LinkedIn is the largest business social networking site in the world. With so many different business professionals from a wide array of backgrounds we thought it would be best to call in some help to ensure you use the right LinkedIn strategy for your business.

Below is the advice from 39 experts who have spent a lot of time coming up with strategies they condensed into short snippets to help you grow your business through LinkedIn. These thoughts are grouped into relevant categories to make it easier for you to take action on specific areas of your LinkedIn marketing.

To help you even further, download our LinkedIn Strategy Checklist for free. The checklist condenses these amazing experts’ strategies below into actionable steps.

39 Experts Share Their Top LinkedIn Strategy

1. LinkedIn Profile

Jyoti Chaudhary  PMbyPM

I think a good profile picture and an eye-catching tagline is extremely important for reaching out and making new connections. Regular communication and nurturing are required to convert the business prospects into customers.

Nevena Sofranic  Omnes Group

People will decide in the first few seconds if they want to add you to their network. To grab their attention you need *a good picture*. A picture of you smiling will do the trick, but a picture of you speaking in front of prospects will make you look like an expert. People mentally digest pictures before they read.

Once you pass the picture test, they will be reading your heading and summary. Make sure to use keywords, and to be specific. *What is it that you do? How can you help them?* Add social proof, such as companies you’ve been working with.

Lewis Goldstein  Blue Wind Marketing

Think of your LinkedIn profile as your sales page or business card. No need to reinvent the wheel. Model yours after people who are effective and persuasive.

• What do you want people to see?
• How do you want to come across when people look you up?
• What keywords are people using to find people like yourself so you can include them in your profile?

Ask yourself these questions so you make a profile that speaks your prospect’s language. You’ll notice people start engaging with you because most people haven’t put the time into theirs.

Janice Wald Mostly Blogging

You need to change your profile every few months. Whether or not you like your profile is irrelevant. By changing your profile every few months, I feel it stirs up the LinkedIn algorithms.

I know I’m right. I read I’d receive more engagement when I changed my profile, and I did. People started offering me opportunities. I asked how they found me and they reported I came up for them in search when they typed in keywords in my profile description.

Sam Rexford  Chill Reptile

Hands-down my favorite LinkedIn strategy for getting leads on LinkedIn (and other social networks) is the Social Media Profile Funnel.

This is a dead-simple way to passively generate high-value leads from LinkedIn. And the best part? Almost nobody is doing this right, so you’ll stand out from the usual LinkedIn cold outreach strategies. It works like this: you convert your LinkedIn account (header image, about section information, etc.) into a simple lead magnet funnel that offers something of value to your target audience.

Let’s say you have a B2B lead generation agency that gets leads for software companies. These companies come to you because they want and need more leads.

You convert your header image into an ad banner with a call-to-action: Free Report: See How SaaS Companies Are Exploding Inbound Leads With This One Simple Strategy – Click Contact Info In My Profile For Access! Now, if the offer is appealing, some percentage of your target market will click through to the contact info area of your LinkedIn profile. Once they do that they’ll be present with a link over to the offer page, and that’s where you capture the lead.

Rohit Keserwani

Strike when it is hot: Ask for a recommendation from someone with whom
you have interacted recently. Better still, someone to whom you have done a
favor.

2. Find New Connections

How consistent are you with reaching out to new connections? These new connections can be anything from prospects to networking partners. You can find them through LinkedIn Groups and LinkedIn Search which we discuss in more detail later.

Marietta Gentles Crawford  Marie Brands for You

Ditch automating connection requests and using sales templates. Lately, since LinkedIn has had a resurgence, people are relying on hacks to get in touch with their target audience and sell their stuff.

Automation does not work! I can smell an automated invitation or script that comes immediately after I accept a request, and I will ignore or delete it immediately. It’s not an effective LinkedIn strategy, so ditch it and focus on adding value to your network. You can’t automate genuine relationship building.

Jeff Romero  Octiv Digital

One thing I have recently discovered a new LinkedIn strategy that works with exporting a list of my followers and segmenting them by the hashtags they follow.

Using this method when I launched a new agency last quarter, I was able to segment the data by those following hashtags like #digitalmarketing or #onlinemarketing and it gave me a quick list of people to reach out to.

I’ve had a great response rate (we’re already connected, so I’m sure that helps) and I already know these professionals are interested in the services my agency offers.

Nicole Meyerson  Meyerson Engagement

I’ve started following hashtags around conversations that I consider myself an expert on.

For example, I’m versed in influencer marketing, and content around this is growing on LinkedIn. So I’ve followed the hashtag in my feed, and often comment with others’ posts on the topic. This asserts me and my brand in front of new people and shows that I have expertise in the subject area.

Altovise Pelzer

When I want someone to be a guest on my show, I message them and share a specific thing about that their business or brand that stood out for me. Old school marketing 101 here folks. That means I have to do some research to have an authentic conversation. I’m active on the platform and take time to read articles or posts from those I am interested in connecting with (most articles are not a long read).

I receive anywhere from 10-15 new messages a day that all look exactly alike.

Scott Asai 

For me, it’s to grow my network. One of the ways that’s worked for me is to reach out to local connections in various industries and start a conversation. I prefer to grab a coffee in person since even with technology talking face-to-face means so much more. One in-person conversation is worth more than hundreds of emails back and forth. It builds trust and chemistry that virtual relationships can’t compete with. Following up is the part most people overlook with networking.

Meeting someone is just the beginning. A true connection takes time to nurture.

3. LinkedIn Groups

Groups are a great source of new connections. You have the opportunity to meet like-minded people online, just like you would at a networking event. LinkedIn groups have everything from location-based groups to professional groups for you to connect.

Additionally here are what some experts use to leverage LinkedIn Groups for additional business.

Ross Kernez

My number 1 LinkedIn strategy is to join relevant niche groups to spread the word about yourself with likeminded folks. It is needless to say, but make sure you post only on relevant groups with relevant content. As a rule of thumb, you must use quality over quantity.

At the end of the day, people don’t want to see a new member spamming their group. This LinkedIn strategy works for me the best because I know quite a lot of people in my industry. LinkedIn helped me to connect with great people that I would not be able to connect in the real world.

Kean Graham  MonetizeMore

We post our pillar articles to relevant groups and get a lot of shares and engagement within the groups. We tend to get a lot of inbound traffic and leads when we pose a question related to the post. The questions that tend to be more contentious get the best results because they tend to initiate vigorous debates.

Norm Bond  Norm Bond Markets

I would start a group based on my niche. Then curate relevant content and share this via my profile. Once I had the content established I would begin to invite professionals to join the group because of the value to them.

The strategy would be to become recognized as a social connector and influencer. Then build the business in my niche based on the network I established and the useful content shared within the group.

Michelle Klieger Stratagerm Consulting, LLC 

I share articles and posts in groups. I find that people in groups are active on LinkedIn, so they are most likely to share materials and we’ve both opted in the group, meaning we are both interested in this topic.

4. LinkedIn content

If you don’t produce content, you will struggle to stay competitive on LinkedIn. That is because LinkedIn is much more of a content repository now than it was even a few short years ago. Below we discuss what LinkedIn strategy for various content approaches.

KellyAnn Romanych Veterans Legal Institute

One LinkedIn strategy that works for me is to focus on supporting our donors. Many are humble and prefer not to self-promote.

I like, comment, and share their content to celebrate their compassion and generosity. It is heartfelt and genuine. Our donors know the value of creating great content and are grateful to have help in getting it out to those who can benefit.

Neill Marshall Health Search Partners

I have a Google alert on my top 160 potential clients. When they are mentioned in the media, I get a google alert that morning at 8:00 AM. If the article is positive, I share it on LinkedIn with a comment and tag them. They get bragged about without having to do the bragging and I build goodwill.

Anand Iyer 

The best Linkedin Strategy is to promote your brand by using video marketing. Here are a few video marketing strategies in Linkedin:

• Video is considered as a preferred content type in Linkedin’s algorithm
• Post-how-to videos about your products and services to reach new people
• Use Linkedin as a video blogging platform and build your personal brand
• Share industry trends, webinar event promo, event recap and highlights to promote your business.

Ryder Meehan UpGrow.io

Create collaborative content and tag the other party*. To give some examples: every time I hire a new employee, I take their picture and post a welcome message. When I moved my company to a new coworking space, I announced it and tagged them. If I attend an event, I tag the speakers, people I met, and the event.

This has the benefit of reaching other audiences as well as the goodwill of giving others exposure to my followers. I’ve gotten several thanks and reshares from this strategy.

Gary Chin  The Accidental Project Manager

When posting a new article, use the opportunity to reach out to your network.

Don’t blast Linkedin’s generic message (e.g. I thought you would like to read my new article …) because this will go to your closest contacts, as well as the connections that you don’t know.

Take the time to write a personal note to:

• Your close contacts
• Contacts that you’ve lost touch with
• Those who you want to develop a deeper relationship.

The outcome is that you will have enlarged and strengthened your network.

Sunil Kowlgi Outklip

Some of my top-performing posts are data visualizations (graphs and charts) that tell a story. The story has to be current, something that’s been in the news in recent days. You can source good charts on online editions of the Wall Street Journal or Financial Times or Twitter.

From the engagement on my posts and others showing up on my newsfeed, it appears LinkedIn users like seeing charts, graphs, and a short text explanation of what the chart is saying.

Mark Farrell  Proactuary

I have been posting on my LinkedIn account for the last two years and regularly for the last 4 months. I launched a blog and thought posting on LinkedIn would be a good way to drive traffic to it.

It’s worked! My 2 to 3 posts per week currently generate on average 25,000 views per week and a percentage of these then end up on my blog. From my experience, the timing of the post is important.

I suggest you conduct your own experiments posting on different days and times to see what works for your particular audience. For example, I found posting on a Saturday morning works well. However, every audience is different and it’s a matter of conducting your own research to pinpoint your strategy.

Linda Formichelli  Hero’s Journey Content, LLC

While we do a lot of things on LinkedIn, from reaching out to prospects to running ads, I think the best marketing tactic for us has been to create “welcome new client” and “welcome back/returning client” images that we post when we get a new client or when one enters into a new contract with us.

When we post one of these, we also include a message about the client and how glad we are to work with them. This serves two purposes: Not only does it give the client a nice shout-out, but it’s also a form of “social proof.”

Hannah Gillitzer  JobConfidant.Com

My favorite way to get organic reach on LinkedIn is by posting a series. For 30 days I posted once per day on LinkedIn, focusing on my series topic. The growth I got was amazing. Hundreds of connection requests, lots of messages asking to work with me, and so many introductions made. Even though that series was months ago, it still gets views. Do not be discouraged by low engagement numbers, LinkedIn has awesome organic reach… You will be surprised by how many people see your posts.

Betsy Hindman Hindman Company

Instead of sharing a link to a YouTube or Vimeo video file, give the native MP4 file to individuals to post organically. Uploading the video natively to your LinkedIn company page will get much greater distribution to your audience.

When uploading a video to Linkedin, there is no way to select a thumbnail as there is on other platforms, so important that the first 1-3 seconds is not a black screen or the subject is not in a weird position, etc. The first 1-3 seconds of your video will be the thumbnail. For best results, the thumbnail should be a person up close enough where you can see the whites of their eyes!

James Pollard  The Advisor Coach

One strategy that works well for me is tagging people in my posts to get more engagement. This works especially well if you can get someone with a large following in your niche to like or comment. For example, if you run a business that works specifically with dentists, you want to start tagging dentist influencers and dentist thought leader in your post, because if they interact with you, their audience sees this and you drive more dentists to your profile. That’s what you want.

5. LinkedIn Sales

Pat Roque  Rock on Success

Mastering LinkedIn ProFinder rocks! In the past 18 months, it’s become my goldmine for hand-raising inbound leads, with zero ad spend, and zero commission paid to LinkedIn. Linkedin ProFinder is a godsend to professional service providers who want to attract hand-raisers in the buying mindset.

The search engine inside of LinkedIn allows members to request proposals for 120 categories of local service providers. It’s easy, it’s quality, And it’s still the best-kept secret that is helping my business and those of my clients thrive, despite how little LinkedIn has promoted the service.

In my case, LinkedIn sends me dozens of hot leads daily (the most was 60 in a day) as I’m a top recommended coach for executives, leadership training, career pivots, and public speaking. There’s been a boom in job seekers needing help with resumes and interview skills, so we created lower-cost programs to help those folks as well as leadership masterminds and VIP programs for executives.

Shyam Bhardwaj SEO Vancouver Pros

I always seem to add potential brands. It’s better to pitch to marketing or product managers instead of directly talking with COO or CTO. [Do not sell brands too soon.] Once they respond to my initial greeting message, only then do I try to sell my services to them.

Travis Bennett

LinkedIn is an often-overlooked platform to kickstart your business. Download your connections and identify your ideal clients. Remember, they already know you. You can send them a quick DM with an offer too good to pass up.

For me, that was a free website review, but it could be a software trial, consultation call, i.e. Your goal is to get them talking to you by giving them a ton of free value.

This strategy works best with people you know because you already have some level of trust built, but requires a laser focus to ensure you connect to the right people.

Julien Malet  Online Optimism

Paid Advertising on social media isn’t only becoming increasingly common but also is starting to allow for a more targeted approach to marketing. Using paid advertising on LinkedIn can help you find potential leads. The strategy also works for finding potential candidates if you ever have an opening that needs to be filled. Paid social media is a great way to help small businesses grow.

Daniel Chan

Sending media pitches through LinkedIn got me quite a few write-ups including replies for television shows. You just have to custom tailor each pitch instead of spamming everyone. I paid for a recruiter profile to get into their inboxes. You only have a limited number of emails so make them count!

My son will be on national television in a few weeks as a result.

6. Community Building

David Lowell 

Community > Followers: You can add connections like crazy and grow and grow and grow your network, but you might not have ANY reach, engagement, and no relationships and no real benefit.

By engaging with people that comment on your content, commenting on other’s content, and connecting with people through DMs and setting up phone calls, the opportunities you will find are amazing. Focus on building a community, not just getting a big following.

Alda Grigoryan Incredo

LinkedIn is very transparent with its users’ activity. When our community likes, shares, or comments on a post where we mentioned them, it allows our posts to be seen by their connections and followers as well.

Dan Rice  Talent Locker

Commenting on other people’s posts is the number 1 tactic you can use right now on LinkedIn. It ensures that you appear in the right networks but it also begins the conversation with the right people. You’ll also find that if you comment frequently on people’s posts, your posts will more frequently show up on their feeds and they are much more likely to get involved in your conversations in return.

Don’t simply rely on your feed to find the right content though, search hashtags based on your keyword research and you’ll discover which topics are more or less popular. Testing over time will allow you to determine which areas of your niche drive the most interest, engagement, and traffic and that allows you to build LinkedIn commenting into your social media strategies.

7. LinkedIn Navigator

Bob Herman  IT Tropolis

Used LinkedIn Navigator to search for your target market. Invite those people to connect without being salesy, but at the same time informing them why you want to connect.

Once a conversation starts, ask them about their business/goals/etc. before entering into a subtle pitch. In many cases, they will prompt you to elaborate on why you wanted to connect. If interested, move the conversation off of LinkedIn to telephone and/or email. If not interested, don’t be pushy and ask them to keep you in mind in case they need it in the future. Post content periodically so they have a chance to see your posts and thus keep you in mind.

Jessica Rhoades  Create It Web Designs

LinkedIn Pro is geared for specific serviced based businesses such as copywriting, graphic design, web design, etc. You have to apply and be accepted into LinkedIn Pro. The requirements are you need to post regular content on LinkedIn, have a solid profile, and several recommendations.

When business posts that they are looking for a service in your industry AND your area, you will receive an email. You must be one of the first 5 people to submit a proposal for it to be considered.

I’ve been able to connect with some local businesses that I may not have had the opportunity to. It’s an excellent lead generation tool. The key is to listen to the customer’s request and provide a thoughtful and specific response. You are competing against those other 4 proposals.

Don’t use a cut and past response. A  prospective client can tell if you are cutting and pasting responses.

Nathan Sykes  Howdy Interactive

Our company uses Linkedin exclusively for prospecting and sales. Our strategy (as a corporate marketing firm), is we find companies who are hiring on their marketing team on Indeed.com and find their company in Linkedin Sales Navigator. We then identify who the decision-maker is, whether it’s the head of marketing or the CEO, and shoot them a quick introductory email and begin them on our sales path.

Syed Irfan Ajmal  SIA Enterprises

There are many ways to build better media relationships. Now, social media platforms provide many online venues to build relationships. One such venue is LinkedIn sponsored InMail. I love this LinkedIn feature because now I can send a personalized message to my target audience. And the response rate in InMail is three times higher than a regular email, according to a blog on LinkedIn.

Final Thoughts on LinkedIn Strategy

As you can see, there are a lot of ways you can approach your LinkedIn marketing strategy. The challenge is that with so many different options, which is the best for your needs. That is exactly why we created a checklist based on the strategies above to make this process easier for you.