Some entrepreneurs and business owners think that finding potential investors for their companies will be impossible.

But it’s actually not that hard to find investors if you know where to look. Here are seven ways to find an investor for your startup.

1. Industry Friends & Connections

If you’re ready to start pitching investors on your startup, the best place to begin is usually with people close to you. And we aren’t just talking about seed money from a rich uncle (but if you have one, it wouldn’t hurt to ask him either).

Talk to founders of companies like yours who have worked with investors to find recommendations. Lots of investment groups focus on specialized markets and rely on industry connections to find new investment opportunities.

2. Local Entrepreneurial Groups

Connecting with other local entrepreneurs and founders outside of your immediate circle can also be an avenue for growth, and not strictly through funding.

Yes, expanding your network by joining industry groups on social media, attending local events for new businesses, and generally meeting like-minded people can help you meet potential investors. But in addition to that, you’ll be able to get fresh eyes and outsider opinions on obstacles that can make your business better too.

3. Business Schools & Alumni Programs

As long as you’re connecting with your community, take some time to reach out to your local college, university, business school, or entrepreneurial program. Successful schools usually have a robust network of alumni, faculty, and donors. Someone among them might be interested in funding your startup.

Also, if you attended or graduated from one of these institutions, you can use your own alumni program or social network as a shared connection to reach potential investors.

4. Online

A number of online sources can be useful if you’re trying to find an investor from your startup.

Some business-oriented social media networks, like LinkedIn and Quora, can be an effective place to locate and research potential investors. And if you want to get into investment-specific groups, startup consultant Chris Boucher put together a list of good ones, which includes:

Each platform has different methods for connecting entrepreneurs and businesses with funding and support. Check out those links, as well as other online groups, to find the best fit for your company.

5. Accelerator & Incubation Programs

Startup accelerators and incubation programs work with new companies to provide funding, expertise, and strategies for growth. Many such programs are subsidiaries of larger investment firms, universities, and other large or well-established entities.

Accelerators typically move fast, pushing new companies forward with a template for success. If your startup could benefit from an overall overhaul that goes beyond capital, one of these programs could be a great fit for your business.

6. Angel Investor Networks

Angel investors are individuals or small firms that provide early-stage capital or seed funding for new and expanding businesses. And like other things with feathers, angel investors flock together in networks or groups to expand and diversify their reach.

Angel investors can be a good source for your startup because they’re less beholden to executive boards or stockholders. In other words, it’s their money, and they can give it to you under whatever terms and conditions they see fit.

That said, angel investors also usually expect a higher rate of return than other funding sources. You’ll also want clear contract terms and an agreed-upon exit strategy for when the angels are ready to pull their money out.

7. Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and others are useful for entrepreneurs and budding business owners to get capital.

They can also be a good indicator of the kind of market traction you can expect for your product or service. If no one wants to donate to your idea, for example, you might need to rethink your approach or marketing angle.

Further, there are numerous crowdfunding platforms available, including some that target specific industries or types of businesses. Companies that generate buzz for a funding campaign can not only raise capital but also connect with investors and other industry stakeholders that can help with long term growth.

Final Thoughts on How to Find an Investor for Your Startup

Choosing to put yourself out there and pursue funding can be a difficult choice to make. And making your business presentable and credible for investors is a lot of work too. If nothing else, hopefully this list will make finding an investor easier to check off your to-do list.

If you’re going to start pitching your startup to raise capital, you should know that there are questions to expect from investors.

Investors of all types will want to know what your company does, why it’s worth their time, and how it could lead to a significant return and a large exit.

So before you jump into the shark tank (sorry), here are 9 questions to expect from investors about your startup during fundraising.

1. What problem are you solving?

The exact wording of your investor’s first question may vary, but your presentation will need to include a high-level explanation of the benefit your product or service provides.

More importantly, you’ll need to show an in-depth understanding of the market need you’re filling. That includes what you’re offering, but also the audience you intend to reach, how you’re going to appeal to them, and why this gap in the market hasn’t already been addressed.

This isn’t information that you’ll be able to produce out of thin air. Data and market research that validates your proposal will be crucial to determining the viability of an investment -- and, frankly, the long-term viability of your startup.

2. What have you achieved so far?

Questions to expect from investors are always going to cover what traction you’ve gained with your business or idea. This can include a minimum viable product or beta version, partnerships, pilot customers, testimonials, and other resources.

You can also mention any press you’ve gotten, especially if it’s a notable placement in print, online, or on TV. Buzz in the marketplace can create leverage that you can use to negotiate better terms for your financing.

This isn’t just about press or paying customers, though evidence of both can help. A smart investor may ask how you acquired those customers, for example, so you’ll need to prove that you can fill the top of your sales funnel and convert leads with your process.

3. How do you help your customers?

This question shouldn’t be a surprise. Market opportunity and early traction are important, but your pitch absolutely needs to include a story that explains how your product or service helps your customer.

You should be as specific as possible so that your potential investor can visualize the customer’s pain point and the solution you’re providing. Give your customer a name. Talk about her life and how it will be changed by your offer. And create a story that your investor will want to be a part of.

4. Can you explain your financials?

Investors can be swayed by compelling stories and driven leaders, but they’re also looking for a return on their capital. If you can explain how your company’s metrics will translate into future earnings, your funding conversations can reach a new level.

“The most impressive entrepreneurs communicate the value of their businesses through numbers,” Mark Patricof told Forbes. “A conversation centered on a company’s revenue growth, sales funnel, and customer churn causes an immediate connection with investors.”

5. How will you use my capital?

This question is really just the second part of the previous one. In fact, you can put these two questions together in simple terms. Potential investors are going to ask what you’re doing with your money, and what you plan to do with theirs.

Simple terms, of course, won’t be enough for your answer. You’ll need to explain how the capital will be used, whether that’s expanding your team, increasing your marketing outlays, or buying equipment. You’ll also need to demonstrate that your funding will cover costs, as well as if (or when) additional funds will need to be raised.

6. How are you mitigating risk?

Without due diligence, credible investments are hard to come by.

Investors considering your startup for funding will assess your business and plans to determine if the opportunity you’re presenting is legitimate. This review can include licensing and regulatory matters, real estate and physical assets, and intellectual property rights.

If you’re presenting your company to investors, they’ll expect you to be aware of these concerns. They’ll also expect to hear how you’ll address, mitigate, and compensate for those risks.

7. Why did you choose this problem to solve?

This is a question of motivation, both for you as the owner and your potential investor.

The “why” that keeps you going should be compelling, especially in the context of presenting your business. The problem you’re solving and the value you’re providing have to be fulfilling enough to keep you going when obstacles arise.

Your investors are also more likely to respond if they can empathize with your need to solve this problem. Investors’ goals will vary, so if you can find one that aligns with your mission as well as your product, your pitch has a better chance of resonating.

8. Why you and not a competitor?

Investors are looking for businesses that will be able to stand out from the competition. If you’re pitching “the next Facebook,” for example, you won’t get far without an effective differentiator that gives you a competitive edge over the current Facebook.

Also, investors aren’t just looking for the right ideas or market position, they’re looking for the right people. They’re looking for resilient, competent, driven leaders that will push growth.

You’ll be expected to prove that your leadership or management team is trustworthy and well-rounded enough to grow the business and make good on a potential investment.

And that includes a level of personal trust as well. Investors may want to bring in advisors to help your company grow, and they’ll expect you to listen. Cultivating open and collaborative relationships will go a long way in acquiring funds for your startup.

9. What’s the end goal for your financing strategy?

Angel investors, venture capitalists, and other backers are looking for unique opportunities and significant potential for growth. But these types of commitments aren’t meant to last forever. This is why investors in general, and startup investors in particular, are going to require an exit strategy.

You’ll need to clearly define when and how they’ll be able to recoup their investment and any related gains, sell shares, and conclude your partnership. There might be some give-and-take in the negotiation here, as you’ll need to ensure that the timeframe your investor wants is compatible with your business plan.

Answering Questions To Expect From Investors The Right Way

If you’re presenting to investors, remember that detailed and possibly intrusive questions are a good thing in this scenario.

You’re asking someone to devote significant resources to you and your idea, and you should be prepared for clarifications, interruptions, and tangents. Take these moments in stride. It means they’re interested.

Finally, having answers to these questions is a good start, but don’t stop preparing there. You’ll probably get many more detailed and technical questions about your business, especially if the investor knows your industry or market. Be professional, and use this opportunity to show your commitment to your solution.

Good luck!

GO Venture Capital can help you build your next big idea. Contact us now to get started.

When it comes to social, some brands just get it. Audi’s Instagram is the perfect example. Their content gets users excited, their hashtags are witty, and as a result, their engagement is through the roof.

In terms of analytics, likes, comments, and follower growth barely scratches the surface. It’s no secret that content is the backbone of any successful social media profile, but it’s impossible to optimize your posts without first learning what resonates with your audience.

 

Why Analytics Are a Must

It’s impossible to improve without keeping track of your performance. Paying attention to analytics increases engagement—it’s that simple. With Instagram’s frequent algorithm updates, it’s getting harder by the day for brands to reach their followers without using metrics to optimize their posting strategy.

Measuring your past performance on social media removes the guesswork from future campaigns. In the highly speculative world of social media marketing, tracking data on posting times, frequency, hashtags, and engagement is crucial if you want to set your brand apart.

While switching to a business profile does provide you Instagram’s own basic analytics dashboard, there’s no history, no customization, and no hashtag tracking. The analytics provided by Instagram is great for an on-the-go snapshot, but to do the heavy lifting, you’re going to have to sign up for third-party analytics platform.

 

Key Features to Look For

Finding the right platform can be pretty intimidating—a 15-second search on Google immediately reveals a wide range of options coming in at a wide range of price points.

But at the core, none of them are really that different. Some come with a few bells and whistles like automated reports and in-depth link tracking, but almost any third-party analytics app will be better than what Instagram offers. It’s important to find the blend of UI and data tracking that works for your individual business. As a marketer, you want to know what content is performing the best, how your followers are interacting with your page, and of course, how to increase engagement.

The Necessities:

Helpful to Have:

 

What to Measure

Comments, Likes, and Followers

Followers and likes are largely vanity stats, but these days, vanity is important. Comments, likes, and follower growth all have a huge impact on your overall engagement. Instagram carefully watches your engagement to assess feed placement and the organic reach your posts receive.

Your follower count offers a quick glance of the total reach of your posts, while comments and likes indicate how engaged your followers are.

Likes may the least important in terms of taking action, but they have a huge impact on your placement in the feeds of your followers. The quicker you get comments and likes, the higher your photo will rank in feeds and the explore section.

Comments are the strongest indication of how far your followers are willing to go to engage with your content. Getting more comments on your posts also has a significant impact on your placement within Instagram’s algorithm.

Follower Reachability, Age, and Location

The reachability of your followers plays a massive role in how many impressions your posts get. It’s impossible for followers to engage with a post if they can’t see it. Taking a look at how many people your followers are following can also tell you whether or not your followers’ profiles are actually real.

With Instagram marketing becoming increasingly popular, businesses are turning to bots in order to drive engagement and grow their following.

If you spot a follower with a small follower count following 2000+ people, that profile is likely running a bot. And even if they were a real person, you can’t expect someone to engage with your posts if they’re mixed in with 2000 other profiles.

If you’re trying to target a specific audience, looking at age and location can indicate whether or not you’re reaching your target user.

Your Most Engaging Hashtags

Hashtags are an integral part of growing any Instagram page. Using hashtags increases discoverability and drives organic engagement from highly targeted niches.

An effective hashtag strategy means keeping track of what works and what doesn’t. Try switching up your hashtags frequently to figure out which ones are the most engaging. Make sure your analytics platform has the ability to track hashtag engagement so you can monitor which ones are your best performers

Use a mix of niche tags and larger, more popular tags to get a good balance of targeted engagement and discoverability. Hashtags with larger post volumes make you more discoverable, and smaller hashtags typically result in higher engagement amongst a niche audience.

As you continue to grow, rising to the top of popular hashtags will become easier, and you can change your strategy to reach massive audiences by targeting what’s trending.

How Your Stories Are Performing

Instagram is beating Snapchat at its own game: stories. Stories have quickly become a favorite amongst Instagram marketers due to its innate ability to boost brand exposure and drive profile engagement. With feeds becoming increasingly cluttered, Instagram is pushing stories to provide new ways to increase profile engagement. You can always access stories at the top of the feed, from individual posts within the feed, and now scattered throughout the feed while you’re scrolling.

Despite the massive exposure, like Snapchat, there isn’t too much data collected right now. With some analytics platforms you can keep track of impressions, reach, replies, taps forward, taps back, exits, and “see more” swipes (for profiles with more than 10k followers).

Impressions refer to the total number of views, while reach refers to unique viewers. Replies, taps forward, taps back, and exits all indicate how engaging your stories are. It’s good to keep an eye on everything, but taps back and exits are particularly useful in figuring out what resonates with your following. Always try to post something that will make users do a double take—beautiful visuals, games, polls, and content strung across multiple posts all engage users in unexpected ways. If you want to attract attention on social media, you have to be fun. Remember, people want to share posts that make their friends smile.

Give Users the Inside Scoop

Social media is all about showing users something they can’t see by going to your store or visiting your website. Yes, Instagram is ultimately a platform for advertising, but you’ll have nobody to show your ads to if you can’t build a following.

It’s impossible to fake being interesting. If you only post promotions and product links, you’re going to experience extremely low engagement. The quickest way to grow on social media is to create content that is genuinely interesting to your audience. A good analytics platform in combination with eye-catching content is an unstoppable combo.

While most people don’t understand how cryptocurrencies work, almost anyone can experience their benefits. The main features of the blockchain are simple: an irreversible ledger, speedy transactions, and extremely low fees.

In addition to improving your overall customer experience, accepting cryptocurrency as a business makes you especially appealing to other early adopters of crypto.

Not to mention the fact that you’re getting paid in an asset that is almost certainly going to appreciate over time.

In a nutshell, cryptocurrencies allow for irreversible transactions at lightning speeds — negating the potential for chargebacks, adding convenience, and reducing the revenue you lose due to transactions fees.

Save Money on Transaction Fees

Cryptocurrency payments cost significantly less to process than credit cards. Credit and debit fees range from 3% to 5% while most cryptocurrencies max out at about 1%.

2% to 4% doesn’t sound like much, but across thousands of transactions a week, small fees can start to add up quickly.

If you’re an online business, thousands of dollars a month on credit card transaction fees are all too common.

As more altcoins continue to flood the market promising even faster and cheaper transactions, accepting crypto is becoming a no-brainer for businesses that process a lot of digital payments.

Stay Ahead of Trends

As investors flock to the market and new coins get more publicity, most people are starting to become aware of the benefits cryptocurrencies have to offer.

Crypto helps both consumers and businesses in terms of usability and security.

The number of crypto wallets is increasing exponentially; bitcoin alone sees at least 300,000 new wallets a month.

A mere 400,000 wallets were opened between Q1 ’15 and Q2 ’15, shooting up to over 4,000,000 wallets added between Q3 ’17 and Q4 ’17.

Entice Tech-Savvy Consumers

Accepting cryptocurrency makes your business feel cutting edge to tech-savvy customers.

It seems like everyone is talking about crypto, but we’re still only at 1% adoption. If you can be the first in your industry to accept cryptocurrency payments, you have massive marketing appeal to customers who also got in early.

Eliminate the Potential for Chargebacks

Credit card chargebacks are one of the most common complaints amongst business owners — a one-way scam that allows customers to shop for free by reporting fraudulent charges to their credit card company.

It’s possible to fight unscrupulous chargebacks, but it’s extremely complex and ends up taking ages — or at least long enough for most businesses to give up completely and just take the loss.

The silver lining? Cryptocurrencies are impossible to chargeback. Anything that takes place on the blockchain is recorded on an immutable ledger.

In other words, once a transaction takes place, you can’t alter it.

Accepting cryptocurrency allows you to eliminate the potential for chargebacks while still maintaining a seamless return policy.

Price Volatility Can Be a Bit of a Downside

If you’re familiar with cryptocurrency, you know it only takes a few hours for the price to move upwards of 15%.

Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin are all subject to trading on public markets, with their price action based largely on headlines and technology announcements.

BTC went from $14,000 to $20,000 and back down to $12,000 in less than a month. This can be difficult on the pricing of your products or services depending on how your business is structured.

For now, the easiest way to combat price fluctuation is to set your prices in USD and update the equivalent price in cryptocurrency at the time of a transaction. If you don’t want to hold exclusively cryptocurrencies, most apps will automatically convert whatever coins you accept to your local currency during the sale.

This allows you to reap the benefits of accepting cryptocurrency without having to take on the risk of storing your revenue in a highly volatile asset.

On the other hand, if you do choose to keep your cryptocurrency, there’s always the possibility for the price to rise and increase the value of your investment.

Your Money Is Available Instantly

Processing credit card transactions and bank transfers in USD comes with a huge delay.

Whether you’re wiring money or transferring cash from your invoicing app to your checking account, the average time for a USD based transaction ranges from 24hrs to five business days.

If daily revenue is your business’s only source of capital, not being able to access your money for days on end can spell disaster.

Cryptocurrency based transactions have little to no waiting period. Bitcoin takes only a few minutes, Ethereum just a little quicker, and the latest altcoins in under a minute. Low latency transactions with extremely low fees are two of the undeniable benefits cryptocurrency offers to modern business owners.

How to Get Started Accepting Bitcoin

It all starts with a merchant wallet. BitPay is currently the biggest and most widely used, including a list of massive companies like Microsoft, Virgin, and Shopify.

Setting up an account with BitPay allows you accept bitcoin, safely store them, convert them, and transfer your local currency to a banking account.

Get Your Address out There

If you’re a brick-and-mortar business, a QR code is likely going to be the best way for customers to send their payments. Almost all consumer wallets have the option to scan wallet addresses, so QR codes are a great option for any business looking to start accepting crypto.

For online businesses, allow users to copy your address at checkout so they can just paste it straight into their wallet along with the exact amount of cryptocurrency at the time of sale.

Stay on Top of Your Taxes

If you’re frequently converting between cryptocurrencies and US dollars, you need to report it to the IRS. Use accounting software to stay on top of your revenue and don’t hesitate to contact the IRS if you have any questions before you start to accept cryptocurrency.

As a whole, cryptocurrency and blockchain technology is designed to streamline consumer transactions. It’s only a matter of time before all businesses start to hop on board.

It only took a few months for Instagram to beat Snapchat at its own game. Instagram Stories came out less than two years ago and already sees an audience of 300M DAU.

Snapchat’s latest update isn’t helping things either. The majority of users are outraged, and a change.org petition to revert the app back to its old interface has already amassed over one million signatures.

On the other hand, Instagram offers the best of both worlds — ephemeral content with massive exposure. Marketers can captivate on Instagram’s fast-growing network while still getting Snapchat levels of engagement.

Like Snapchat but Better

After Instagram debuted its own version of Stories to over 800 million existing users, their new content channel doubled Snapchat’s entire user base in just a few months.

Instagram also doesn’t have any problems with monetization — advertisers can’t get enough of the platform.

Instagram’s main advantage is that it keeps all of your content in one place. The days of switching between apps when you want to see different forms of media are long gone. Instagram has a ton of touchpoints throughout the experience and creates more opportunities for users to interact with your brand.

In terms of creative, it’s a tossup between Snapchat lenses and Instagram GIF Stickers. But as a marketer, you can’t deny the convenience of having all of your content in one place.

Snapchat Stories no longer autoplay after the latest update. Instagram, on the other hand, makes it ridiculously easy to fall down the rabbit hole and watch 20 stories in a row.

Tell a Story

Instagram Stories are an opportunity to make your brand feel human. The best brands on Instagram use Stories to informally engage their users with behind-the-scenes content.

Stories can be used to build awareness, generate engagement, and convert customers without leaving the app.

If your feed is curated with a specific theme (which it should be), Stories are your chance to get slightly less rigid and delve into the more personal side of your brand.

Let’s say your profile is dedicated to photos of food with accompanying recipes. Stories are a great place to show how you prepare the meals or host votes about what you should cook next.

Stories help you fill the gaps in-between your feed posts.

People like to see other people — influencers with the highest engagement aren’t afraid to turn the camera around on themselves or their team.

Adding faces and dialogue to your stories makes your content feel that much more relatable when users are scrolling through their posts from their friends.

Leverage Polls to Increase Engagement

Instagram’s algorithm takes everything into account, from how long the average user spends on your post to how many taps back your Stories receive.

The more engagement your account receives, the higher your photos will rank in your followers’ feeds. Instagram heavily rewards users that publish a combination of feed posts and Stories.

In an attempt to make it easier for users to generate engagement on their Stories, Instagram added customizable polls that your followers can vote on.

Polls are a super organic way to engage your audience without appearing spammy. Not only are polls great for your marketing strategy, but they can also be used to provide valuable feedback for your business.

While no official numbers have been released, Instagram reported that Story engagement has increased drastically since the addition of polls.

Get Creative with Your Highlights

Though Snapchat and Instagram Stories originally maxed out at 24 hours, Instagram now allows users to highlight Stories on their profiles that stay up forever.

Highlights are a great way to generate engagement on sales, give a behind-the-scenes look at your business, or even highlight specific products users can buy directly from your Story.

Chipotle brilliantly uses highlights to showcase fullscreen videos of how all of their different meals are prepared.

A series like this would never work in the feed where things would eventually get lost in chronological order. Highlights are displayed in the order you choose, and they’re always available at the top of your profile.

Keep in mind that you can’t change the order of your stories once your highlight is published, so a bit of planning is required if you want to make the right content show up first.

Experiment with Story Ads

Achieving cheap reach on Facebook is getting increasingly difficult as advertisers continue to saturate the platform with sponsored content.

Video ads have always combatted high CPCs (cost per click) by being especially engaging, and Instagram Stories only amplify this effect.

If you get your targeting right, Instagram Story Ads have the cheapest overall CPC of any Facebook advertising option.

The key to Instagram Story Ads is getting the attention of your audience in under three seconds. You only have 10 seconds to display photos and 15 for videos. Your ad’s key message should appear in the first half of your Story to catch people before they lose interest and swipe away.

Remember, real-life scenes convert better than animated graphics. User-generated Stories are almost always scenes in real life, so content with graphics stand out as an advertisement almost immediately — you lose the subtle connection with your audience.

With Story Ads, you can test your creative by posting it on your profile first without wasting your budget. Always test multiple types of creative before locking all of your spend into a single campaign.

If you consider yourself an entrepreneur, you’re probably no stranger to LinkedIn. After the recent algorithm and homepage updates, LinkedIn is starting to spread beyond white-collar business veterans.

The emphasis was always on status updates from people already in your network — there wasn’t much virality or sharability baked into the platform — it was a closed loop. LinkedIn was all about providing an organized way to stay up-to-date with your colleagues.

Now, however, LinkedIn’s goals are shifting. The new algorithm makes it much easier to get your content discovered and build a following. And with the highly targeted nature of LinkedIn’s user base, the right strategy can turn your profile into an unbeatable source of organic traffic.

Here are seven quick tips to help you optimize your LinkedIn presence and start generating more leads.

1. Know Your Audience

If you want to build a quality following, you have to familiarize yourself with the audience you’re trying to reach — regardless of what platform you’re on.

You can’t optimize your profile and posting style without researching what your target audience is already clicking on. The LinkedIn profile of a student trying to land their first job at a venture capital firm is obviously going to look a lot different from a 4x startup veteran funneling users to their chatbot course.

At the end of the day, LinkedIn is about targeted lead generation. Getting a few thousand profile views a day is meaningless unless they’re candidates for whatever value you’re offering.

Research what types of content your target audience engages with and try to incorporate it into your own posting strategy.

2. Make Your Profile Clickable

It all starts with a captivating headline — it’s the first thing people see when your name pops up on their screen. Highlight your current position and any past accolades that grab attention in your industry.

Your headline impacts how your profile appears in search results, so don’t be afraid to add some keywords that you want to be targeted for.

Make sure your previous work experience is up-to-date; this is a great place to go into detail about any achievements or prestigious responsibilities you held in your previous roles.

It’s also important to make sure your bio is captivating and easy to digest — first-person tends to work the best these days. Talk about yourself, what you do, what your ventures do, and what your goals on LinkedIn are. Be clear about why you’re trying to grow your network and who you’re trying to connect with.

3. Keep It Professional

LinkedIn says profiles with photos receive 21 times more profile views than those without.

Don’t leave it blank, but remember, LinkedIn isn’t a place to showcase your significant other or your dogs. LinkedIn is supposed to help you make a professional first impression. The world loves dogs, just not on LinkedIn. Save those for Instagram.

It’s a social platform, but professional photos with a warm smile tend to receive the highest engagement.

4. Highlight Your Best Endorsements

Profiles with a minimum of five skills average 17 times more profile views than users without them. When you’re trying to get more clients, customers, or even land a new job, your LinkedIn profile acts as social proof.

The skills section allows you to highlight your talents and receive endorsements for the things you’re best at. Keep in mind you’re only allowed to showcase five, so keep track of which ones you want to highlight once you start to receive a lot of endorsements.

5. Personalize Your Network Invitation

LinkedIn’s default invitation is boring, impersonal, and doesn’t engage the recipient: “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.”

If you don’t change your invitation message, you’re relying on your name, profile photo, and title to win over the person you’re trying to connect with.

You’re screwed if the person doesn’t remember your name. LinkedIn gives you the opportunity to personalize your message for free. Take advantage of it.

This is the only opportunity you have to influence your first impression based on who you’re trying to network with. Bring up how you came across their profile, some of their previous work that you admire, and why you’d like to connect with them.

People like authenticity on social media and LinkedIn is no different.

6. Get In Front of The Camera

Video consumption and mobile device usage are skyrocketing across all of the major social networks, LinkedIn included.

LinkedIn finally introduced native video publishing towards the end of summer in 2017. Video receives exponentially higher engagement than photos and text posts on every social media platform.

As smartphones continue to dominate the way people access social media, you should always optimize your video content for mobile viewing.

The standard has been landscape for decades, but shifting to portrait is best if you want to engage the increasing number of smartphone users.

Be descriptive with the accompanying caption, keep in mind that a lot of users are going to have their sound off if they’re viewing on mobile.

7. Start Posting Statuses Everyday

Captivate on the influx of new members and build a following while LinkedIn is still relatively unsaturated. LinkedIn is unbeatable for anyone in the B2B space. LinkedIn’s user base is made up almost exclusively of aspirational entrepreneurs looking to make connections in their industry (I.e. a lead magnet).

Right now, LinkedIn still isn’t saturated with influencers — it’s easy to build a following if you can offer value in a specific niche.

It’s best to post a combination of long-form articles and statuses when you’re starting to grow your following. Post statuses at least once a day, and try to mix it up with a variety of images, videos and copy styles to find out what works best for your audience.