What does it take to become an Influencer on Linkedin

When we talk about social media platforms, there are many. But when we talk about professional social media networks, Linkedin is one.

Undisputed!

It is the largest professional social media network with approx 740 millions of active users presently. Although the users are less as compared to those of facebook and Instagram (they are in billions). But according to an authentic research “Linkedin has the highest reach - upto 15 percent of the world’s population”. It means its impact is more than other social media platforms for marketing (especially for a B2B brand).

A normal person becomes an influencer when s/he has a reach to a good number of followers. Because that person is able to influence his/her audience S/he is called an influencer.

Brands use influencers to market their products to their audience. Influencers need a channel to connect with their audience.

For some brands, the target audience is very generic, let’s say Jockey for an example. Since Jockey’s target audience is very generic and exists in every single house, it uses film stars to advertise their products on television.

Not every brand can advertise on television, right? Because it’s expensive. Some brands use influencers who have a reach over Instagram and Facebook to advertise their products.

But still, the users of Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, are all individual users. Products like face cream, online educational courses, headphones, shoes, and etc… all of them can be used by individual people. So all of them can be marketed over social media platforms mentioned above.

Now think about a scenario where your target audience are companies!

Let’s say you are building a SaaS product. SaaS means software as a service. SaaS is a space where you build software’s for other companies to use.

For example you’re building a visitor management system like Vizitor.

This Saas product can be used by companies to keep track of their employees and visitors. It can help companies take attendance of their employees and also keep track of their visitors like where they are coming from and what is their point of contact.

Such software’s is marketed from companies to companies.

This is known as a B2B space. Where a business is building products for some other business.

The hardest thing about B2B space is finding the right point of contact.

A company operates via many different engines. Typical SaaS companies have a product team that builds a product, a digital marketing team that tries to market the product digitally and then it has a sales team, a finance team and others…

Now if you build a product that this company’s digital marketing team can use, you can not go to the finance team and show it to them, right? You don’t know who is the person you should contact regarding that.

To encounter this kind of marketing problem in the B2B space, Linkedin is B2B marketers best friend.

You can find every big shot working in a big company, connect and talk with them using Linkedin.

I have seen many people even getting placed in prestigious companies like Google and Facebook just by getting a referral from someone they connected over linkedin.

Linkedin is a place where people exchange education, information, knowledge and thoughts with each other. It mainly focuses on networking, jobs and businesses.

This is the power of Linkedin. This is the best platform/channel where you can get the attention of the professionals. The Influncers on Linkedin are worth way more than influencers on Instagram or Twitter.

Now that you understand the importance and power of Linkedin, You must have an idea how influential an influencer can be on this platform.

Now let’s see a step-by-step guide on how you can be an influencer on LInkedin:

**Create a powerful profile: **Your profile reflects or describes what or how valuable you are. It is not just a profile like on Facebook or Instagram, it is your complete portfolio.

A stunning profile includes everything that you have done or achieved and your passion.

Use attractive graphics and a profile picture that should be clear and of a reasonable size (avoid using a selfie and the picture just should be yours only). It shows your vibrant personality.

In general life we are called pretentious people when we talk much about ourselves, but this is not the case with Linkedin. Here, you can expre

Your profile should be so impressive that people can’t help following you immediately.

Consume +Create + Engage= A Powerful Influencer

****CONSUME:****No matter how good or big you are you can always learn from others. Consuming quality content on Linkedin is a skill that you should definitely develop if you want to become an influencer there.

Not everyone will provide you the value. Most people just copy and paste the content or post just for the sake of posting. Be aware of them.

Because the type of content you consume, the type of person you’ll become.

It is only by consuming from the very best that you will get to know new things, new algorithms of Linkedin like how it boosts content and how it exactly works.

You will learn how to create content and how to distribute it. How other successful content creators are doing it, you will learn all of this just by consuming.

**CREATE (Content): **People on linkedin just love consuming content. They love stuff that can provide them with knowledge and value.

Create valuable content, content that provides value to your audience, content that gives them knowledge, content that makes them grow in their profession or life.

Overall Content that helps them.

First thing to do when you begin to create content- Define your audience.

Before creating anything, you must have a clear understanding in your mind about who you want to create for? Who are these people that you think you can influence? What value can you provide them?

Once you know your audience, try answering these following questions about them.

What are their fears? What do they want to achieve in their life or profession? What topics do they want to hear or talk about? Where do they spend their free time? What are their hobbies and habits?

Once you have answers to questions like these about your audience, you will never be short of the ideas for your posts.

****ENGAGE (with others content):****In the beginning when you start creating content, you might struggle because your post may not be getting as many likes as you might have expected.

In that situation, you have to seek help from the people who have already gained some amount of credibility and followers on Linkedin.

How do you do that?

By engaging with their content.

When you engage with the content of the people who already have followers, you get the attention of their followers. It is a great way to gain followers. If you’re also able to get a reply from that fellow influencer, that is much better because that can gain your profile a huge number of views and followers.

****Be consistent:****Apart from everything else, you must have a trait of being consistent with your goal.

“Consistency has always been the key to achieving anything worthwhile”.

If you create content but are not consistent with it, Linkedin’s algorithm will cut your engagement and will block your way of becoming a successful Influencer.

Abiding by consuming + creating + engaging formula ,creating a superstar profile and being consistent, you can become a powerful influencer on linkedin in a short time span.

Thank you! :)

Also Read:- 3 ideas to grow organically on LinkedIn