LinkedIn: How Winning Mindshare is the Key to Growing Market Share in 2023

The business development and sales landscape has changed.

In 2023, winning mindshare has emerged as the ultimate key to growing market share and at the forefront of this shift stands LinkedIn. Gone are the days when LinkedIn was solely for job seekers and recruiters. It has evolved, becoming a powerful tool to showcase work, convey personality - and ultimately create business opportunities through establishing meaningful relationships.

In this blog post, we will delve into:

👉How the business landscape has changed in the last few years, and why
👉The re-birth of LinkedIn for the business community
👉The growth of ‘personal branding’ and what the f*ck it means
👉Why businesses should encourage employees to have a personal brand
👉How co&co help employees to build a solid online presence using LinkedIn

But first, what the f*ck in marketing boll*cks is ‘mindshare’?

Put simply, ‘mindshare’ in the context of this article, is where a person has won over the mind of their audience by building a human connection with them. They have connected over something - most likely something ‘non-salesy or non-work related’, which has built rapport, trust and likeability. People really do buy from people - and in 2023, that is marketing fluff that businesses can take right to the bank.

How the business landscape has changed in the last few years, and why

The COVID-19 pandemic hit us all pretty hard, and businesses had to think on their feet fast. Just ask our founder Jordan, who registered the company one month before the pandemic hit.

With everyone at home working ‘virtually’, the curtain was lifted on the everyday normal lives of people behind the businesses. We were all suddenly caught in a juggling act; parents trying to get their kids to zoom classes, meetings interrupted by dogs barking at deliveries, partners making coffee in their pants in the background… no? That didn't happen to everyone? Just us then.

The point is, with all these very ‘human’ moments, people started to see that their job was probably the least interesting thing they had in common with people. We started to bond with those we worked with and did business with over our common experience of lockdown, of the impact of the restrictions on our everyday lives. We started to actually get to know each other.

If there is one thing that the pandemic did to help us all out, it was to hold a mirror up to the way we work, and more importantly - how we should be working. Three years on from that initial 2 week lockdown (LOL) hybrid working, remote working, flexible working - are all terms we are familiar with.

The pandemic reminded us that we are all people - with busy lives that don’t revolve around what we do between the hours of 9am - 5pm (if you’re lucky) every single day - and that spilled out on social media (as everything does) - including LinkedIn.

The re-birth of LinkedIn for the business community

Leading up to the mindshare = market share shift that we have seen in the last few years, LinkedIn was mainly seen as a tool for recruiters and job hunters. For people not recruiting, and for those not looking for jobs, it was no more than an empty room to shout in every now and again about something dead boring, and more than likely just something that their business had done - that offered no value at all. Not anymore.

LinkedIn has now become a place to build a following and a community based on who you are, your opinions and thoughts, your skillset and insight - in the context of your professional life - whilst also injecting your personality into the content. It’s become a place to build connections with like minded people who share your experiences and your viewpoints, or, who just like the way you do things.

Feeds are now full with faces sharing experiences, pulling back the curtain to reveal more about themselves, how their own personal experiences shape and impact their professional lives, and vice versa. Founders and employees alike can share who they truly are and what they stand for, while networking and building true connections. It’s the new way to ‘do’ business.

The growth of ‘personal branding’ and what the f*ck it means

A personal brand is like any other brand, it has:

• A clear tone of voice: Not just what it is saying, but how it is saying it
• A set of core values: What it stands for, and what it aims to do for the audience
• A clear visual identity: The unique look, colours, style in how content is presented

Having a personal brand is more than having an online presence; it's about authentically showcasing who you are and what you stand for. Personal branding matters because it allows individuals to differentiate themselves in a crowded marketplace, establish credibility, and build trust with their target audience.

Why businesses should encourage employees to have a personal brand

As understanding of personal branding has grown, it is largely founders and business owners who have jumped on it to establish their profiles in their sector or field. However, in an ever increasingly competitive sales and business development landscape - empowering fee earning employees to grow their own online presence with a strong personal brand, is paying dividends (literally) to those business earners.

When you start thinking of every fee earner as a route to market - why wouldn’t you give them the tools to grow a strong online presence? Employees that develop strong personal brands, become powerful advocates for an organisation, generating content that is 24% more likely to be shared by others - meaning they are:

• Building more trust in your brand
• Increasing visibility and reach
• Developing better customer relationships

How co&co help employees to build a solid online presence using LinkedIn

Over the past three months, co&co has successfully rolled out our LinkedIn Masterclass workshop to three prominent corporates. These companies recognised the value of investing in their employees' personal branding journeys. If you wanted proof that harnessing the power of LinkedIn is worth it (as always, we practise what we preach) Jordan's own stats over a 90 day period speak for themselves:

• 722% increase in profile views
• 26% growth in followers
• 2104% surge in comments
• 5 new business enquiries

…all within a mere 90 days.

In our workshops, participants learn how to:

👉 Identify what their personal brand is
👉 Plan, execute, and schedule impactful content
👉 Resonate with their target audience
👉 Use learned networking strategies
👉 Understand algorithm insights
👉 Execute online engagement techniques.

Don't just take our word for it.

Daniel Sheehan, Director of Law Firm FieldFisher, had this to say about our Marketing Masterclass: “Like a lot of firms and corporate organisations, LinkedIn has always been an untapped platform for us. After meeting the co&co team it was clear that there was so much we had to learn when it came to really maximising the potential of the platform - and growing the online profiles of our key fee earners in order to deliver a commercial benefit for the business.

The delivery of the LinkedIn workshop was fantastic - the perfect mix of ‘why' building a solid online profile is commercially worthwhile for both the individual and the business, as well as ‘how’ to go about it, manage it, and be consistent with it. As well as being really insightful, the sessions were great fun for the whole team - interactive and engaging, with a lot of laughs thrown in too.

Jordan and Sophie are incredibly personable, and really put everyone at ease, which was key in getting the necessary participation from people perhaps more used to the corporate world. I can’t recommend the workshop enough! We are really excited about working with co&co in the future across more projects.”

Would my business benefit from a LinkedIn Workshop?

Our workshops are tailored to meet the needs of businesses that have fee earners and revenue generating employees at the heart of what they do.

All businesses are made up of people and as previously discussed, your employees are the key to winning mindshare. Building a solid online profile is not just about winning business; it's about building connections and fostering authentic relationships.

Want to know how your employees can better utilise LinkedIn to make the phone ring? Get in touch with us today.