Did you know LinkedIn has over 660 million users across the globe?

Meaning the platform is one of the top social networks today.

Now, an important question: Is your business using LinkedIn to its fullest

potential to improve brand awareness, build your network, boost leads and
conversions, increase revenue, and more?

With new social networks sprouting up constantly, LinkedIn is a platform

that often gets underutilized or put on the back burner. But the truth is,
LinkedIn can be extremely powerful — especially when you're aware of all
the platform's hidden features that don't get nearly as much attention as
they deserve.

This guide is chock full of LinkedIn tips you can begin implementing
immediately to help you learn how to use the platform to improve brand
awareness, share your marketing content, and grow your business.

Get the essential guide to using LinkedIn for marketing and professional
networking.

1.

What Is LinkedIn Marketing?

2.

LinkedIn Marketing Best Practices

3.

How to Use LinkedIn

What is LinkedIn marketing?

LinkedIn marketing is the process of using LinkedIn to make connections,
generate leads, improve brand awareness, foster business relationships
and partnerships, share content, and drive traffic to your website. LinkedIn
is an integral part of many successful business' marketing strategies today
because of how effective it can be in expanding professional networks.

When you use LinkedIn to market your business, you gain access to useful
features related to analytics, connections, and brand-building, just to name
a few. (Don't worry, we'll review all of these and more in depth
momentarily.)

But first, here's a quick primer for those of you who may be new to
LinkedIn.

About LinkedIn
LinkedIn launched in 2003 and is primarily centered around career
networking, building, and sharing. The platform enables you to connect and
share content with other professionals including colleagues, potential
employers, business partners, competitors, new employees, and
customers.

This is why having your business on LinkedIn is so powerful — the platform

is a fantastic marketing tool.

Now, let's review the various ways to use LinkedIn to market and grow your
business.

LinkedIn Marketing Best Practices

LinkedIn allows you to drive traffic to your website, identify quality leads,
share your expertise through thought-leadership content, and grow your
network. It's also a great way to market job openings and attract new talent
to your company. These are just some of the reasons why LinkedIn is an
ideal platform for all businesses to market through.

Below, we'll cover LinkedIn marketing best practices and some effective
ways to use the platform. These 28 best practices and steps can be
tailored to your needs — whether you have a personal LinkedIn
 page, business page, or both — no matter your industry or size. However,
you'll notice some of the points we're going to cover are more suited for
businesses looking to boost brand awareness or share content while others
are more tailored towards those looking to recruit and hire new talent.

Let's dive in.

How to Use LinkedIn

1. Customize your public profile URL

2. Add a LinkedIn background photo to your profile

3. Add a ProFinder Badge to your profile

4. Take advantage of the blog and website links on your LinkedIn profile

5. Search engine optimize your LinkedIn profile

6. Add, remove, and rearrange sections of your profile

7. Use Saved Searches and Search Alerts in Recruiter

8. List job opportunities and recruit new talent with LinkedIn's job postings

9. Take advantage of LinkedIn Endorsements

10. Use Open Profile to send messages to people you're not connected to

11. Check your Network Updates or share your own

12. Be identifiable

13. Check out who's viewed your LinkedIn profile

14. Export connections

15. Customize your Connections to grow your professional network

16. Join LinkedIn Groups

17. Create your own LinkedIn Group

18. Communicate with your LinkedIn Group

19. Share your LinkedIn status updates on Twitter

20. Leverage @mentions in your status updates

21. Optimize your LinkedIn Company Page

22. Create LinkedIn Showcase Pages

23. Post company status updates and target them

24. Check out LinkedIn's Content Marketing Score & Trending Content
resources

25. Experiment with LinkedIn's Sponsored Content and Native Ads

26. Share content through LinkedIn's publishing platform

27. Add a Page Follow Button to your website

28. Analyze your LinkedIn marketing performance

1. Customize your public profile URL.

Make your profile look more professional, and easier to share,
by customizing your LinkedIn public profile URL. Instead of a URL with
confusing numbers at the end, it will look nice and clean like
this: http://www.linkedin.com/in/amandazantalwiener.

You can do this by clicking View Profile and then clicking Edit Public Profile
and URL. Here you can change your URL to anything you'd like — such as
your first and last name or business name — assuming it hasn't already
been taken by another LinkedIn user. \

2. Add a LinkedIn background photo to your profile.

In 2014, LinkedIn finally jumped on the cover photo bandwagon and starting
rolling out the ability for users to add a background photo to their personal
profiles. Give your LinkedIn profile a little bit more personality by adding an
on-brand background photo of your own. Keep in mind LinkedIn is
a professional social network, so choose your photo accordingly.
LinkedIn recommends a background photo size of 1584 x 396 pixels, and
that it must be a JPG, PNG, or GIF file under 8MB.

3. Add a ProFinder Badge to your profile.

You might consider adding a ProFinder Badge, which is used to identify
freelancers within LinkedIn's ProFinder. This service matches contractors
with project managers who are seeking help. Freelancers can display a
ProFinder badge on their profiles to show prospective clients their skills,
expertise, and recommendations.
LinkedIn offers two badge themes for you to choose from:

4. Take advantage of the blog and website links on your LinkedIn profile.
You can add links to your portfolio and social networks to your LinkedIn
page. You can also add links to your content and business information to
increase clicks. This feature allows you to draw greater attention to specific
areas of your page to drive traffic elsewhere.

For example, if you produced a podcast, you can share links to your
episodes on LinkedIn (e.g. SoundCloud tracks) to promote your work.

5. Search engine optimize your LinkedIn profile.

Search engine optimization (SEO) isn't limited to blogging — you can also
optimize your profile to get discovered by people searching LinkedIn for key
terms you want to be found for. You can add these keywords to various
sections of your profile, such as your headline, your summary, or your work
experience.
Download a free SEO starter pack to learn everything you need to know about
optimizing your business's content.
6. Add, remove, and rearrange sections of your profile.
You can edit and reorder sections of your LinkedIn profile to highlight
specific pieces of information in any way you see fit. When you're in edit
mode, simply hover your mouse over the double-sided arrow in each
section. Your mouse will turn into a four-arrow icon, at which point you can
click, drag, and drop to another position on your profile.
7. Use Saved Searches and Search Alerts in Recruiter.
If you use LinkedIn Recruiter, you can use Saved Searches to save your
search criteria — if you're marketing job opportunities via LinkedIn, this is a
great addition to your tool belt.
With the feature, you can save as many searches as you want and receive
alerts when new candidates match your filter refinements and criteria. You
can elect to receive daily or weekly search alerts from the system about
relevant results via the Recruiter homepage.
8. List job opportunities and recruit new talent with LinkedIn's job postings.
And speaking of your business's open job opportunities, don't forget to add
and market your new positions on the LinkedIn Jobs page.

Here, candidates can learn about your business and openings by searching
for specific keywords such as job title, industry, location, salary, experience
level, and more.

9. Take advantage of LinkedIn Endorsements.

LinkedIn offers a feature called Endorsements — this allows you to
recognize the skills people you work with (such as employees, colleagues,
freelancers, or partners) have to offer.

You can promote and endorse the skills of the people you work closest with
to help refer them for other work, make their profiles more impressive,
show your support, and more.
10. Use Open Profile to send messages to people you're not connected to.

To branch out and make new connections with potential partners,

customers, and other industry leaders, you might want to send them a
personalized message.

With the exception of fellow LinkedIn Group members, the platform only

allows you to send messages to people who you share a first-degree
connection with. But did you know some people let you send them
messages anyway, even if you're not connected?
Here's how that works: The ability to be part of the Open Profile network is
only available to Premium account holders, but it allows those users to be
available for messaging by any other LinkedIn member regardless of
membership type.
Additionally, there are options for sending messages to those with whom
you're not yet connected, similar to sending a request to connect with a
note (though we don't recommend overusing this technique). Additionally, if
you have a premium account, you can use InMail.
11. Check your Network Updates (or share your own).
Found on your LinkedIn homepage, Network Updates are essentially
LinkedIn's version of the Facebook News Feed. Check this feed
periodically for a quick snapshot of what your connections, customers,
competitors, and others are up to and sharing. You can also share updates
of your own, such as details about your products or services and
noteworthy content your business has created and published.

You may choose to sign up for email notifications or sort by "Top Updates"
or "Recent Updates" to filter your feed in any way you choose.

12. Be identifiable.

Your LinkedIn profile visitors should recognize it as yours to the moment

they look at it. A great way to make your profile easily identifiable and on-
brand with your other marketing content is by ensuring your profile's name,
headline, and other simple identifiers are easily viewable to any visitor.
Make sure these features on on brand, match your other marketing
content, and are uniquely yours.

Note: You should always have your Public Profile setting enabled as well,

to be visible and identifiable for your audience.
13. Check out who's viewed your LinkedIn profile.

Learn a little about your audience members, potential leads, and customers
who are viewing your profile and marketing content that you're sharing on
LinkedIn.

How? With the Who Viewed Your Profile feature.

This tool, which is accessible in the main navigation via the Profile
dropdown, enables you to identify the exact people who have visited your
page. You can see how you stack up against the profile views for your
connections, other businesses like yours, and more.

14. Export connections.

Now, it's no secret that you can use the connections you make on LinkedIn
to drive traffic to your site and grow your base of paying customers.
 Exporting your connections — to a contact management system, for example
— is a great place to start.

Under your Advanced Settings, you can start exporting your LinkedIn
connections.

15. Customize your Connections to grow your professional network.

LinkedIn offers features to help you grow your professional network and
make valuable connections. There are several ways to do this depending on
what you're looking to accomplish.

Here are some examples:

 Add, view, and remove connections depending on their level of value to

your business.

 Control who can see your connections — maybe you do or don't want your
competitors to see that list of people.

 Leverage your second and third-degree connections to grow your network

and build new relationships.

 Import and sync your contacts from your email and other sources to stay in
touch with colleagues, partners, leads, and customers across the board. These
connections will see your content in multiple places so they learn more about who
you are as a business, deepening their relationship with your brand.

16. Join LinkedIn Groups.

LinkedIn Groups are a great way to make connections with people who are
in, or interested in, your industry. They serve as a hub for you and other
members to share content, grow your contact list, establish yourself as an
expert in the field, and boost brand awareness.

There are a number of other benefits that come from joining LinkedIn
Groups. For example, by joining Groups related to your industry and
participating in discussions within those groups,  you'll exhibit thought
leadership in your industry.

Additionally, by joining Groups, you can view complete profiles of other

members of the same group without being connected. Also, if you're a
member of the same group as another user, LinkedIn allows you to send
up to 15 free 1:1 messages to fellow group members per month (typically,
you can only do this if you're a first-degree connection).

17. Create your own LinkedIn Group.

Consider creating a LinkedIn Group of your very own, like HubSpot did with
the popular Inbound Marketers Group.

You can use your group to establish yourself as a thought leader in your
industry, grow a community of advocates, generate new marketing content
ideas, promote brand awareness, and generate new leads. 
18. Communicate with your LinkedIn Group.

And on that note, there are more reasons to create your own Group on
LinkedIn. In fact, one of the perks of managing a LinkedIn Group is that
LinkedIn makes it simple to interact and communicate with the members of
the Group you're in charge of.

You can either send messages to group members or create a group post.

Sending messages allows you to write a member of your group directly, or
share content with them, from your group's page. This is great if you have
something to share with a specific person in your group. Creating a group
post allows you to share any content you'd like on your group's page which
is ideal for initiating a discussion.  
19. Share your LinkedIn status updates on Twitter.
Add your Twitter account to your LinkedIn profile so you can share status
updates across platforms. This is also a great way to boost your Twitter
follower and LinkedIn connection counts.

For example, if you're posting an update to LinkedIn that you'd also like
your Twitter followers to see, you can easily syndicate that update to
Twitter by selecting the Public + Twitter option in the dropdown menu within
the LinkedIn update composer.
20. Leverage @mentions in your status updates.

Want another LinkedIn user or company to see your status update? On

LinkedIn, you have the ability to tag — or @mention — users and other
companies in your status updates much like the way it works on Facebook,
Twitter, or Instagram.

Include the @ symbol immediately followed by the user's/ company's name

in your status update or post. As a result, that user/ company will be alerted
that you mentioned them, and their name will also link to their profile/ page
in the status update itself. This is a great way to boost engagement and
interaction on your content as well as improve brand awareness.

21. Design all aspects of your LinkedIn page.

The design of LinkedIn pages has changed a lot over the years. Make sure
yours is set up correctly and optimized for the latest layout, featuring a
compelling and high-quality banner image.

Take a look at what HubSpot's Company Page looks like for inspiration:

Use guides and templates to discover the best ways to design your LinkedIn page
optimal business, marketing, and professional networking.
22. Create LinkedIn Showcase Pages.
LinkedIn Showcase Pages are niche pages that branch off your business's
page to highlight specific initiatives and campaigns or feature specific
content you're working on.
Think of Showcase Pages as extensions of your main page that allow you to
promote specific products or cater to your individual marketing personas —
this provides a more personalized and targeted experience for your page
visitors. This is great way to expand your network on LinkedIn because
other users can choose to follow your Showcase Page(s) even if they
haven't followed your main page.
23. Post company status updates and target them.
Publish Status Updates for your business on your LinkedIn page for your
followers to see. This keeps your LinkedIn connections engaged and in the
loop regarding your business's latest developments, work, content, and
updates. In your status updates, you can share written information, images,
videos, documents, and more.
You can also post Targeted LinkedIn Status Updates tailored towards
specific people and groups within your audience. To do this, use criteria
such as company size, industry, job function, seniority, geography,
language, or by including/ excluding company employees.

These targeted updates will appear on your page — or Showcase Page —

as well as on LinkedIn for the targeted users (specifically, in their Network
Updates feed).
24. Check out LinkedIn's Content Marketing Score & Trending Content
resources.
You can learn how impactful your organic and paid LinkedIn marketing
content is with the platform's Content Marketing Score and Trending
Content resources.

Your Content Marketing Score tells you your impact on LinkedIn by

measuring overall audience engagement with your content. Trending
Content tells you which topics you are posting and sharing content about
that are resonating with specific audience groups on the platform, allowing
you to optimize your content for greater impact.

25. Experiment with LinkedIn Sponsored Content and Native Ads.

If you're looking to complement your organic LinkedIn marketing efforts with
some paid advertising, LinkedIn Ads are a smart choice. One of the
biggest benefits of LinkedIn advertising: the targeting options.

LinkedIn’s PPC ads let you target specific job titles, job functions,
industries, or company size, to name a few — you know, the people who
are more likely to want/ need what you sell.

If you want to get started with LinkedIn's advertising platform, check out
our free guide to advertising on LinkedIn.
26. Share content through LinkedIn's publishing platform.
Good news! You no longer have to be a LinkedIn Influencer to publish new
articles to LinkedIn. Publishing is available to all users on the platform.
Experiment with how this feature can support your marketing goals by
creating content and promoting it on your your business's LinkedIn page.

For example, you might experiment with syndicating content from your blog
to LinkedIn — this way, you can promote subscription to your blog via
LinkedIn.

27. Add a Page Follow Button to your website.

You can add the LinkedIn Company Follow button to your website to
promote your company's LinkedIn presence and the content you share on
the platform. When your website visitors click to "Follow" your LinkedIn
page via your site, they'll automatically become connected to you and be
able to view your company's latest updates on the platform.
This is great way to boost your engagement and number of connections on
LinkedIn by driving traffic to the platform directly from your website.

28. Analyze your LinkedIn marketing performance.

So ... how are your LinkedIn marketing efforts faring? Analyzing your efforts
and making necessary adjustments is critical to your success on the
platform.

LinkedIn has in-depth page analytics as well as reporting tools for

businesses to evaluate overall performance. There are specific data about
how effective your status updates, content, and reach are as well as details
about your page's engagement and followers (like audience member
demographics).
Begin Marketing on LinkedIn
Are you ready to get started marketing your business on LinkedIn?

With so many updates and additions to LinkedIn since its launch, we can't
wait to see how the network continues to make itself an integral resource
and platform for marketers, job seekers, candidate seekers, and other
professionals. Get started marketing on LinkedIn by experimenting with the
best practices that make the most sense for your business.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in August 2017 and has been
updated for comprehensiveness.