Marketing to HR professionals? Here are 5 ways LinkedIn can help
When you’re marketing to HR decision makers and wanting to get yourself and your messages in front of the HR team, it can be tough to choose where to focus your time and effort. There are so many options from PR to nurture campaigns, and from in-person events to podcasts.
One thing must be in your arsenal: LinkedInTM.
Of course, it’s easy to set up a profile, sign up to numerous groups, get inundated with low-quality posts and notifications, and then shift it down your list of priorities. But with HR decision-makers you need to engage with all being there, take time to relook at how you use LinkedIn.
Below are five ways to check that you are getting the most from your LinkedIn presence. I’ve also included a raft of resources to help you dig deeper into each topic.
Would you connect with you? How to get your personal profile right
Think of your profile as your landing page. It needs to be enticing, packed with your personality, as well as your skills. And it needs to sell. The days of LinkedIn being nothing more than your online CV are long gone. You need a professional photo that reflects your business style, an appealing headline, and a clear statement of how you can help your customers and clients. And this will no doubt have changed over the years. If you’re selling to HR professionals, they need to see your value instantly.
Unless you’re a major corporation, the chances are your LinkedIn page will turn up in search results ahead of your own company website. An unloved profile will be found. So, take a look at your LinkedIn profile and see if you sound like someone you’d like to know.
If sales writing isn’t your thing, you might want to pay someone to create an attractive LinkedIn profile for you – and there are numerous webinars too you can join for some top tips. Let me know if you want a recommendation.
Alternatively, take a look at Forbes’s LinkedIn profile guide or LinkedIn’s own for some pointers.
Why you need a LinkedIn company page
As well as showcasing your skills via a personal page, you can grab even more LinkedIn real estate by creating a company page. Though there are mixed opinions on how effective company pages are, adding one has its benefits – even if you are a lone sole trader!
First of all, there’s the SEO value. A LinkedIn company page delivers another opportunity to turn up in search results. You can add your logo and branding to the company page as well. So, when you list yourself as working for your business on your personal page, your logo shows up instead of the LinkedIn generic placeholder. At the very least, that’s a nice dose of polish and professionalism.
A LinkedIn company page also allows you to run ads and share contents and posts from people who work for you. For more on the value of a company page and what to put on it, check out John Espirian’s LinkedIn guide. And DreamHost’s post walks you through the steps of LinkedIn page creation.
Expert articles show you can help solve HR challenges
If you’re active on LinkedIn but only create posts, you’re missing an opportunity to show your audience you understand their human resources challenges.
LinkedIn now allows anyone to create and share articles of up to 40,000 characters (around 8,000 words). That’s a lot of space to explore a topic and deliver information that leaves your HR readers wiser and you looking smarter.
Maybe you blog already? Why put content you’ve toiled over on LinkedIn, rather than your website?
LinkedIn has over 645 million users. Articles sit on your profile for anyone to view, whether they’re connected to you or not. So, the audience your article can reach is probably substantially larger on LinkedIn than your own site.
You also don’t have to choose. Post your blog on your company website and, once it’s been indexed by Google (so Google knows that’s the original), share it on LinkedIn too. Add a link back to your website at the end, and it might drive some traffic.
Opinions differ on whether duplicating content across sites is harmful. But assuming you’re not engaged in constant mass generation of spam, reusing content this way is a sensible marketing strategy to find the HR professionals you can help.
There are some excellent guides to creating engaging and shareable LinkedIn articles from people who do it all the time. Amy George, John Popomaronis and John Espirian offer tips. And if you want to know why 5 or 9 subheads are far better than 6, or why your title should be 40-49 characters, Noah Kagan at OkDork offers his analysis of 3,000 successful LinkedIn articles.
Why you should join LinkedIn HR groups
Joining and being an active and engaged member of LinkedIn HR groups could be the smartest marketing move you’ll ever make. There are hundreds of thousands of senior human resources leaders using LinkedIn to stay on top of industry challenges and solutions every day.
The benefits of group membership are four-fold. You can:
See what matters to your target customers, giving you data to hone your product and your buyer persona.
Join in the conversation naturally, commenting and sharing your experience and expertise to boost your authority.
Message others in your group, even if they’re not in your network - dramatically increasing your network reach.
Post questions to generate discussion and insights you can use to shape your marketing campaigns.
But let’s be very clear: membership is not about delivering a sales pitch. If you race to push a product or service, you’ll harm your reputation irreparably and might even get barred.
Use the group to genuinely help people, and you’ll find yourself a trusted resource to those you most want to engage. Talk sense and add value, and you’ll soon have visitors heading to your profile page to make contact.
I have witnessed, firsthand, a client ‘hold back’ from posting a comment as other HR suppliers wade in with their ‘solution’ to the problem and then post a short pithy and insightful comment (not pushing a product), and get not just the original poster contacting them for further info, but a heap of other ‘potential’ clients too. Constant Contact and The Muse offer guides on using LinkedIn groups effectively.
There are dozens of groups to choose from. Search LinkedIn for your area of interest and check out the “About this group” and “Group rules” to see if it’s a fit. Here are some of the largest to start with:
Linked:HR (#1 Human Resources Group) – with nearly a million members, this is LinkedIn’s biggest HR group, but rules are strict, and there’s no self-promotion.
HR.com - this has around 300,000 members and lets you post blogs, webcasts and articles for free.
HR Jobs and Ideas - Human Resources, talent management, hiring tech, networking group – membership is around 240,000 and the focus is on sharing information and technology.
The Recruiter.com Network - Expert Network Platform for Recruiters – with almost as many members as HR.com, this is a big group, and its goal is to connect businesses with recruiters.
Human Resources Professionals Worldwide – intended as a networking group for corporate HR professionals, membership is around 90,000.
Serious about LinkedIn as a marketing tool? Consider LinkedIn Sales Navigator
If you’re convinced of the power of LinkedIn for marketing to HR professionals, you might want to embed it in your sales plan. LinkedIn Sales Navigator offers far more functionality than the free or Premium versions of LinkedIn. But, given the price tag, is it worth it?
Take a look at LinkedIn’s comparison chart of its products. With Sales Navigator, you get advanced search tools, account recommendations, job change alerts, a mobile app, a free InMail allowance and the ability to save leads. A lot of the hard work of finding the people you want to influence is done for you, leaving you time to get talking.
As Tribal Impact points out, you’ll need to commit to training and consistency to make the most of functionality. But if you choose to buy, HubSpot’s LinkedIn Sales Navigator tips will help you squeeze every last drop of value from your investment.
LinkedIn is essential in marketing to HR decision makers
The enormous membership of groups shows LinkedIn is a thriving destination for HR professionals. It’s a trusted source of news, information and career development, and you need to be actively engaged if you’re selling HR services and products. Being present, polite and engaged on LinkedIn will go a long way in helping you open doors to the HR decisions makers you want to reach.
Need help with your marketing to HR?
Over the last 25 years, I’ve worked with start-ups, small and large businesses to launch products, create customer retention plans and improve their HR marketing effectiveness.
LinkedIn always forms part of that strategy - and practical support. I ghostwrite articles and post, and can manage your LinkedIn account.
Shall we have an initial conversation to see if I can support you?
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