everything you need to know to start generating more from LinkedIn from as little as just 15-minutes per day.
For more details and to secure your place, head to the event page right here.
Thank you again for taking the time to read this blog! If you enjoyed this post please click LIKE and click SHARE to share it with your network. If you enjoyed it please do take time to read some of my other recent posts:
Just Pick Up The Phone and Call!
The Modern-Day Sales Prospecting Stack
The 10 Things That Will NEVER Change In Sales
About the author:
Daniel Disney is one of the world’s leading Sales, Social Selling, and LinkedIn experts and is the author of the #1 Amazon Best Selling book, “The Million-Pound LinkedIn Message“.
Daniel is currently working with companies all over the world to deliver LIVE LinkedIn & Social Selling virtual training sessions. For more information please email contact@thedailysales.net
