LinkedIn is now the premier social media web site for business. If your conference is targeting professionals in business, education and government, LinkedIn is not to be ignored, although they have discontinued the app for creating events. There are still many great ways for your meeting to be promoted on LinkedIn.
- Post updates on your personal and organization page that link to your online registration form. Use headline terminology, such as registration for your conference “is now open!”
- Post status updates about meeting news such as speaker updates, the venue, and so forth.
- Have a LinkedIn icon on your online registration page that makes it easy for attendees to share that they are going to your conference.
- There are a ton of groups on LinkedIn. You should find groups that are relevant to your conference. If appropriate, post a direct link to your conference site.
- For group discussion pages, it is even better to post the link to your web site in the context of a question for your conference. For example, “We are having a conference, what topics would you be most interested in hearing discussed?” A question is better than a direct link because it leads to reader engagement and does not come off as spam.
- Ask your speakers, exhibitors and sponsors to mention the conference on their LinkedIn feeds.
- Make sure to have the LinkedIn icon on all your relevant web pages and publications.
- You can directly send a message to your connections to your LinkedIn connections with a description of your conference. Make sure your language is professional and the message does not appear as spam. Have a link to your online registration page in your message.
- Related to the group pages, you may see networking events that involve your target audience. These events may be a good setting to promote your meeting.
- LinkedIn has targeted advertising. If your conference audience is not too highly focused, you may want to consider LinkedIn paid ads.
You need to make sure you do not appear as a spammer on LinkedIn. They have strict rules about acceptable messaging, and poor use of the system may result in your account being suspended.
