How to Kick-start Your LinkedIn as a Creative Business Owner
LinkedIn is a the social network for professionals, and although it’s previously associated with being only for very corporate, businessman in suits, this platform is becoming very useful for creative and small business owners for connecting with people in your industry, growing your personal brand, and finding new clients, customers or collaborators.
With any new platform there are lots of things you could learn about it from tutorials to deep-dives to courses (we have a workshop in the Wild library), but sometimes you just need an easy guide to get you going quickly, and without any of the information overload!
That’s what we’ve done here, so read on and let’s get LinkedIn working for you.
Setting up your LinkedIn for success
1. Clear out your connections
Family, friends, colleagues, ex-bosses, current bosses…anyone that affects you showing up, or gives you a pang of negative comparison, get rid. Don’t worry, they won’t be notified that you’ve unfollowed them
2. Follow your favourite people
Connect with and follow your business pals, other brands you like, dream clients, and people you aspire to be like.
3. Update your profile
Check your profile picture matches your other online profiles for consistency, add a relevant header image, and make sure your bio and employment history works for right now.
4. Recalibrate the algorithm to your needs
We all know the algorithms can take a little while to calibrate, so engage with your favourite accounts to let LinkedIn know what you want to see more of going forward.
5. Make a plan
Set your intention and posting frequency. Once a week? Great! Grab a biz pal to join you and keep each other accountable.
Wild is on Linkedin! You can follow us and founder, Jess, to see what’s new in the community, have some real business conversations, and grow your network at the same time.
What things to post on LinkedIn
Worried about what to even post on LinkedIn? Don’t be!
Remember you don’t have to make NEW content. Unless you are brand new to business, we can pretty much guarantee that you already have content that’s perfectly good to post on LinkedIn.
It’s actually very beneficial to cross-post because it reinforces your message across the internet. For example, if you talk about sustainability in multiple posts in multiple places, then it’s highly likely that your people will come to know you as being a brand that REALLY values sustainability. A simple tactic, but an easy one to forget.
Try this:
If you’re anything like us, you might prefer Instagram (it’s visual, who can blame us!?) so why not head to your feed and see which biz-friendly posts you can copy and paste straight over to LinkedIn. You don’t even need to use the image, but you’ve got one there if you do! Repeat with any platform you use – Twitter, Threads…
Bumper list of 30+ LinkedIn post ideas
Things you’ve done or got going on
Share a snippet from a blog post
Post a trailer for your latest podcast episode
Invite people to subscribe to your mailing list
Announce a new collaboration, client or partnership
Shout-out past ones too!
Testimonials are awesome, easy social proof
Promote your services, products (your website is full of gold!)
Remind people about a guest post/podcast/webinar you’re doing
Lessons learned from a networking event or webinar you attended
Your brand and business
Why did you start your business?
Talk about who you work with or your ideal client
What do you do in your business (short or long, you can post both!)
Share your values/vision/mission
What does your brand name mean?
Who would be your dream collaborators?
Share a story from your business
Celebrate your business milestones (anniversaries, awards, etc)
Post about any associations, groups or communities you’re part of
You – There’s more to being a business owner than business
Talk about what you do outside of work
Share 2 truths and a lie
Recommend your fav podcasts/books/newsletters
Things you’ve learned or a problem and solution you found
Share what your perfect day off would be like
Post about your hobbies (a great way to connect with likeminded people)
What did you want to be when you grew up, is it the same?
Connect with others
Quote someone else’s post with your thoughts
Share someone else’s post (great way to get on the radar of people you’d like to connect with)
Shout-out a biz pal, mentor, someone who’s stuff you love
Ask someone a question in the DMs and share their answer (with permission of course!)
Tag people when someone is asking for recommendations
Ask your connections for quotes on a topic and share
Invite collaborations!
The good thing about LinkedIn is that it’s specifically for people in business, so you’ve got a primed audience that might just be your next client. Whether you’re new to the platform or in a need of a reintroduction, we hope this post helps you get going as easily as possible.