Will using LinkedIn help me grow my business?

If you’re wondering if using LinkedIn can help you to grow your business, the answer is a resounding yes. LinkedIn is a great social networking platform for you personally and your business to connect with audiences and build strong relationships that will gear you towards success. Here are all the ways you can utilise it to grow your business…

The basics of LinkedIn

LinkedIn has over 660 million users who regularly check in to access the platform. It consists of a community of working professionals and job seekers, who connect and share with each other and the content published. For businesses, it can be a tool for strategically targeted audiences with specialised data results. In addition to this, LinkedIn has created a seamless app for users, making it a mobile-centered platform.

By joining the LinkedIn community, your business will benefit from being part of conversions that matter. You’ll do this through engagements, posts, and knowing and growing your audience. What you share needs to be relevant and you should always keep an eye out on trending topics. While this platform can work for various businesses, this is a prime space for B2B companies.

Your LinkedIn Business Page

First things first, you need to create and/or work on your page. Your business will benefit from engagements from as few as 150 followers. If your business has a page, you’ll already be getting many visitors to it.

Ensure that your own personal profile has a clear headline and a poignant summary about what you do. Ensure that you supply as much relevant information as necessary to build an all star page, including links to examples of your work. When it comes to your business page, you’ll need:

A high resolution logo for the image
A relevant high resolution cover image
A well written description
A url link to your website
State your business size, location, industry and type

All of the above will ensure that your business’s image is professional and legitimate, which will aid in the growth of your brand perception and the growth of your business.

Publishing Content on LinkedIn

LinkedIn has a content-first approach. This means that users are encouraged to post and engage with content that is published. When it comes to deciding what content you should publish, we strongly recommend that your business should write and share blog posts. This will expand your network and demonstrate that you are a thought leader in the industry. By combining this authority and expertise you will attract leads, provided that the content is valuable, of course. When this happens, people will like, share and recommend your posts. In order to succeed in this regard, ensure that you post consistently - have a specified schedule for the posts. When you share a post, caption it well to give enough context and use multimedia that is eye catching (even if it's simply a high quality image). You can make the content itself dynamic by using easy to read structure and bullet points, for example. Monitor the content that performs the best and consider using it as sponsored content.

If however it's not possible for you to create your own content, share relevant articles that you find interested and that you believe will be of interest to your audience. It's also recommended to add your own personal narrative or comments to the articles you share so that your audience can understand your point of view and can use this as a discussion starter, which will help drive even more engagement to your post.

Growth

In order to grow your visibility through LinkedIn, you’ll need to ensure that your content is valuable and optimised. Incorporate search engine optimisation techniques by focusing on using relevant keywords, having links and all of the relevant links and contextual information. By utilising LinkedIn wisely, you can grow your business at a faster pace. To do this, you need to assess and perfect your tailored marketing content in this regard and make the best possible use of the in-depth data available through the platform.

In order to grow your business, you’ll want to cross-promote content that is then tweaked to meet the best practices of the intended platforms. You can promote your business’s page beyond the platform by including a link on your website, as well as via email.

Since LinkedIn is all about professional networking, you need to ensure that you engage with your employees. They are influential and will be an integral part of increasing your visibility. Share their work and voices in posts to show recognition and insight into your company culture.

Key LinkedIn features / Things to be aware of

Open for Business: Assistance from LinkedIn to aid small businesses by making them easily discoverable and allowing users to contact them for free.

Groups: LinkedIn Groups are great for community building and online marketing. Your business can join relevant groups to connect with your industry and customers. You will be able to directly message members on an individual basis - do your best to personalise these messages as it is an opportunity to target valuable potential leads.

Advanced Search: Part of LinkedIn Premium, Advanced Search allows you to search for people based on their industry, location, employer and education. You’re also able to save searches (and will be notified of new matches) and can send messages to people. With these direct messages, you can invite people to join a specific group in order to build a community database and increase your leads.

Advertising: Explore the different types of ad campaigns you can run on LinkedIn, as this is a surefire way to increase your visibility and grow your business.

Follow #s: You can follow specific hashtags with easy access to them, so that you can stay ahead trending topics as they occur.

It is clear to see that LinkedIn will indeed help grow your business. By keeping the above in mind, your business will be in the company of industry professionals, with several opportunities to engage and network.