I’m not one for clickbaity titles, but, this one is true, so we’re gonna stick with it!

In my social media coaching work, I support a lot of small business owners who are overwhelmed and taking drastic steps to keep their business alive during difficult times. So when they come to me and say… “Look, I don’t have time to create content. I don’t have the budget to hire someone to create content. I don’t want to subscribe to an automator that publishes the same content as everyone else in my industry. What can I do on social media to grow my business?”

I like to have an answer for these people. Most social media folks would say,

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But, I like to help people run a mile before they run a marathon. Especially if they’ve been kicked in the knee by 2020.

There are a lot of ways you can successfully use social media to build new relationships, identify and connect with strategic partners, and, generate leads from those conversations.

Sometimes, we need to shift the echo chamber we’ve built for ourselves over many years of using (or not using) a particular social channel. One way to do that is the strategic use of hashtags on LinkedIn.

I know, I know…

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YES, Hashtags on LinkedIn. Hear me out…

While LinkedIn takes quite a bit more research, eloquence & patience than Instagram to build an audience via hashtagging your own content, it is an exceptional way to find content that resonates with your message and allows you to interact in an outbound manner with people 2 and 3 degrees away from you.

This method is about the hashtags OTHERS are using.

Historically, the only way to connect with people outside of your network has been LinkedIn Groups (which quite frankly, have lost their spice) or having a LinkedIn business services upgrade that allows you this extended communication potential. Not everyone has this luxury in today’s world.

WHY does this matter?

• Extention of reach in a way that you’ve identified with intention.

• Connecting with new people who may need exactly what you have to offer, whom you can refer others to, or could be incredible joint venture partners. (Yes, all have happened for me through this tactic.)

• Communication within the networks of these people opens up a new world of audience potential you never knew existed.

It’s like, after years of walking by that CVS downtown, you realize, the dark creepy door to the left opens up to an amazing underground jazz club filled with extraordinarily talented people you want to hang out with. (This also really happened, but that’s a story for another day.)

Wouldn’t you like to level up your network potential? A few tips:

  1. Unfollow connections that no longer serve you or even worse, get under your skin when you see their posts.
  2. Do strategic hashtag research to identify categories on LinkedIn that you can follow. (Yes, it’s tedious but worth it.) Engage with content in a meaningful way to open your visibility to not only the author but the author’s network.
  3. Follow 3 hashtags as your company page. This is the ONLY way LinkedIn allows you to engage with content as your company page versus your personal account if you are looking to build awareness there.

Tune into this short 7-minute episode of “The Visibility Doctors” with Coach Molle of Three Pines Leadership, and Ron Cool and Cory Carter of HindsightHacKing Media to learn more about increasing your visibility with ease on LinkedIn!

Need to spice up your LinkedIn profile? Download my FREE 4-step workbook today!