LinkedIn is no longer just seen as your online resume, it is now also your digital reputation for both yourself personally and your company. Despite being one of the longest running social media platforms, it’s popularity and desirability as well as its usefulness has only really just soared and come to light. It is now a network of over 575 million users that are active on a weekly basis, as well as being 277% more effective than any other social media site at generating leads. So why wouldn’t you utilize it to the best of your ability and take the opportunity it has to offer?
Why Is It Important?
The opportunities and possibilities this platform gives you are endless, and like no other. It gives you access to an unlimited amount of professional profiles from many locations in all different types of sectors. Allowing you to make new business connections, develop long lasting worthwhile relationships and even seek new job opportunities, from anywhere at anytime. The best part about it is it’s free. LinkedIn helps to drive 80% of B2B social media leads, and if that statistic alone isn’t enough to get you motivated to make the most of your LinkedIn then by the time we’re done it will be.
Why Should I Be Using LinkedIn?
Building Your Brand
It’s vital to build your professional image and portray your branding within the digital world these days, in order to get yourself known and make a great impression on others. LinkedIn gives you chance to showcase you and your company in the way that you want it to be perceived, you can show what makes you different and how you can add value to customers and clients. Making sure that when other professionals stumble across your business profile they are hit with all the good aspects. LinkedIn is a great platform to build your brand on because you are putting your name on the map but in a professional business environment, whilst promoting it to your target audience at the same time. Giving your brand personality and identity. Additionally, it gives support to your other social media platforms as well as your website by sending traffic through to them. It’s actually shown that LinkedIn drives 50% of social traffic to B2B websites.
Google Rankings
If people are considering either using your business or hiring you, they will most likely do a thorough internet search of your company or you. If they come to searching you and are unable to find any sort of online presence, chances are they will leave it and use someone else instead. This is because of the lack of information, professionality, legitimacy and credibility it would plant, as having no online presence in this day and age is suspicious and not on trend. Also, it is far easier to get your LinkedIn profile to rank on google than it is for your companies website as the keywords are more specific. Therefore having a solid LinkedIn profile makes you more discover able and in turn your company too.
Strengthen Connections
It makes it easier to follow up with people that you meet when out networking or at other business events. As well as building greater relationships with current or potential clients and customers. This platform keeps all your connections stored in one place, making it more effective when you need to use them for something in the future or visa versa, when they need you. It enables you to foster and educate them meaningful connections, as well as having your brand stick in their minds seen as you pop up on their feeds regularly. This is therefore more likely to generate valuable results such as leads and referrals.
How Can I Use My LinkedIn Effectively?
Profile Optimization
Your profile needs to have attention to detail, as well as being current and up to date. A professional image is a must to show you mean business, alongside all sections of the profile being completed to the best of your ability so that you can present yourself and your business in the best light to the business world. These elements combined are actually shown to get you 14 times more views on your profile compared to people who don’t. The most important aspect people forget is to add contact information, both email, telephone and website URL. This is vital when aiming to generate potential leads, as individuals will want to find more out about your company as well as engaging with you. Check out our company LinkedIn page at Breslins or our teams individual profiles to see how it’s done.
Content Creation
Regular and frequent activity on your LinkedIn profile is a must for it to have any impact whatsoever. Those profiles that have not posted anything for months look boring, inactive and lack relevancy. Meaning that nobody is likely to find it of great interest , let alone appealing when you are trying to sell yourself and your business. Individuals connect with you because they are desiring meaningful conversations, they wan’t to see what you are up too and whats new with you as well as wanting some form of interaction back on their content in the form of likes, shares and comments. Being active gets your company shown regularly on your connections feeds, meaning your brand is being placed in their mind consistently, they get to know you better and you stand out from others. Content is king remember and this doesn’t just include posting regularly, but also what is within the post itself. You can add great content by posting relevant news articles about your industry, your own personal blogs surrounding issues, sharing your own tips, tricks and advice to help others in your network out, sharing exciting videos that capture attention, as well as just general thoughts that will spark up debate and conversation.
Valuable Connections
Making connections is necessary to make LinkedIn work, however that doesn’t just mean connecting with everyone and anyone. Instead connect with people in close proximity, that could be valuable to you and your business, or somebody you could be of value too. Seek out those potential clients and customers, or even partners. Begin to connect and form the foundations of the relationship by liking and commenting on their posts as well as introducing yourself and what you do in an informal manner. The key point to remember here is to not go in for the straight sell from the get-go. This is not the ideal first impression to make and nothing worthwhile will come from it. It’s a marathon not a sprint when making connections through LinkedIn to expand your business and achieve growth.
If you need help or advice running your LinkedIn or any other social media platforms for your business, contact us today and we will be happy to help!
