HOW SMALL BUSINESSES CAN USE LINKEDIN TO GROW THEIR BUSINESS?
By: Growth Wizards
Tags: Marketing, Small Business, Digital Transformation, Digital Marketing, LinkedIn

HOW TO USE LINKEDIN TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS

Linkedin is the most popular professional social media networking site. Linkedin has more than 675+ million users from more than 200 countries.

India has 62 million LinkedIn users which is the second largest in the world. This is a great platform for small businesses to get connected with their customers, vendors & employees.

If you think that Linkedin is just for people searching for jobs you are wrong. LinkedIn is an all-round professional tool and is an effective platform for promoting your business, learning about your industry, and connecting with your most relevant professional contemporaries.

For small businesses, LinkedIn is a powerful way to connect with new leads without the high cost of traditional advertising. An optimized LinkedIn profile offers an opportunity to grow your network. It gives free exposure for your business. When you invite other professionals to connect with you, they can view your page, including the details of your business. From your professional profile, you can create a Company Page, post updates, and create groups to start discussions with other professionals.

Create your profile and company page with your customer in mind to ensure that your customers get the information they need when they visit your profile and company page.

Below are a few tips on how to effectively use LinkedIn for your small business marketing.

Create a LinkedIn Company Page

Most professionals set up a personal profile, but overlook setting up a company page. You need a Linkedin Company page to amplify your brand to your customers, employees, vendors, distributors, and other stakeholders. A company page also lets you highlight your Products & Services, your credentials, and your employees to build credibility and trust. Best of all, a LinkedIn company page is free.

Connect with like-minded professionals that can become your clients

Once your LinkedIn profile is set up, you should start connecting with industry professionals and people who could become your clients. Small businesses can zero in on the exact industry, company size and job role of the people that they know typically would buy their product or service. You can proactively reach out to your prospective customer base and connect with them to start building up your connections.

You can connect with professionals and those who are the same in your field and that required your services.

Use LinkedIn Groups to connect with people

If you’re looking for more ways to connect with industry professionals and people who may need your product or service, look for groups that are in your industry. Ask and answer questions, and participate consistently. Even better, you can start a group about the products and services you offer. This requires a lot of dedication, but once the group grows you are in control of the group’s messaging and activities.

Add content on LinkedIn

As a small business owner, you should be blogging on a regular basis to share expertise. While it is important that your original content stays on your website you should be sharing this information on LinkedIn as well. Post a link to your website blog along with a short summary, or post a curation piece on LinkedIn, highlighting your blog posts each month.

You’re putting your expertise on display when you share your content and reaching a wider audience than you would with your website blog alone.

Use paid company-sponsored ads on LinkedIn

Sponsored ads boost the visibility of your company page to a targeted customer base who may not be in your network. Sponsored updates appear in LinkedIn member news feeds and look like any other update, except they’re marked as “Sponsored.” This is a powerful way to get in front of a targeted audience and showcase your company page.

Update your company status regularly

Your company page is not a set and forgets it. Be sure to update your company status on a regular basis. If you don’t have timely information to share, be sure to share industry articles so you can showcase your company as a thought leader.

Ask your clients and employees to recommend you on LinkedIn

A great way to get more relevant traffic to your profile and make your company stand-out is to get recommendations from customers & employees This is a great way to make a favorable impression on people who are researching your company potentially considering doing business with you.

Use Linkedin to Hire Talent

LinkedIn has now made the taxing process of hiring much more streamlined, focused, and easy. Moreover, it lets you know your candidates better before meeting them at the time of the interview. You can view the professional profiles of the candidates, gauge their potential with their level of participation and activity in groups, see how they manage their profiles and present themselves, see if they are recommended by other people in the ‘recommendations’ section. Candidates also get a chance to look at your LinkedIn profile before they make a decision to join the company or not.

Summary

With these tips in mind, you can maximize your presence and effectively use Linkedin to grow your business and use this powerful tool as a way to drive higher qualified leads to your small business.

Send us your LinkedIn profiles and company pages. We’d love to link up and see what you are doing. Need professional help to create and optimize your company profile and also regularly manage your company page we can help.