Have you noticed that LinkedIn is no longer just an online CV where job seekers are looking for their next challenge and recruiters are searching for candidates? LinkedIn is a professional social network, a business directory, and a place to get visibility for your company. Below I suggest a 10-step process to start using LinkedIn for your business.
This information is taken from a full-length post, a complete guide really, which you can find here.
10 Steps to Start Using LinkedIn for Your Business
Step 1: Is Your Target Audience on LinkedIn?
Before you get started and excited about increasing your visibility on LinkedIn, you have to analyze your target audience and compare it with LinkedIn’s typical user: majority male, highly educated, and higher average income than on other platforms. Are you the owner of a jewelry store or a travel agency? Then don't bother with LinkedIn. Your audience is on Facebook. But if you are running a Management Consulting, Financial Advice, or any type of service business, then keep on reading—this is for you. To generalize: if you’re in the B2B sector, there’s a good chance that your prospects are on LinkedIn.
Step 2: Your Personal LinkedIn Profile
Your profile is like your business card, website, and elevator speech all in one. I'm sure you've spent some money on your website to make a good first impression. Well, your and your employees' LinkedIn profiles are just as important. Optimize it for search results and make sure it’s customer focused and stands out from the rest. A few things to pay attention to:
- Double-check that the profile photo looks professional.
- Include keywords in your headline, explain who you are helping and what you are helping them with.
- The summary needs to be in the first person and focus on your current position, not be a flashback to the past.
- Include visuals: pictures, video, and slideshare presentations.
- Here are a few other things you should change on your profile.
Step 3: Getting Visibility with Personal Profiles
Congratulations, you have optimized your profile. But now you need some visibility. Remember, your profile is like a website. If you have no traffic to your site, it's pretty useless. In order to get visibility you need to share content, publish your own content via LinkedIn Publisher, and be active and engaging with your network and on LinkedIn Groups.
Step 4: Your LinkedIn Company Page
If you are a business owner, I highly recommend you also create a LinkedIn Company page. Enter a nice visual, a description of your company, information such as your address and website, and then add selected administrators that will help you moderate the page. The power of the company page is not the page itself but the engagement with its followers through the content that’s being shared via the status updates.
Step 5: Get Some Followers for Your Company Page
In order to have followers, you need to continuously communicate about your company page. It needs to be considered one of the best places to stay informed about your company. Add a "follow us" button on your website, email signatures, and newsletter. Mention it when you talk to clients, give public presentations, or attend networking events.
Step 6: Getting Visibility With LinkedIn Company Pages
Now that you have followers, you need to share updates in order to stay in touch with them. Modern companies must think like publishers. Share interesting content in the form of free updates and sponsor some of those updates to reach a new audience. Aim for one update per day, but if that seems too optimistic, aim for a lower number—but one that you can commit to on a regular basis. At least one per week.
Step 7: What Kind of Content Goes on Your LinkedIn Company Page?
"Content is king," they say. And it's true. I would add "contextual and valuable content." Sit together with your team and brainstorm about what type of content you could share with your followers. Vary different types of content (text, audio, video, presentations, etc.) and different types of sources (your own blog, other respected sources in the industry). Then establish an editorial calendar in which you define different content categories and plan who publishes what content.
Step 8: LinkedIn Paid Ads
Ads are another option to get visibility from a very targeted audience for as little as $10 per day. There are different options available. Either small ads that show up in the right-hand column of LinkedIn or sponsored company updates that are visible on the target public's news feed. I find the latter to be more visible and get a higher return on investment.
Step 9: Prospecting on LinkedIn
Up till now we talked about "Inbound" activities, people finding you. LinkedIn is also THE place to identify and proactively search for prospects if you are in the B2B sector. Check out the "Advanced Search" function to find your ideal clients via targeted keyword searches.
Step 10: Engaging With Prospects
The relationship doesn’t end when you add prospects to your network; that’s just the beginning. You then need to engage with them and build a relationship. For example, comment on or share their content, follow and engage with them on Twitter if you see that they are more active there, send them a birthday message, etc.
Will you make marketing on LinkedIn a priority for your business?
If you’re in the B2B sector, your clients are on LinkedIn! So will you invest in learning more about this platform, train your employees, and put in place a focused marketing strategy for your business that is customized to your audience?
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