The 2020 LinkedIn Creators Guide
On the last week of 2019, the whole world will be writing down their new year’s resolutions. From strict no-carbs till 2pm diets, to countless free subscriptions at your local gym, 2020 is our year.
With the new year quickly approaching let’s make sure we get one thing straight- let’s not stay in 2019. As professionals, we must adapt to the constantly changing market. On the other hand, humans also wish they had a time machine. I missed my chance on the Instagram and Youtube phenomenon. Though it’s entirely possible to still grow an audience on these platforms, I would rather get my hands on the next wave of social media leaders and marketing tactics.
Thank you LinkedIn.
Everyone always talks about the future, when in reality… it’s already here- and the early majority are attracting all the attention.
So how do you “win” on LinkedIn?
Provide more value.
As you may know, content is king and quality combined with quantity is god. To optimize your LinkedIn profile, I gathered content that fits the LinkedIn content ecosystem.
Who are you? Myself.
Simon Sinek is a famous author and an unshakable optimist who believes in a bright future and our ability to build it together(according to his .com). Simon pillars the “golden circle” as the solution to life and even business solutions. If answered correctly, you can start to break some barriers.
Ironically enough, LinkedIn secretly allows you to take this concept and apply it to your everyday profile. Take Jake Bjorseth for example.
Right off the bat, you can make pretty good assumptions about what this guy is all about. Which by the way is another way of saying, “this is who I am, I talk about this niche, take it or leave it”. Without having to scroll down his profile which ultimately sends a notification that you visited his page(pros and cons), your decision to hit the follow button has already been determined. To my elementary school teachers, yes people do judge a book by its cover.
There’s no doubt that Gen Z is slowly taking over the market(40% and increasing to be exact), causing a whole wave of new marketing concepts and aesthetically looking web pages. Industry leaders all over are trying to understand this new breed of consumers. What they like, whom they connect with, and what exactly is causing this generation to be so different. Well, if you want to grow your business by targeting Gen Z, you should probably contact Jake and his team of marketers.
See what just happened there? Considering that Jake and his team of marketers position themselves as generation Z experts, anybody with a problem of marketing to this generation can contact Jake. His company is literally called “Trndsttrs Media,” what else don’t we understand? In business, they call it product-market fit, in Jakes’s situation it’s simply all about person-market fit.
How’s that for a case study?
2020: The year we stop posting new job roles just to archive the app until the next one.
“Congratulate (name) for his/her new (job role) at (company)”.
Listen LinkedIn, if I wanted to hit the like button, I would do so on Instagram. If you think about in a very simplistic view, all social media is are just people giving value to their audience. In return, they expect gratitude(engagement). The best ones, find a way to provide value while at the same time highlighting their own string of accomplishments. Once you understand this concept and how to execute upon it, you can start to open some doors. The LinkedIn community is definitely more welcoming and values people moving up in their career field, but at the end of the day, that’s not causing people to stick.
Instagram carousels, but more professional
Showcase your products, motivational quotes, marketing decks, in this optimized fashion. Grin is an Influencer Marketing software. With all the buzz around the influencer industry as a whole, they had to figure out someway on surpassing the competition. To make potential customers stop, they hit it off with this stunning carousel ad. The style looks familiar, right? That’s because you’ve seen it on platforms like Instagram and Facebook. Don’t limit yourself to just showcasing your products, but also allow yourself to get creative with it. Below is an example of a simple way to distribute your blog content. I took a blog article post and re-purposed it into an aesthetically looking piece of content for my company- Voy Media.
Imagine this as your a-typical carousel post on LinkedIn?
LinkedIn X Youtube
Things that make my online life easier: search bars and not having to go cross-apps just to watch a video I could’ve watched on my feed. Take this piece of content for example. Powerful copywriting mixed with a dynamic youtube video. The best part? I don’t have to switch apps just to preview the first minutes of the video. Time is money, and I hate wasting my time just to watch a video I could’ve watched on my feed. So, save your followers some time and attach your video to the post. We, your audience, will repay you with likes and possibly comments depending on our mood.
The Perfect Post
Personalization, the key to good products, ads, customer service, or in this case, blog posts. Gone are the days of corny headings like, “4 Ways to Increase Your Network”. God, those are the worst kinds of articles to click on… created for SEO traffic rather than providing value to the reader.
With personalization in our bag of tools in mind, let’s breakdown a recent post by Ted Conferences. If you split the post into pieces, you have the caption, image, and the title of the article.
The caption is short and straight to the point. Even better, it touches on specific pain points a reader may have. The image? Personally, I believe the image is what makes or breaks you. Being that it’s the biggest piece of content shown on the feed, you really only have one shot to get your users to stop scrolling. Ted Conferences chose an illustrated, multi-color image to personalize the end-user experience. Last, you have a simple article title. Words “Introvert” and “networking” are the keywords Ted was probably going for, and they executed in simplistic fashion.
The Perfect Post: construct your captions to ignite a specific pain point, use images taken from content creators rather than the first option on google images, and a keyword enhancing, but personalized article title.
Don’t regret this one.
LinkedIn was founded in 2002. The early days of LinkedIn consisted of millions of users with no engagement. People would make a profile, apply to some jobs, and you would never see them again. However, that was when personal branding was never really cool. These days, it seems like not having an online presence only closes doors. Early Instagram influencers leveraged the platform to convince brands to pay for their trip to Bali. Early Youtube fanatics grew audiences with quick 8 minute videos of them flipping off the Walmart lady.
Luckily for you, LinkedIn is a more professional network. If you think about it, creating content for the platform isn’t as hard as you think it is. We spend most of our lives working, hopefully doing something interesting(if not, that’s a whole other subject we should talk about). By looking at the platform as a way to integrate work into your personal brand, content starts to spring right out of you. For example, I love to write, and I sometimes geek out when I see a new marketing trend. I also work in social media. This article is literally about finding your personal brand, and the types of content you can make out of it.
With that being said, please think about the opportunities you can open with an established online presence. If your local 16 year old can get tik-tok famous, I’m sure your meaningful work and perspective can initiate your first wave of followers.
Start now. You don’t want to miss this one.
