Coming up with content ideas for your LinkedIn profile can feel like such an unnecessary task on top of your already-full workload.
But while you may not see an obvious connection, your posting habits will directly impact the amount of traffic you generate and how much your brand awareness is spread online.
Taking a half hour every week to write and schedule new LinkedIn posts can exponentially increase your engagement–especially if you focus on providing valuable content to your network.
If you share content that humanizes your brand, educates your audience, and keeps them up-to-date about your company in addition to engaging with your audience, you’re sure to see an increase in your business presence online.
Humanize Your Brand
One of the best ways to improve your LinkedIn profile is by using your page to humanize your brand. Unfortunately, the best way to do this is also the most disliked by CEOs and other content promoters.
Humanize your brand by sharing personal content, videos, photos and your own struggles and how you overcame them. LinkedIn has a lot of other highly intelligent leaders who know that business is not all sunshine and roses. If you publish cheery company news all the time you’re going to get a sceptical view from many on the platform.
The more people see your personal life as you talk, give demonstrations, or otherwise engage, the more they feel connected to you. When you’re actively present online, people grow to feel like they know you. This makes them much more likely to come up and introduce themselves at events, comment on your posts, and increase other forms of engagement.
Don’t let content creation stress you out. If you do videos they don’t have to be perfectly recorded with the best lighting, lowest background noise, and your most perfectly put-together appearance. If you prefer text posts start there. Take whatever approach comes naturally to you; the most important thing is to be consistent with the content.
So, instead of spending hours upon hours polishing your content within an inch of its life, just focus on creating content that communicates what you want to say the way you normally speak. This increases the human factor of your content exponentially.
Videos aren’t for every CEO, but they get great engagement on LinkedIn and other platforms. Don’t overthink the topics. If you’re struggling to come up with content ideas for a video, check out a few of these popular options:
- Introduce yourself
- Introduce your company
- Introduce key staff members
- Introduce partnerships
- Deliver quick, industry-relevant tips and tricks
- Send out public thank You’s to partners and others
- Promote events your company is hosting or sponsoring
- Communicate your thoughts and opinions about industry trends
- Share company news
Have your marketing staff and co-founders help out with the video content as well. 54% of consumers want companies to increase the amount of video content they share–, so make sure to always mention your company or something related to your company in each video to capitalize on that benefit.
And remember to always include subtitles with your videos as people are more likely to be scrolling through LinkedIn with their sound turned off. Publish video content on your personal page, share your company’s video content, and republish your most engaging videos on other channels like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram.
Share Educational Content
Educational content is one of the most valuable content types on the market because it guarantees the audience will gain value from interacting with your company. It lets you communicate invaluable company insights, share and predict market trends and reports, explain how certain challenges have affected your success, and teach people how to do certain things.
Let’s dive into each of these educational content-sharing opportunities to better understand how each can bring you a more loyal, engaged audience.
Company Insights
Use your platform to tell your network about your company and industry. Break down what exactly your company is involved in and what your day-to-day functions look like. Share interesting facts about your company that may not be common knowledge to outsiders.
You can also use your platform here to explain what makes your business’s services or products better than your competition’s. Tell audiences which features are unique to your company, and then take even more time to explain how these functions can best benefit them. After all, people like new add-ons to services and products they buy, but they love better benefits. Make sure to focus on how your products can help more than how they work.
Trends, Reports, and Predictions
As the CEO of your company, you’re seen as an industry expert, and you’re certainly seen as an expert on your company. This means that others within your industry and network will look to you to discover the latest industry trends, reports, and predictions.
Let people know what the latest reports are saying about industry-specific operations and studies, set trends that others will follow, and make predictions about the market. The more you do, the more you will be seen as a leader in your industry and the more your company will be thought of as an authority.
Lessons Learned
No one jumps into business knowing everything there is to know about their company, not even a CEO. Use your profile to tell your network about the lessons you’ve learned during your journey to the top. What were the first challenges you faced? How did you overcome them? What seemingly insignificant thing did you learn early on that later proved to be invaluable information? What was the biggest difficulty in your career?
By sharing these life lessons, you not only communicate valuable information to your audience, but you also humanize yourself and your business by revealing things that went wrong, challenges you had to face, and how you were able to become successful despite them.
How To’s
People are constantly learning, and they don’t want to waste their time on content that isn’t educational in some way because it doesn’t benefit them. As an expert in your industry, you have a ton of knowledge that many people in your network don’t have access to, so share quick how-to’s and how-not-to’s to increase your value to your audience.
There are several different ways you can incorporate how-to content on your profile, These include sharing:
- Simple, to-the-point social posts
- Creative infographics
- Videos or video series
- Links to long-form blog posts on specific how-to topics
Complementary Content Sharing
When you find information that is relevant to your industry or company from outside sources, don’t be afraid to share it with your network. Whether you find content from a competitor or a business in a completely separate industry, if you see a way that it’s relevant to your industry and current market trends, post the article or link on your page with a caption explaining its relevance.
This linking of competitor content and connections between seemingly unrelated content helps you show the value of complex problems and complex problem-solving to your audience. Additionally, it shows that you don’t limit your education or reach to your very specific niche—you’re willing to go above and beyond to learn more about other fields and interpret that information in ways that benefit your clients.
Post Achievements and Updates
Don’t be afraid to brag about your company a little bit. Share your accomplishments and any new updates you have to keep your network in the loop about your company’s business. This not only ensures your company stays relevant to your audience but also gives you a chance to showcase how all of your hard work is paying off. And telling people about your success can help encourage them to follow along with your journey more to learn from your example.
Like and Share Your Company’s Posts
One of the easiest ways you can boost your brand’s online presence (and boost your marketing department’s valiant efforts!) is by sharing and resharing your company’s posts on your LinkedIn page.
Businesses–especially those outside of the creative spectrum–don’t get a huge amount of attention from audiences. And typically people would much rather follow other individuals rather than companies and businesses. So, by sharing your company’s content on your page, you’re more likely to reach a wider, more engaged audience.
This isn’t to say you should share everything your company ever posts. You should limit how often you repost because doing so can become repetitive and can cost you some of your network members if your reposting habits get out of hand. Instead, choose the very best content your business shares and reshare that.
And when you re-share content, make sure you include original messages or captions with it. That way, your audience sees that this is something you care about–it’s not just another way for you to share content on a day when you may have forgotten to prepare ahead of time. You can include your thoughts on the piece, tell your audience why you wanted to share that particular piece or leave any other relevant comment.
Engage with Your Network
Engagement is vital to your success. You need people to like, comment, and share your posts to spread brand awareness online. One of the best ways to increase your engagement is by interacting with your audience.
Don’t just leave your posts alone when you post them. Instead, keep coming back to it and interact with people who comment. Engage them in discussions about the topics you’ve covered and let them know you appreciate their comments.
You can take this a step further by going around LinkedIn and commenting on your peer’s posts. This gets you engagement both from your comment with your peer, and it gets you noticed by anyone who sees their post and your comment thread on it.
Key Takeaways
Sharing content that provides value to your audience is one of the best ways you can spread brand awareness and increase your company’s engagement online.
Some of the best content types you can share include posts that humanize your brand, educate your audience, and keep them up-to-date on company news by sharing relevant news in your original posts and by resharing company content. Additionally, don’t forget to keep them engaged by interacting with your comments section and with your peers’ posts.
