I cannot tell how much like LinkedIn and how much sales, jobs and opportunities I really owe to it. I have been actively using its free features for more than five years and done paid advertising since it became first available.

LinkedIn is not only professional networking tool, but also perfect platform for researching companies, universities, job opportunities. After acquiring Lynda, now it offers a great source of online professional courses as well.

Last week I was invited for an exclusive client training by LinkedIn, where they shared some of the best paid online practices.

Sponsored content.

These can be articles or just links to any page of your website, like Facebook posts which you can now boost. How to make this work for you?

These are great to engage people lower down the funnel of interest. By sharing relevant information like awards, rankings, professional advice and tips you can A. showcase the expertise of your company B. create trust. In my previous article, I explained why people would always be sceptical about your business first. Sponsored content can help you create an image of the “good guy” – the business which is always ready to share great content for free.

Choosing the right topics. Think about what motivates people using your product. What jobs they need to have done by you? If your post is answering the primary question in the head of your potential customer, you will get their attention. Remember, not always the things you are most proud of are the same tings customers really care about.

Imagery. Try to show faces of real people, not stock images, if possible. Creating a human face of your organization is what can make people really connect with you. We are social beings, we respond better to faces than to objects.

A/B testing. There is no one golden rule – every business is different. Therefore, it’s good to always test three different ad versions. If you don’t have time for it – just outsource it, but don’t fall into the trap of using one creative. Even a small tweak of an ad copy or image can make a difference in results.

Lead Forms

This is one of the newest formats features of LinkedIn and works fantastically well for lead generation. LinkedIn already has the email addresses and phone number of millions of users. When someone clicks on your lead form ad, it populates the fields of the form you require, for example – email and name. Just offer valuable material like interesting research, infographic, book etc. and ask people to fill the form to get it.

One great practice is to call out your target audience. For example: “To all the busy CMOs out there, here is our tool which can help you save time”. It is proven that people respond well to targeted advertising.

I will talk more about Text Ads and InMail in the second part of this article. Until then, good luck and let me know if you have any questions!