Linkedin is a business version of Facebook for professionals. It is where you go to create new connections and meet people who are at businesses you want to do business with. There is a myriad of marketing, analytics and sales tools you can use to help you along your professional networking journey. So before we begin, it’s best to make sure you have a complete, up-to-date profile and business page.
Create a Linkedin Profile Page
Your profile page is like your online business history which should include all your accomplishments, skills and current and previous work positions. It’s essential to fill in all the information as then you are more likely to be seen on the network page. The highest level of status you can achieve is the ‘All-Star’ level. At this level, you would have completed all the recommended fields. Once you have finished if you run a business proceed by creating a company page.
Starting a Company Page to Increase Reach
Implementing a company page is a great way to gain a higher amount of attraction in the Linkedin marketplace. Once created you can ask employees to connect to the page, exposing your business to a vast audience. From here to grow your business you can leverage some of the tools within the company page dashboard.
Add products and services to Your Linkedin Company Page.
Within a Linkedin Company Page, you can create an area where you can showcase your products individually. Rather than a shop or marketplace, this area is unique. Listing products by themselves allow you to include additional product information. Services can also be listed to generate greater click-throughs to product landing pages.
Post jobs and Showcase Your EVP (Employee Value Proposition)
Another useful way of generating growth in the marketplace is to use your Company Page to post jobs and create an environment that sells your business as a great place to work. Creating an EVP video about your company using a professional production team provides a more significant opportunity to reach talent who may have many job opportunities. It sets your company apart from the rest and gives people a reason to want to work for you. Â
Use Analytics to Guide Your Growth
Do you want to know how you are doing? Visit the Analytics tab to reveal how many new followers you have an what percentage of members visit your Linkedin Company Page. By following these statistics, you can easily see what pieces of content are more popular. Â When you see a spike in activity, create more content so you can obtain more leads
Lead Generation – Answer People’s Questions
Generate leads by using Linkedin’s tools which include LinkedIn answers, groups and marketing. Linkedin Answers, for instance, aims to be a place for knowledge. You can create a Q&A section which provides value for customers. It’s a place to tell potential clients about your business, products and people. The sorts of questions to create shouldn’t have the answers on your website or blog, instead, create a Q&A that revolves around the internal nature of the business and what value you can bring to the customer.
Linkedin Groups – Join Groups Outside of Your Industry
Linkedin People – branch out and develop networks in companies that interest you. To do this visit the company page of the business, you are interested in. The at the top right-hand side of the screen click on ‘Search’ and make sure People is selected. Filter through the list and find the 2nd connections, add them to your network to get your foot in the door.
Marketing on Linkedin
Publish and create content that is relevant and informative to your business. Keep things real and have a professional approach in the way you deliver everything. Ensure you have a website or better still a blog to link back to when creating posts. Also, make sure to include sharing buttons on your website and blog. Including a Linkedin share button is a great way to organically promote your content as viewers may use these buttons to share your helpful information to their networks.
Use the content you create to drive traffic on a timely basis. It is recommended to be active. Therefore setup notification alerts on your mobile app and reply to comments as soon as you can. Post often, but not more than twice a day.
Remember the effort you put in at the start makes all the difference in the daily activity of your Linkedin profile and business page. Only add people who are in the same industry or are potential clients. Don’t engage with adding people who are outside of your network so that you can gain more connections or followers. In the end, this method will fail and reflect poorly on your engagement.