It seems that more and more businesses are focusing their social media marketing efforts into LinkedIn. It used to always be a place for B2B businesses and neglected by B2C companies, but LinkedIn is still a hugely influential social media network where many different businesses can thrive.

With over 610 million LinkedIn members globally, it’s a big place. More importantly, 40 million of those people are decision makers. This social media platform provides an outstanding business opportunity to connect with individuals who are in a position to form strategic alliances, purchase your product/service, or invest in your business.

Here are six ways to excel with your LinkedIn marketing efforts.

1. Promote your own content and be creative

Drive traffic to your website by promoting your sales, services, blog posts, testimonials, etc. Images and videos will drive engagement, so always ensure you include some form of visual component to your posts.

2. Interact with other people’s content

Don’t forget – LinkedIn is a social network, so still be social on the platform. Reshare and comment on other people’s posts, especially people who you’d like to align with your business. This is the first step towards creating a relationship with these users.

3. The use of hashtags

You can use hashtags on LinkedIn, as you can on other social platforms to connect with people outside of your network. This feature was re-introduced a couple of years ago. It has since more recently been putting increased emphasis on them to categorise content better.

Choose hashtags related to your industry. Hashtagify is a handy tool that can help you find the most popular hashtags, and LinkedIn also has automated suggestions.

4. Always tag people and brands

When creating a post, always tag anyone you mention in it. It’s important because it gets the post in front of the person you mentioned, and will mean that post has a much higher chance of making it into the LinkedIn feed of that person’s network.

5. Ask questions and create discussion

Not only does asking questions help you learn more about your network and audience, it can drive engagement on your content too. Post open-ended and thought-provoking questions, with the intention of sparking conversation among your followers.

6. Avoid business jargon

It’s easy to slip into marketing jargon when talking about your business (yawn!) but try to avoid it, as that’ll only isolate your business. A great strategy to ensure that your content is reader-friendly is by asking yourself this question: “Is this how I would explain my company to a friend over a coffee?”

Asking this question will make sure that you’re engaging with people as making your business posts relatable.

By following these tips, you’ll be well on your way to creating an effective LinkedIn strategy, no matter what sector you’re in.