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Why You Should Use LinkedIn For Business
Unless you have been on the planet Mars for the past decade, you will know that LinkedIn is possibly the biggest social networking site aimed at professionals. Every business owner who wants to make the most of their online presence should be using this valuable tool.
So if you’re not using it, get started right away. Here are just some of the ways in which it will benefit you:
- New Contacts: LinkedIn is a network of professionals, so once you sign up you have access to a huge range of potential clients, business partners or other useful industry contacts. For every company there is the ongoing issue of how to generate new sales leads or reach out to new customer base. With LinkedIn, you can go from having just a handful of contacts to thousands in a short space of time, with minimal effort and no expense. Why wouldn’t you take advantage of this?
- Increasing Visibility: If you’re trying to establish yourself as a well-known brand then online social networking is a very effective way to do this. By joining groups and engaging in useful dialogues you will find that you gain the kind of brand recognition you would not be able to achieve with more traditional marketing methods.
- Boosting Employee Morale: Just by ‘liking’ or ‘sharing’ your updates, your employees can boost awareness of your company immeasurably. But if you also encourage them to establish their own LinkedIn profiles you are showing them that you trust them. It also makes them feel as though your company’s social networking strategy is more of a collaborative effort rather than something that is managed solely from the top.
To really feel these benefits, you need to be using LinkedIn in the correct way. Don’t be intimidated if it looks confusing at first: if you talk to a marketing expert when you’re developing your online strategy they will help you get the hang of it quickly. But to give some brief examples, here are just three of the things you could be doing:
- Join Or Create Groups: One of the reasons LinkedIn is such a valuable tool is the huge number of industry groups it allows you to join. Try to identify groups that will contain prospective clients or business partners and then join up. Furthermore, if you really want to build your own community you can start you own group. This way you can tailor it to a very specific audience.
- Establish Your Credentials: Create content such as how-to articles and blog posts to share with other members in your groups. You should also be contributing to group discussions if you have valuable insights or tips to share. This can help to establish your reputation as both an expert and a leader in your industry. It could also lead to people coming to your with their queries, which is another great way to build valuable relationships.
- Market Research: In addition to building your brand, LinkedIn is a free way to find out more about the markets you serve or the ones you are looking to break into. Simply pose a question to the members of an appropriate group (perhaps one that represents the industry sector you serve) and then gauge their responses. Just remember not to be too aggressive about it: Users of social networking sites are always put off by companies pushing an obvious sales pitch.