text: LinkedIn is much more than a means of posting your CV or seeking employment. The professional social platform is a powerful tool for making business connections, building brand awareness and even generating leads. Yes, the target market varies depending on your business but the same practices can be applied. LinkedIn should be an essential part of your digital marketing strategy for 2015.
  LinkedIn now has over 300 Million users worldwide. The popularity of the platform continues to grow and none more so than in the Middle East with over 11 Million users. The growing popularity of social media in the Arab world is ever present and the UAE in particular leads the way, with a penetration rate of 22.4%. Here is a breakdown of LinkedIn users Worldwide:
  As part of any inbound marketing strategy, content is now playing a big role not only from a Google perspective but many are now incorporating LinkedIn as a core part of the content strategy. Here are some tips that will help you get more leads:
  Know Your Audience
  Knowing your audience is half the battle, try and identify your target market. Look at the stats; are they male, between 25 and 35 or are they working in a specific industry. This tip applies both to B2C and B2B companies. Staying with the B2B side, I will always remember a quote from a guest speaker during my days in college, he said "LinkedIn is an open door to connect with some of the most influential people". He had a point, I mean all it takes is a bit of research and the more specific you are the better your results. For example, I identified Nexa as one of the leading Digital Agencies in the UAE prior to making the move to Dubai. A quick search on LinkedIn identified some of their main employees including the CEO, Managing Director and Head of Social Media. I put myself forward and tried connecting with them. Once accepted, I simply dropped them all a line prior to my move, a few days after arrival I had an interview and landed a job. I know you may be reading this and thinking that does not help me get more leads but rest assured I have applied the same principles in my role and brought in business via LinkedIn.
  Stay front of Mind
  You have now defined your audience and connected with some possible customers but what next? Stay front of mind by posting daily updates or sharing weekly blog posts. It is important not to spam your contacts. Be strategic and post something that your audience may find interesting and engage with. LinkedIn has a different algorthim to Facebook in that posts stay visible for longer and normally tend to stay there for a number of days. Posting information that is relevant to your industry also helps build credibility among your connections, this may have an intangible return as often indirectly someone in your contact sphere may refer you because they have seen your articles on LinkedIn.
  Use LinkedIn Advertising
  The great thing about LinkedIn is how you can be targeted in your approach when advertising. Sponsored posts allow you to target Job Title/Position/Company Name/Groups as well as the ones you may be used to like Gender/Age Group and location.This is an excellent method to promote content for the target audience with a strong call to action. It is important to track conversion so it may be worth building out a dedicated landing page for this.
  Pulse is a platform that allows you to publish articles on LinkedIn. If the content is of high quality people will engage and the platform picks up on this interaction and starts to push it out to others as recommended. It also has nice visible tracking so you can see how many times your article has been viewed, liked, commented on and shared.
  The above tips form part of an overall content marketing strategy for LinkedIn. I will now list some other key points you should do prior to activating your campaign:
  - Have an Updated Profile
  - Join Groups
  - Have Keywords in your Personal and Company Page
  - Be Active.... engage, like, comment, share
  - Get your Custom URL:
  - Build Relationships
  If you would like to talk more about using LinkedIn for your business, download our free E-Book by clicking on the link below.