Can You Get ROI from LinkedIn Activity?

In the last few years, we’ve noticed a sig­nif­i­cant increase of exec­u­tives and lead­ers request­ing our assis­tance with LinkedIn – from pol­ish­ing up their pres­ence on the plat­form to devel­op­ing con­tent for them to help engage with their con­nec­tions and fol­low­ers more deeply.

LinkedIn, like all social media plat­forms, is con­stant­ly evolv­ing, and we often find our­selves respond­ing to ques­tions like, “How do I make sure I’m get­ting a return on my invest­ment of time and ener­gies to this plat­form?” or, “I’m a busy leader and I don’t have spare time to devote to a social media site that’s for job search­ing, how will I know if it’s worth it?”

While LinkedIn is well-known for being a plat­form that helps job seek­ers, the site’s vision is to broad­ly “cre­ate eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ty for every mem­ber of the glob­al work­force.” It’s where pro­fes­sion­als go to net­work and dis­cuss new ideas, trends, and cel­e­brate suc­cess­es. The ROI of lead­ers engag­ing in the plat­form is in the vis­i­bil­i­ty – fuel­ing growth (prospect and part­ner recog­ni­tion), attract­ing tal­ent, cus­tomer engage­ment and reten­tion. “Eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ty” comes in many forms depend­ing on your role and goals.

Growth

The strate­gic, big-pic­ture busi­ness con­ver­sa­tions tak­ing place on LinkedIn today are oppor­tu­ni­ties for growth. By neglect­ing to par­tic­i­pate in these indus­try-lead­ing con­ver­sa­tions, exec­u­tives could miss out on big oppor­tu­ni­ties. And this isn’t just B2C exec­u­tives – B2B deci­sion-mak­ers and lead­ers are using LinkedIn to research and make buy­ing deci­sions just as often.

Tal­ent

Attract­ing and retain­ing pre­mi­um tal­ent starts at the C‑level these days. Today’s tal­ent is look­ing for lead­ers whose val­ues, per­spec­tives and approach­es they align with, and busi­ness lead­ers have myr­i­ad oppor­tu­ni­ties to share their pas­sions on LinkedIn. Rec­og­niz­ing team mem­bers and employ­ees on the plat­form can go a long way for morale boost­ing and over­all reten­tion, too – LinkedIn can be just as much a tal­ent reten­tion tool as it can be a tal­ent acqui­si­tion tool.

Cus­tomer Engage­ment & Retention

Today’s cus­tomers are look­ing for vis­i­bil­i­ty from the lead­ers of the brands they buy, and the ones they may buy. When your team’s exec­u­tives and lead­ers are vis­i­bly engaged on LinkedIn, it helps forge rela­tion­ships, increase trust, and nur­ture a pos­i­tive reputation.

If you’re look­ing to dip your toes in the LinkedIn waters and don’t know where to start, here are a few sim­ple suggestions:

1. Clean up your pro­file: Make your head­line work for you. If you’re build­ing a team, state that. If you’re seek­ing part­ners, men­tion that. Use your “About” sec­tion to share more about what you do, who you are, how you can help oth­ers, and what you might be look­ing for. This sec­tion doesn’t have to read like a cov­er let­ter, it can be a sales pitch, an ad for why oth­ers should join your com­pa­ny, or any­thing else you need it to be!

Make sure you’re fol­low­ing rel­e­vant pro­fes­sion­al groups, that you’re con­nect­ed with for­mer and cur­rent col­leagues, and that you list out enough details in your resume sec­tion that peo­ple can get a quick under­stand­ing of your experience.

If you want help with your pro­file, or think you need a com­plete over­haul, give us a shout – we’re always hap­py to con­duct an audit from a third-par­ty perspective.

2. Try out a few kinds of posts: If you’re look­ing to share thought lead­er­ship in your indus­try, try a few dif­fer­ent approach­es and see what sticks. Re-share an arti­cle that res­onates with you and expand on some of the points, or draft a mini blog post (a para­graph or two) on a top­ic that you’re pas­sion­ate or curi­ous about. Images often per­form well on LinkedIn, so try shar­ing a pic­ture of a team you’re proud of, or a part­ner you are pleased to work with. Exper­i­ment­ing a bit will help you dis­cov­er what your fol­low­ers and net­work are most inter­est­ed in seeing.

3. Engage with oth­ers: Like any kind of social media chan­nel, remem­ber it’s not a mega­phone – you can’t blast your con­tent out and expect every­one to pay atten­tion, you should inter­act with oth­ers as well. Spend a few min­utes scrolling your feed every few days, and com­ment on the posts that inter­est you. If some­one shares thoughts you agree with, expand on them in the com­ments. If some­one has tak­en the time to cre­ate a neat graph­ic or arti­cle that res­onates, share it on your own feed (with attri­bu­tion, of course) and explain what you like about it.

Cus­tomers, part­ners, employ­ees, and prospects all want to see brand exec­u­tives as thought lead­ers and experts in their field. Oppor­tu­ni­ties are being dis­cussed, tal­ent is eval­u­at­ing poten­tial employ­ers (and vice ver­sa), and cus­tomers want to know more about the lead­ers of the brands they invest in. Maybe you can’t put a price on that involve­ment, but when your com­peti­tors’ lead­ers are engag­ing in these con­ver­sa­tions, can you afford not to participate?