LinkedIn was launched in 2003. It is a social platform that is perfect for professionals and facilitating networking. The site is generally used by individuals who want to showcase their own achievements and skills to potential employers, and you will find many CV’s that now have a link to a LinkedIn account where more information can be found about a prospective employee. However, LinkedIn isn’t just useful as a platform where individuals can upload their work histories and qualifications; it can also be used by businesses as a marketing platform.
With over 500 million members, the social network is a great way to expand your business circle and offers you the ability to make additional connections through the existing connections you already have. However, this networking building method is not just available to individuals. Through the creation of a business LinkedIn account, you can grow your internet presence, establish relationships with clients, and boost overall company results.
LinkedIn facilitates collaboration, networking, and brand recognition, something that both individuals and businesses can benefit from. Therefore, we have provided this guide that tells you everything you need to know about using LinkedIn as a marketing platform, to your business’s advantage.
Start with Your Own Profile
We would recommend that you start off by building up your own profile before setting up a business page, as this will give you the opportunity to link to the two accounts together later. Even though you want to use LinkedIn to market and promote your business, it is important to remember that ultimately, business is done between individuals, and most people want to know who they are doing business with before signing on the dotted line.
Having a strong individual and business LinkedIn page is a lot more effective than just having a solo business page. The whole point of LinkedIn is to link with other pages and people, so it is important that you have a personal profile to connect with your own company and others who you have worked/currently work with. By having a 100 percent completed personal and business profile, you can develop your overall brand.
Add Your Company
Once you have developed your own LinkedIn profile, you can create an effective and detailed page for your business. This is a great place for you to market and advertise everything that your company has to offer, such as its achievements, aims, and skills. You should be as detailed as possible in your business page description so that you can really impress page visitors. This is important as potential customers and clients may visit your LinkedIn profile to find out more information about you before doing business with you. Therefore, you want to give them the right first impression.
In relation to other marketing methods, using LinkedIn is a great way to show off and market your business in a detailed way. Having a comprehensive and detailed profile will also be important when you start to engage with followers and implement additional marketing strategies, such as sponsored ads, as once you have attracted the attention of other LinkedIn members, it is important that you hold their attention based on your company profile.
Attract Followers
It is crucial that you have a considerable level of engagement on your business page in order to use it as an effective marketing platform. When someone is a follower of your page, they will automatically see your posts on their LinkedIn feed. If you don’t have many followers or aren’t following many people, you are limiting your visibility. Have your own personal LinkedIn profile set up for this step so you can link your two accounts together by stating that you are the owner of the business. This not only notifies your current followers but will also give potential clients the chance to learn more about you.
You should start by adding your current employees, as they are going to be your biggest advocates and are the followers that are most likely to share any content you post with their own networks. You should also follow other company pages that are within your industry or that you have worked with before. Reach out to competitor companies in your industry in order, to make your presence known.
Sponsor Your Posts
As with any marketing strategy, you need a high level of engagement, so that you can be sure that your marketing techniques are working effectively. However, when you first create your LinkedIn business profile, you may not have enough of a presence or following to make a big impact with your marketing strategy. Therefore, if you post content that seems of interest to the followers that you do have, you may want to go on to sponsor the post via the sponsored content tool on LinkedIn. This provides you with the opportunity to promote specific content more directly so that it appears on the newsfeed of the professionals you are trying to reach. This is a useful marketing technique if you want to target a specific audience for your posts.
Publish Valuable Content
The better the content you publish on your LinkedIn platform, the more engagement you will receive and the more effective this marketing tool will be for your business. Just like when trying to create valuable content for any network, it is important that you post information that is useful to your readers and something that will make them want to know more about your business. This doesn’t always mean creating brand new content just for your LinkedIn account; you can also link blog posts and articles that feature on your business website and advertise them on your LinkedIn updates. This is a great way to increase engagement, drive traffic to your website, and it may also lead to an increase in revenue.
By following our guide, you can utilize your LinkedIn account to build your credibility, establish a meaningful network, and market everything that is great about your business.
