Six Reasons LinkedIn Strategies Boost Your Community Advocacy

Using LinkedIn to boost your community advocacy efforts is a vital way to get the message out to the target audiences that you are working for. One of the biggest reasons to think critically about this is because, quite simply, communities don’t even realize what your destination organization or DMO is doing to boost their quality of life.

Using LinkedIn is the smart way to change that.

These six reasons are just the start to thinking more strategically about using LinkedIn for community advocacy messaging.

1. Facilitate Third Party Testimonies

It’s always great to have someone else do your cheerleading for you, and LinkedIn offers just that. Like most social media platforms, LinkedIn provides a platform for sharing articles, posts, and multimedia content that elevate your destination. You can use it to showcase what others are saying about you without generating your own accolades.

Use this feature to educate your network about specific issues, to share success stories, and to promote events or initiatives that align with your advocacy goals. It’s a smart way to give your destination’s efforts more credibility and maybe catch the eye of officials who could be rethinking your funding in the future.

2. Let Business Leaders Celebrate

In addition to celebrating your own community advocacy efforts, LinkedIn grants you access to businesses who are benefiting from tourism but might not know it. It’s a place to celebrate their wins alongside investment success stories that local communities don’t even realize are happening.

Use Linkedin to share these successes to make it clear how your DMO is working for the community. These practices will both endear businesses to your cause and help you identify key players in your local business ecosystem.

3. Engage Groups, Large and Small

LinkedIn groups and communities are spaces where people with similar interests or goals gather. Joining and actively participating in relevant groups allows your DMO a way to engage with a targeted audience. Exchange ideas and collaborate with individuals who are passionate about the same community issues — those beyond just the business community.

Use these groups to connect with various chambers, affinity clubs, athletic groups, and any other niche interest that might be interested in conversing with your DMO.

4. Showcase Thought Leadership

By consistently sharing valuable content and insights related to your community advocacy efforts, you can position yourself or your organization as a thought leader in community advocacy. This can help attract attention, gain credibility, and influence others to support your cause. Plus, it gives you an outlet for all of the innovative ideas you’ve been emailing back and forth with your team. 

Start writing LinkedIn articles about community advocacy to engage organically with the connections you are making there. Let them hear from your team, in your voice.

5. Reach Those You Didn’t Know You Didn’t Know

LinkedIn is home to all sorts of local businesses and associations that you may not be aware of yet in your community. Having a strong presence on the social media platform is a way to discover these potential partners and community members. It also lets them find you and know that your destination is working for them.

Spend some time searching and reading other posts to identify community partners you don’t know yet, and connect with them to change that.

6. Get Taken Seriously More Quickly

More broadly, using Linkedin for community advocacy efforts is an easy way to give you that extra dose of credibility you are seeking. So much destination marketing and branding gets caught up in the flashy images and videos shared on other social networks. 

On LinkedIn, however, you can have the deeper, more serious conversations about your work that people need to hear. It’s what attracts people to it in the first place, so start to embrace its potential if you haven’t already.

Wondering if you’re using LinkedIn as strategically as possible for your community advocacy? We’ve got ideas aplenty. Get in touch with Hanna Gbordzoe at [email protected] to learn more about working with DCI to elevate your LinkedIn approach.