How to Build and Leverage Your Personal Brand on LinkedIn

We all know the phrase first impressions count. Thanks to social media, that first impression now happens before your first meeting with a client. Your social presence, specifically LinkedIn, is a fantastic opportunity for you to breathe life into your business, showing people the personality behind the brand.

Research shows a direct correlation between time spent on developing your personal brand and consumer trust. 82% of customers trust a company when their senior management members are active on social media (GoGulf, 2013).89% of top performing sales people say social networking platforms, such as LinkedIn, are important in closing deals and are part of their sales strategy (SuperOffice, 2020)So this tells us the old adage still rings true – people buy from people and connections matter.

Check out the competition

This is an important litmus test. Before you can start developing your social strategy and content plans, it’s vital to research what your competitors are doing on LinkedIn and use it to your advantage. Look at their most successful posts. What types of content do the people in your desired market engage with? What are the key themes that people are discussing? Think about how you could create content that responds to the conversations you’re seeing in the comments, or start a conversation that matters to you.

Define your tone of voice

When everyone is talking, it’s hard to cut through the noise and make an impression. It’s not about being bold and extrovert. Ithat’s simply not you, it won’t ring true with your audience. Try to find your authentic voice, own your material and don’t be afraid to voice your opinions. Remember, you’re an expert in your business and there’s nobody who knows that story better than you. If you need help telling it, that’s OK. A trusted provider can help guide you on that and draw out the key elements your audience will find most engaging.

Getting started

A basic but important first step is to ensure your profile is up to dateAs mentioned previously, first impressions count and if your profile doesn’t reflect your current role or campaigns you’re working on, it’s going to jar with your audience. Take control of this and let people know you’ve got it covered. Think of it as your own personal elevator pitch. Let people know that connecting with you will open the door to interesting content and opportunities.

Consistency matters

It’s easy to get caught up with posting furiously when you start out because enthusiasm is high, then letting it slide during more hectic times. Consistency is the key to success. An easy way to stay on track is to put together a content schedule. Planning ahead doesn’t mean a dearth of creativity – mix up scheduled content with more spontaneous posts that capitalise on topical industry news.

Content rules

Everyone talks about engaging content but think hard about what this means to you. Maybe you’re a natural storyteller who finds it easy to weave the fabric of daily business life into anecdotes and thoughts that spark ideas. Maybe you’re a direct person who sees something incredible and can’t help but hit share. Whatever your preferred methods, write content that’s enjoyable to read and include relevant hashtags for your industry and target audience. You can even see how many people are following that hashtag just by searching for it (no magic required!).

Get connected

LinkedIn is all about connections; even the biggest influencers send regular InMails and invest time and attention to growing their network through quality, shareable content. They do it because they know it’s the key to staying relevant and part of the conversation.

Join the industry groups that are relevant to your business. This is not only great for refining your content strategy; it provides valuable insight into your customers challenges. If you see a conversation where you can solve a customer problem or offer relevant advice or insight, don’t be afraid to join in. The same principle applies to companies in your target markethit follow, pay attention and engage with their posts.

Connect to people you’ve met at events and webinars. You have a golden opportunity to check in and take that conversation forward. When you’re connecting to people within your industry and target audience – always use a personalised messageThe personal touch will be appreciated and give you the opportunity to have a meaningful on-going conversation that could lead somewhere mutually beneficial.

Don’t forget to review the ‘people also viewed’ section. The great thing about LinkedIn is even with a free account you can build a solid base of qualified contacts, and a little desk research can help you build out a decision-maker map that could be extremely valuable for future campaigns.

Beyond the basics

If you have a company page, utilise the 100 credits available per month to invite your connections to follow the page. 1 invite = 1 credit. When the invitation is accepted, the credit is returned for you to use again, and you’ll receive 100 new credits on the 1st of each calendar month. Don’t let them go to waste as this is a quick and effective way to grow your audience.

If you have the means, it’s worth upgrading to a Premium account or Sales Navigator to take advantage of additional features such as CRM integrations and custom lists. Consider sending regular InMails to engage with your audience – it’s a valuable campaign tool you can easily align with any other regular digital communications and email marketing campaigns.

Invest the time and you will see the benefit

Schedule time in your day to work on your personal brand. If you don’t have the time and headspace to give it the attention it deserves, we can help.

Air Marketing help individuals and businesses unlock the power of a thriving personal brand. We build intelligent marketing capabilities using a mixture of proven marketing tactics to reach your target audience and produce marketing qualified leads for your sales team.

If you’d like to talk more about how we can drive tangible results from your social channels and personal branding strategy, get in touch today on 0345 241 3038.

Five reasons you should consider outsourcing sales and lead generation during uncertain times

If there’s one thing we’ve all become a lot more familiar with in 2020, it’s uncertainty. In unprecedented times, only the most creative, agile and willing to innovate will emerge thriving. When the world shifts on its axis you have to be open to change, embrace whatever your ‘new normal’ is shaping up to be and stay focused on your future goals.

Headspace to focus on core operations

Nobody can deny that operational challenges have been the show stealers in recent months; everybody has been rightly focused on ensuring their teams can access the resources they need to perform their day jobs and connect with their colleagues. Social distancing and homeschooling have had a massive impact on how and when people work. The upshot? A different way of working and a greater focus on making things work in the short-term. All of this is undeniably vital work but it does mean that sales and lead generation strategies will not be getting the time and attention required to ensure they’re successful. Outsourcing to a trusted expert, gives you the peace of mind that this is being taken care of while working life resumes to some sort of normality.

Greater flexibility on costs in unpredictable conditions

In what seems like constant change, it pays to be flexible. Maybe you had recently recruited a lead generation team who you planned to nurture and grow, and that’s now been understandably delayed. Maybe you’ve had to deliver serious cost savings to keep your head above water. Through outsourcing sales and lead generation you can scale up and down as you need to, pay for the days and services that are most vital to your strategy at that time. If that changes, you can work collaboratively with an expert to get the mix of services right for your current needs and budget.

Access to expertise

This neatly brings us on to one of the standout benefits of outsourcing: access to proven expertise. The burden of developing and retaining sales talent rests with your supplier, so even if you don’t have the means to invest, you can be sure they have and therefore achieve economies of scale. Experienced sales experts who are used to target driven, fast-paced environments will be able to deliver the quality leads you need to build a healthy pipeline and act as an extension of your in-house teams.

Dedicated resource focused on growing your brand and refining your audience

Refining your target market, finding the correct decision makers and generating high quality leads that convert to sales, require a consistent approach. To get the maximum value out of these activities, substantial time needs to be dedicated to getting them right. Even your top salespeople will struggle to balance converting what’s hot right now, with nurturing those slow burner leads that will pay dividends in the future. Engaging an expert to work with you, ensures this vital but time consuming work is removed from their desks, so they can better focus on converting the big deals that will deliver immediate cash flow.

Reduces risk in an already uncertain time

We touched on this a little earlier. Risk is a big deal for businesses at any time but in the current climate, reducing risk can feel seriously empowering. There’s not much we can control at the moment, so if you can look to someone with a proven track record in delivering successful sales and lead generation campaigns, you can be confident that your investment is protected. At Air Marketing we work with clients to create a tailored, blend of services that will deliver the best conversion rates in their desired market. If you’d like to hear more about how we can help your business grow or show you how we’ve helped businesses from all sectors achieve success. Get in touch today or call us on 0345 241 3038. Or hear more from our existing customers here.