How to Use LinkedIn to Establish Yourself as an Industry Expert in 2023
If you’re a service provider looking to be seen as the go-to expert in your industry, you MUST be actively using LinkedIn.
As the largest business-oriented social media platform with over 875 million professionals, LinkedIn is the perfect place to make your mark and stand out from the competition.
Building a personal brand on LinkedIn allows you to demonstrate your expertise and build credibility. And it’s not as time-consuming or tricky as you might think – it can be super simple.
In this post, I’m sharing tangible tips to help you establish yourself as an industry expert on LinkedIn. Let's get started!
Why Use LinkedIn to Showcase Your Expertise?
Showcasing your expertise on LinkedIn is essential for service providers who want to establish themselves as thought leaders in their industry. By doing so, you can:
- Build credibility – showing your skills and experience through social proof, recommendations, and endorsements on your LinkedIn profile can help you establish credibility with potential clients.
- Increase visibility – LinkedIn is the largest business-oriented social media platform. By building your personal brand on this platform, you get access to a huge network of entrepreneurs.
- Build relationships – LinkedIn provides a unique opportunity to connect with other entrepreneurs in your industry and build meaningful relationships that can lead to new business opportunities, like new clients, speaking gigs, interviews, brand deals, and more!
Now that you have a clear picture of why Linkedin is your secret weapon for standing out, let’s look at 8 ways you can establish yourself as an industry expert on LinkedIn.
1. Draw Inspiration from Industry Experts
The easiest way to figure out what to share on LinkedIn is by analyzing what other entrepreneurs are doing. Follow industry experts, companies, and influencers in your niche and pay attention to:
- The controversies they weigh in on
- The behind-the-scenes business processes they shed light on
- The industry topics they contribute to
This will ensure you’re up-to-do-date with what’s new in your industry and will help you develop a bank of great content ideas that you can draw on to create content of your own.
2. Contribute to Conversations in Your Industry
This follows the first point. By keeping tabs on your industry, you’ll be able to weigh in and share your unique perspective. You can do this by commenting on trending posts and answering common queries that pop up.
By providing value to your audience (and other people’s audiences), you’ll generate that all-important “know, like and trust” factor and position yourself as a thought leader in your niche.
3. Tell Your Brand Story
One of the best ways to establish your authority on LinkedIn is by publishing unique content.
Your content should focus on three main areas:
- Your passion for serving your ideal clients
- Your services
- Your insider point of view
But don't just tell your audience what you do – show them by weaving in storytelling! Let me explain…
Let's say you're a marketing consultant who specializes in helping small businesses improve their online presence. Instead of just telling your audience what you do and how you can help, share a story of how you helped a client in the past.
For example, you can share a story about a small business owner who was struggling to attract customers online. Through your guidance and expertise, you helped them revamp their website and social media profiles, and as a result, they saw a significant increase in website traffic and sales.
By sharing this story, you're not only showcasing your expertise as a marketing consultant, but you're also demonstrating your ability to deliver real results for your clients. And by doing so in a relatable and engaging way, you're more likely to capture the attention and trust of your ideal audience on LinkedIn.
4. Promote Your Content
After you’ve created valuable content, you need to get eyeballs on it! This is where LinkedIn’s “featured” section comes in handy.
Pin the following types of posts to your profile to highlight your expertise:
- A LinkedIn post that describes your unique approach or showcases a result you drove for a client
- A recent timely post
- A value-packed lead magnet that will grow your email list
You can also get your content seen by more of the right people by liking and commenting on other users’ posts. By doing so, your comment will appear in the feed of your connections, helping you reach even more people.
It's also important to respond to comments on your own posts. You should never miss an opportunity to do this because the people you’re interacting with could be leads! Responding to comments also helps establish your credibility as an expert in your field and builds trust with your audience, and people will keep coming back to your content if you regularly engage with them.
5. Strategically Build Your Network
As a service provider, a strong network is essential for growing your business and landing new opportunities. However, it's important to be selective when adding connections (focus on these 5 groups of people) – you don’t want to add anyone and everyone!
When approaching potential connections, take the time to personalize your connection request. A customized message shows that you're genuinely interested in building a relationship and will help you stand out from the many generic requests taking up space in their inbox.
Always remember that networking is a long-term strategy, so it's important to be intentional and strategic in your approach. By doing so, you will build a network of valuable connections that will see you as the go-to expert in your field.
6. Join Linkedin Groups for Better Reach
LinkedIn groups offer a great opportunity to engage with your industry and elevate your brand. They create a natural starting point for conversations with other entrepreneurs who share your interests, making networking a more seamless and enjoyable experience!
By joining niche-related groups, you can connect with business owners in your industry, initiate conversations, and share your expertise.
Finding industry-specific groups is a straightforward process.
You can simply search at the top of your LinkedIn homepage and filter by industry to identify relevant groups. Once you’ve joined a group, you can actively participate in discussions and encourage feedback on your posts.
A natural flow-on effect of engaging in LinkedIn groups is that you establish yourself as an industry expert, which in turn helps you get noticed by more potential clients.
7. Measure Your Impact
Track your performance using LinkedIn Analytics.
- Take note of how much engagement your posts attract, as well as how many visitors and followers are looking at your profile.
- Learn what day and times are best for posting, based on when your audience engages with your content.
- Cross-reference demographic data and engagement data to discover new opportunities to grow your network.
After you’ve done this, double down on what is working for you and ditch what’s not!
8. It’s More About Your Unique Perspective
One of my philosophies as a LinkedIn content creator who grew my account from 0 to 6.5k followers – your audience wants to see more of you and your unique point of view on the stuff they care about.
And, there’s simple psychology behind it – being more transparent online makes you relatable and positions you as someone they can truly empathize with. So, don’t let your limiting beliefs stop you from posting on LinkedIn and establishing your brand.
After all, the world needs your voice!
It’s Time to Let Your Inner Expert Shine!
By now, I hope you're well and truly convinced that LinkedIn is the network you need to focus on if you're a service provider who wants to establish yourself as an expert.
Your next steps? Follow the 8 steps we covered in this blog post:
- Follow industry experts
- Contribute to industry-related conversations
- Create magnetic content on LinkedIn
- Promote your content
- Strategically build your network
- Leverage LinkedIn groups for greater reach
- Measure your impact
- Share your unique perspective
If you want to use LinkedIn to establish yourself as an expert in your niche, I'm sharing a framework that will help you get started.
It's my brand new LinkedIn Starter Jetpack. Inside, I'm sharing the exact steps I used to grow my personal brand to 6,500+ followers, 1.3M+ views, and 194 opportunities.
