For B2B buyers and sellers, it is critical to be findable on LinkedIn.
You may know that your customers and buyers search for the solution to their problem and have narrowed their options through search, travelling 60% through the buying process before feeling the need to talk to a human. If you are not on their radar and not on the shortlist you have little chance of securing the sale.
When your customers and buyers are searching, where are they going?
For the previous three years, social networks have out-paced search in the share of visits. Well 2017, saw the dominant Google search make a comeback with 34.8% of site visits in 2017, compared to 25.6% from social. It is important to note that search on social cannot be overlooked, many of your customers and buyers have not discounted it.
What happens when you search a name in Google? LinkedIn comes up very near the top of results, followed by YouTube and Facebook depending on the user’s activity. Even Google recognises the importance of social networks.
Search engines are now indexing more social content to include it in their rankings and results pages. One way to stamp out your competition is to use your network to amplify theirs. If you cannot beat them surround them. It is no surprise that search has regained the crown.
What does this mean for you?
If you are not actively engaging in social networks, not only will your customers not find and engage with you but the search will not amplify your activity. That’s a bit like having a shop window (your website) and pulling down the blinds so your customer cannot see inside. If you do not have active, engaging social media accounts, you are less findable.
How do you become findable?
#Hashtags
Even LinkedIn that previously ‘pop-pooed’ #Hashtags has adopted the norm and recognises that it needed to easily search, categorise, organise and filter content and listen to topics that their users found most interesting. For platforms, like Twitter and Instagram, hashtags are an essential ingredient to the social posting strategy, so it is good news that this is uniform across many networks.
Have you noticed that since LinkedIn was taken over by Microsoft it appears to be happily getting cosy with Google? If you are improving SEO on LinkedIn this will, in turn, improve your search results on Google. Whoopee ?
“The big back woof is Facebook, Grandmother is Google and Little Red Riding-hood is LinkedIn – I don’t know, I just made that up!”
Let me Elaborate with 7 Nifty Ways to Amplify Your Impact on LinkedIn:
- Hashtags are the words or phrases after a # sign, it allows the words or phase to be discovered on social media channels. The #Hashtags are keywords that your industry uses when sharing content. Such as I want to be found under #StrategicAccount #SalesSpeaker in my industry there are standards such as #socialselling #B2BSales, #keyaccount #sales what are your industry and professional searchable terms you want to be discovered under?
- I was sitting listening to my speaker friend Philip Calvert #SocialMediaSpeaker at the #PSALondon. He talked about what is ‘Hidden in Plain Sight’ and he said, “know your #Hashtags and know your keywords and then weave them into everything.”
- Once you decide what #keywords you want to be discovered for, you must add it to your LinkedIn summary. Then carefully weave your #keywords throughout your headline and profile, so that it improves my LinkedIn search results.
- When I first did this, I went #hashtag crazy littering my profile with #hashtags. It is a careful balance of ensuring you get found and ensuring your content reads well. Some say not more than 5 #Hashtags others say much more. You could add a specialist list of your #Hashtags at the end of your LinkedIn profile.
- Always add your top 3-5 #hashtags to your status updates and Pulse articles. If you can strategically weave your keyword #hashtags in the content body and headline, at the bottom of the article and when sharing your LinkedIn Pulse article. Really this is no different to what you should do with all your blog articles.
- Do not forget your company pages and groups you want them to get found as well. Best to keep keyword #hashtags to a list of Specialties at the bottom of your About Us page.
- #hashtags are an opportunity to not only get found but to collect date yourself and listen out of opportunities. Ask and answer a question using one of your #hashtags, on other people status updates. Monitor and contribute to the conversations through your industry, niche or topic #hashtags.
I love Twitter and have always found LinkedIn although an incredible resource, it’s user experience is clunky, who knows I might start to fall in love with LinkedIn too.
Let me know if you found this helpful.
