Building your brand on Linkedin.

LinkedIn Live is a series of events taking place in cities across the country to help business executives better understand how to take advantage of the powerful social network. The most recent LinkedIn Live event in Portland took place at the Oregon Zoo on March 18, and was completely sold out. Business executives came to hear a variety of experts share their perspectives on how the fast growing platform is helping companies extend their recruiting, sales, marketing, and branding efforts. Hunter discussed how LinkedIn can be used to extend a brand experience, create awareness, share insights, influence perception, and build relevant relationships between brands and their audiences. For those that couldn’t make it to the event, we are providing his presentation on SlideShare, see the link at the end of this article.

Others speakers included Kent Lewis, President of Anvil Media; Dan Scroggin, VP of Business Development at Montgomery & Graham; Heidi Kayser, Director of Business Development at Animation Dynamics; Pinky Gonzales, Founder of Upriver Solutions, and Gina Chiotti-Hovey, Executive Recruiter at Acumen Executive Search. Each speaker offered valuable insights on how to best maximize LinkedIn to achieve business objectives. For example, Pinky Gonzales reminded the crowd that all too often people think that quantity (more contacts) trumps quality (relevant content). Instead, he suggested that connecting with a purpose in mind is far better than just adding another person to your contacts list.

During his presentation, Hunter emphasized that brand building on LinkedIn is best started by being clear about the brand values and purpose—and creating and sharing content that is relevant to current and potential clients, partners and employees. Hunter shared a few examples from Liquid Agency. We segment brand experience using the filters of product, service, customer, and culture. Then we develop content that offers insights, opinions, and advice across these subjects. We reach out to groups who share similar interests, thus expanding our reach far beyond the people in our contact lists. The content helps solidify our position in the industry, and provides our audiences with information that they can use to move their businesses forward.

LinkedIn is a great opportunity to engage targeted audiences with content that is relevant to those audiences and is aligned with the strategic platform for the brand.

Hunter Marshall

Brand Strategy Director, Liquid Agency

During his presentation, Hunter emphasized that brand building on LinkedIn is best started by being clear about the brand values and purpose—and creating and sharing content that is relevant to current and potential clients, partners and employees. Hunter shared a few examples from Liquid Agency. We segment brand experience using the filters of product, service, customer, and culture. Then we develop content that offers insights, opinions, and advice across these subjects. We reach out to groups who share similar interests, thus expanding our reach far beyond the people in our contact lists. The content helps solidify our position in the industry, and provides our audiences with information that they can use to move their businesses forward.

Combining behavioral insights and business strategy acumen with his design background, Hunter leads Liquid Agency’s strategy team in Portland to create innovative, effective brand strategy, messaging and campaigns. His primary experience is with brand creation and evolution (positioning, architecture, messaging, naming, nomenclature) for both B2B and B2C technology clients including VMware, Adobe, HP, and Freescale. He is also passionate about, and well-versed in sustainability, with expertise in cleantech and behavioral change campaigns for energy efficiency. Hunter has lead strategy teams in developing brand research, insights, strategy, and integrated communications planning while at his own agency, the Block & Tackle group, and as SVP of Strategic Planning at Draftfcb, with prior senior-level strategic roles at Landor and FutureBrand. Hunter holds a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and an International MBA from the Rotterdam School of Management in the Netherlands.