Using LinkedIn To Grow Your Engineering Business

There has never been a more important time to incorporate social media into your marketing strategy, no matter which industry you operate within. However, engineering really lends itself to the use of social media, simply because there are lots of interesting components and projects you can show off!

In this series, we’ll show you how to use each of the social media platforms to grow your business and expand awareness of your brand, starting with corporate social giant LinkedIn.

What Is LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is a social media platform with a corporate twist. Personal profiles are built around an individual’s employment history, with updates and statuses often relating to business advice and executive achievements.

This makes it an especially good platform to increase brand awareness, as users log on with the sole purpose of keeping up-to-date with the professional comings and goings of the individuals and companies within their network. Many engineering companies are already harnessing the power of effective LinkedIn networking and for those looking to get started, the good news is that LinkedIn is quite a simple social medium to master.

Who Uses LinkedIn?

A huge part of what makes LinkedIn such a great marketing tool is that it provides you with direct access to the decision makers who matter.

While LinkedIn is used by a varied demographic of professionals, it is especially popular with directors and sales & marketing directors, as well as supply chain professionals and purchasing managers. This is a huge part of what makes LinkedIn such a great marketing tool, as it provides you with direct access to the decision makers who matter.

However, this also means that your message and branding has to match the tone. LinkedIn is one of the first places that people go to find and connect with new contacts within their professional landscape; therefore it’s extremely important that you take the time to ensure that your company and personal profiles will make a good impression. This means uploading quality pictures and a logo, as well as writing an effective bio.

On that note, it’s worthwhile exercise to draft a quick message to accompany any connection requests that you send. A few lines to introduce yourself and your business can go a long way towards making a good first impression.

What Should I Post?

Remember, LinkedIn is a professional site, meaning that you should try to keep things almost strictly business.

Remember, LinkedIn is a professional site, meaning that you should try and avoid an abundance of ‘personal’ posts and try to keep things almost strictly business. That’s not to say that your posts should be boring or lack character - completely the opposite, in fact. However, you should try to create engaging content that focuses on your company’s achievements and showcases what you can offer prospective customers - and not about what you had for lunch.

To ensure that you always have enough content to publish, write a list of some of your company’s greatest features to post about. For example:

Your plant list. This works especially well if you have a sizeable roster of machines and can advertise where your capacity lies. Alternatively, why not take some quality photos of your workshop to post, or even a video of your machines in action? Just make sure you tidy up first!

Your people. For instance, do you have any apprentices? Upcoming staff employment milestones? New employees? Post about your staff’s professional achievements - not only will it make them feel good, but it will also give customers and prospects some insight into your company structure and dynamics.

Projects and Parts. Posts about interesting projects that you’ve undertaken, or components that you’ve recently made for your customers, will give you credibility and allow you to show off your capabilities.

When Should I Post?

Users are far less likely to check it outside of working hours, or when they’re not in ‘work mode’.

As LinkedIn is a professional site, users are far less likely to check it outside of working hours, or when they’re not in ‘work mode’. Therefore, it’s a great idea to time your posts with morning and evening commutes, as well as lunch breaks. This ensures that your content is at the top of users’ feeds during peak times.

The best times to post on LinkedIn are as follows:

7:00am to 9:00am, when users are commuting to work.

11:30am to 1:30pm, when users are taking their lunch break.

4:30pm to 7:30pm, when users are commuting home.

Further Tips For LinkedIn Success:

• Interact with your customers and prospects: If your customers and prospects are using LinkedIn, then be sure to interact with them. Liking and sharing their posts will help to build a rapport, while also making them far more likely to pay attention to your own content and engage with it.
• Reward and acknowledge interaction on your own posts: Make sure that you acknowledge those engaging with your own posts by replying to all comments, no matter how trivial they appear to be. A simple thank you will make users feel appreciated and increase the odds of them returning to your page again in future.
• Patience and consistency is key: Remember, it takes time to build an audience on social media and therefore, it can be easy to become disheartened in the early days and give up altogether. If you’re posting engaging content consistently and regularly then your efforts will be rewarded; however, it’s important to be patient and not lose faith in the process.
• Pin introductory posts and videos to the top of your page: During the initial phases of a social media journey, it’s a great idea to post an overview of your company and of course, videos work especially well when it comes to engagement. However, as you continue to update your page, these posts will likely get pushed down into the ether and forgotten. Luckily there’s an easy way to prevent this from happening - simply pin your best, most informative posts to the top of your page. This way, any new visitors will see these posts first and foremost, leaving them in no doubt as to what you can offer them.

Further Information:

If you would like any further information on how to use LinkedIn to grow your engineering business, we’re more than happy to help! Simply call Qimtek on 01256 394 500, or email [email protected].