Since the start of the new year, I have noticed business owners posting on LinkedIn daily or several times a week. Yay for being more active! Boo for the frequency and overall execution. Double boo for the AI-generated content and visuals. It is riff-raff. Please just stop making mistakes on LinkedIn — you can do better!

Instead, Connect With Other Business Owners and Leaders

Right now, LinkedIn is the only place to connect with like-minded professionals, business owners, industry leaders and potential leads. This is the only social network where you can get updates from your industry’s leaders on what’s happening in their career or company. In addition to that, it is a platform for professional development — hello LinkedIn Learning — and to get the heads-up on industry trends, emerging technologies, the state of the economy and more.

Personally, I love seeing updates from my connections on awards they have won, events they have attended, professional milestones and shout-outs about what is happening in their business or with their people. Please, get back to that.

LinkedIn Builds Professional Credibility

So hey, business owners and leaders: Let’s harken back to the three Cs of successful brands. Conviction, consistency and connection should be your guidance on how to use LinkedIn successfully.

Focusing on connection and the relevancy of your content are the things that matter. If your target doesn’t care about what you stand for and if it isn’t authentic and purposeful, no one will pay attention. The stronger the emotional connection, the more likely your target or your connections will be positively pre-disposed to your organization.

Business Owners and Leaders Build Connection on LinkedIn

Trusted relationships develop into emotional bonds. And this is true for LinkedIn. Loyalty to your brand or to you as a business leader means greater business success for you, and reduced competitive threat.

While you may think staged photography of you behind your computer or with a team member, belongs on your personal LinkedIn timeline, think again. It is not enough to just show yourself working. Let your followers know what you’re thinking. Don’t weaken connections with your professional network you spent decades to build. Keep connecting with your network in ways that help them.

Balance helpfulness, expertise and relatability to boost engagement on LinkedIn without excessive self-promotion. Please and thank you. Again, for the love of Pete, keep your audience interested by providing value. Establish your authority by sharing your expertise.

And above all, build connection.

Front Porch Marketing can help if you need additional thoughts on how to use LinkedIn, how to build and maintain connection with your network, or just some counsel on your LinkedIn brand or personal page. We know you can rock it in 2026!

Social media, in terms of business marketing, has completely skyrocketed in the past 25 years. Starting as a place to connect with friends, social media has now become a primary tool for over 96% of all businesses to promote their brands, share expertise, build trust and personality, and establish themselves as a reliable source that directly engages with their audience. With so many different platforms, which is best for your business?

Your answer can depend on many things. What is your approach or goals as a business? Who is your audience? What is the type of content you’re willing or able to create? All these components matter to create the best possible version of your company with a transformed marketing strategy. So, which are worth considering?

Platform #1: LinkedIn

With more than 67 million companies and over 1 billion members, LinkedIn is the largest professional networking platform. LinkedIn is known for business connections, professional brand building, enterprise growth, and more. This platform works great for B2B companies specifically, meaning it is great for sales pitches, strong for sharing blog posts, and allows space for many articles and paid ads that target based on your industry and profession.

LinkedIn is more than just sales pitches; it creates a space for sharing helpful tips and humane marketing strategies through those blogs and articles, which helps build trust and credibility for users.

Your company’s first post matters. Encourage all members of your team to contribute to the company by using their personal profiles as well, building even more trust. Commenting on others’ posts makes your company more visible and builds relationships with other companies, so stay on the grid.

Although LinkedIn provides a stable platform for networking, like any other social media platform, companies need to consistently post to stay noticed. Therefore, it is not ideal for casual brands, and engagement may be slower. Post to stay popular!

Platform #2: Instagram

If your company’s specialty is brand aesthetic and building culture, and you’re strong in visual appeal, Instagram is the way to go. This site allows users to experience a brand’s personality and culture, not just its products. Instagram lets followers ask, Do I like what I see? Knowing this, creating a solid brand presence is key. Your feed should reflect your brand; it will be the first thing someone sees, a first impression of your company. Making your feed reflect your brand’s aesthetic and values makes a visual appeal to your products like no other, shaping perspective! Instagram provides opportunities for reels, stories, collabs, and brand-building, which can highlight your company to connect emotionally with customers.

This platform is a go-to for all company sizes! Don’t be afraid to share behind-the-scenes, transformations, tips, and tap into trends. Instagram lets you make time-sensitive stories and promos as well, which makes people feel more inclined to interact when given limited time.

Each post must be eye-catching, which requires constant posting and creates competitiveness, so stay on top of it.

Platform #3: TikTok

TikTok is the most rapidly expanding social media platform today, gaining 1.5 billion monthly users who are generally a younger audience. This platform is best for digital marketing, being known for its short video clips, which keep the attention of viewers, making it extremely engaging. People rely on TikTok for entertainment, discovering products, and watching new creators, so don’t make your post boring. Interesting intros and visual hooks are ideal for a viral post.

TikTok gives brands high potential to introduce their products to a new audience, and with short videos, companies seem less professional and form a relatability that’s unique to other sites. TikTok lets you socialize and comment on others’ posts, and as a brand, it makes you more visible.

Don’t be afraid to participate in popular trends! That is what keeps your business well known, but make sure it fits what your brand wants to sell. Share tutorials, fun facts, transformations, influencer reviews, and more to make sure you’re sharing the back side of your company as well.

A last tip: make use of TikTok Shop. Creators can promote their products and provide direct links for users to buy efficiently and affordably, boosting sales.

Trends are not permanent. Small videos can keep users’ attention, but it is easy to scroll past, so make sure your company stands out and stays relevant.

Find The Perfect Match

Choosing the right platform comes down to knowing your audience, your brand’s strengths, and your content capabilities. Determining between a professional, visual, or trendy look, each social media platform provides a unique approach to connect, so know your business.

LinkedIn continues to be a powerful sales and marketing tool. With other social networks manipulating algorithms, LinkedIn ranks in the top two where organic social media marketing is still effective.

And the user demographics for LinkedIn are a proof point for brands and business leaders to utilize this tool now to engage their audience and grow their business.

What Works on LinkedIn

Strategy and other things are critical to maximize results for brands and personal pages on LinkedIn.

• Provide value. Heavy, brand only content isn’t effective. Audiences want value. Be engaging. Tell stories. Share advice. Use testimonials. Give perspective on industry trends. Be a storyteller. Share what your team is passionate about at work and personally.
• Posting cadence. Have a content calendar and be committed to posting frequency.
• Message and visual consistency. Make sure you are following your message map, content buckets, brand style guide and visual guidelines.
• Encourage team members to interact with your brand page. As we always say, you can’t market externally if your team isn’t educated and engaged internally. Turn each team member into a brand champion. Provide them with the knowledge on how they can market the brand. Make sure content shared on LinkedIn is engaging to them. They should want to like and share the brand’s posts.

Where to Start On LinkedIn

At a minimum, business leaders on LinkedIn should:

• Have an updated headshot.
• Upload a branded timeline cover.
• Log into LinkedIn three times a week.
• Like team members’ and brand’s post.
• Accept relevant and meaningful connections.
• Reach out and ask for connections to team members, clients and other contacts you meet at conferences, conventions, etc.
• Monitor competition’s brand pages to get a snapshot of the competitive landscape.

Interested in assistance utilizing LinkedIn for your business? For you as a business leader? The time is now. Front Porch Marketing is here to help you succeed on this important business platform.

LinkedIn mistakes can be avoided with careful branding and strategy.

LinkedIn continues to be a powerful tool for brands, B2B, B2C and nonprofits, as well as business leaders — and instead of LinkedIn mistakes your company can make LinkedIn a tool for driving your bottom line. Often, companies and nonprofits as well as business leaders approach us to partner with them on LinkedIn strategies and execution. But a few things need to be in place before we start.

When and How to Get Started With LinkedIn

Front Porch Marketing first looks at the brand architecture, target audiences, and competitive environment. For a LinkedIn strategy to be successful, there has to be a good marketing foundation. Therefore, if the branding and strategy isn’t right to begin with, we will not be able to help. We believe in being stewards of our Clients’ budgets and brands, so we consider a one-off LinkedIn initiative to be shooting money into the wind. And that LinkedIn mistake isn’t brand- or thought-leader building.

With that said, these are the five most common LinkedIn mistakes we are seeing companies make right now:

1. Brand pages reposting individuals’ content on its feed

Individuals should share brand content on their feed not the other way around. Content should lead back to the brand.

2. Brand pages posting once or maybe two times a month is a LinkedIn mistake

People cannot see the posts without regular consistency. Be consistent to create connections with your audience.

3. Brand pages only posting what is happening with the company

But what’s in it for your followers? To be truly successful on LinkedIn, provide value and insights no matter where they come from. It’s not what’s all about you you you.

4. Brand pages are not being social

LinkedIn members are commenting and liking your posts. Are you engaging them and doing the same in return? Talk to your followers and this will lead to insights that will inform future content.

5. Business leaders are not convicted about the network

They say that people are only trying to sell me things, or that social media is a waste of time. And the worst of all, *that* isn’t worth sharing. Your followers want to know more about your company, what it stands for, how it can help them, what it’s like to work there and more. LinkedIn is not a mistake — it’s a platform for engaging with your employees, your future employees, your peers and the larger business world.

Want to chat more about LinkedIn, and not make a LinkedIn mistake?

We are happy to do so, to help your company understand how LinkedIn can be a business-driving tool for their industry online. Let’s have a real conversation on the Porch.

Going Digital is the Future

If there’s anything we learned from the pandemic it’s that going digital is the ultimate way to survive as a business. No one expected an event like this to disrupt the world as fast as it did, but we adapted. Lots of corporations switched to being remote or hybrid; and Zoom became a household name. With the world going digital many of us started to realize the importance of marketing ourselves online and there’s no better place than LinkedIn. Membership has climbed to reach over 780 million since the pandemic hit. So there’s no better time than now to upgrade your LinkedIn!

Personal branding is a topic we’re all familiar with. We all know it’s important, but many of us don’t give it the attention it really deserves. Most of the time were just too busy to give it any real time or thought. We think “I know there’s more I could be doing to improve my LinkedIn.” However, in this day and age its crucial to have your personal brand looking clean and professional. Here are a couple of tips and tricks to improve your LinkedIn profile.

Upgrade Your Profile Picture

Your picture is the first thing people see when they click on your LinkedIn profile. It’s important that you get this right. First make sure the picture is a recent photo of you, then make sure your face takes up about 60% of the frame. No long distance shots, and smile with your eyes!

Choose a Background Photo

Choose a background photo that represents either what you do, or your interest in visually interesting way. If you don’t have your own photos to work with, I recommend using a free hd stock image site called Unsplash. Also try to stick with a photo that fits within 1584 (w) x 396 (h) pixels for the best quality.

Get Creative With Your Headline

Your Headline doesnt just have to be what your business is. Try to add a little bit of flair or creativity to it. For example take a look at EA Talent Recruiter Jason Yuan’s LinkedIn headline, “I don’t usually stalk profiles, but when I do I usually have a career opportunity for you. Want to connect!?”. See how he managed to hook your attention and explain what he does? This is what you should be shooting for.

Expand your Network

Linkedin has amazing networking opportunities and has made it very easy to expand your network. One helpful tip is to link your profile with your email address book. LinkedIn will then suggest people you should connect with. Once you start connecting with people you may even notice that you have connections working at companies that you are currently applying for. I strongly suggest if you are in college that you connect with those who go to your school in your major. You never know when that connection may come in handy.

Take Skill Assessments

These are free tests that LinkedIn has created to help you stand out amongst the crowd. According to Linkedin candidates who have certified skills are 30% more likely to get hired. I recommend to getting certified in the Microsoft Excel assessment. It’s a universal skillset that will always help you standout. Obviously the more certified skills you have the better.

Publish Your Own Content

The best way to get noticed on LinkedIn is to publish engaging, long content. You should start pumping these out to start conversations. Make sure it’s interesting. A good tip is to look at the trending articles on LinkedIn News on the right hand side of your account. Look at the trending topics on the platform and share your thoughts or experiences on the topic. If you can don’t be afraid to sprinkle in a little emojis. It may sound stupid but it actually increases reader engagement. Just don’t over do it. Also try to steer away from politics on LinkedIn. This is a platform for professional networking, it’s not Facebook or Twitter.

A Brighter Future Awaits

Upgrading your LinkedIn doesn’t have to be done all in one day. Try to take it in small chunks. These steps may seem trivial at first, but I promise if you knock these out when you have your lunch break, or when find yourself with extra fee time you won’t regret it. Allow LinkedIn to work for you by taking the first step!

Today, social media is a huge part of people’s daily lives. It is used as a way to communicate, keep up with family and friends, see what’s happening around the world and network virtually with business connections that we may not have the opportunity to meet in person.

Social media is such a major component of people’s personal lives. It should be a sure sign for small businesses that a social media presence is an absolute must to build and grow. It is a way for businesses to interact directly with current customers. It is also a way to reach potential customers.

These days, consumers and clients want to engage with businesses through social media and expect businesses to be present on multiple networks. The key to using it successfully is choosing the right networks and consistently updating content. With all the platforms that exist today, the big question for small businesses is, “Which networks are right for my business?”

At Front Porch Marketing, we are big proponents of social media. It is the foundation of almost every marketing plan we create.

Some of our favorite social media networks on the Porch:

• Instagram – for sharing visual content
• LinkedIn – for B2B companies
• Facebook – presents a huge opportunity for consumer engagement
• Twitter – allows businesses to keep on top of what is being said about their industry and stay ahead of the competition

What small businesses have to do is figure out which networks are the right fit for their company based on their target audience. Each reaches a different set of demographics. Once the right networks are defined, it’s critical to share content and interact with customers in a timely and consistent manner. This creates an awesome experience for the customer and any potential customers who may be watching.

If you are looking to establish, expand or evaluate your social media presence, we can help!