LinkedIn is a powerful social media platform to generate organic leads.
For businesses, LinkedIn provides an opportunity to gain credibility, grow your profile and start creating an extensive referral network. With 80% of all social media leads for B2B companies coming from LinkedIn (compared to 13% on Twitter and 7% on Facebook), you need to take time to optimise your profile.
Here are 5 tips on how to use LinkedIn for your business:
Business or Personal?
Are you unsure if you should have a LinkedIn business page or personal profile? Most business owners will use a combination to maximise their impact. Your business page can be used to discuss your brand story, company updates and testimonials. Your personal page can be used to connect with your network and share news and insight into your niche.
Build your network
You can connect with your friends and colleagues, as well with people you don’t even know. While it is acceptable to connect with strangers through LinkedIn, be strategic. Think about the people you want in your network. Which industries do they work in? And what roles do they hold?
Optimise your Page
It’s not enough just to connect. Your personal profile reflects your business, so make sure you take the time to set it up properly.
Write a compelling elevator pitch in your ‘About’ section. Keep it to around 4-5 sentences and make sure the copy is captivating for your audience.
Profile your best work under the ‘Featured’ section. This allows you to visualise your work to your followers.
Update your ’Experience’ section, include your responsibilities and achievements.
Finally, for your ‘Skills and Endorsements’, don’t be afraid to reach out to friends and colleagues to ask them to endorse you and be sure to return the favour.
Here are some tips to build successful profile:
- Your introduction should be concise, clear and without jargon.
- For your profile photo, use a professional-looking headshot and a legible logo.
- Use a header photo that is properly sized and keeps the imagery clear.
- Attach media (blog posts, white papers and videos, infographics, etc.).
- Complete all fields.
Shout about your business
While LinkedIn is a great place to promote your business, you should avoid shameless product flogging. Instead, show off the amazing work you do for clients.
One handy function is LinkedIn articles. These blogs are more about driving brand awareness and social engagement than driving traffic to your site. This is a great way to share long-format content and share videos and multiple images.
All your LinkedIn connections will be notified whenever you publish an article. This is a tremendous advantage.
Give Value
Keep the sales pitch to the coffee catch up, look to share instead.
Share industry news, business updates, and your unique insights on trending topics. For example, if you’re sharing a news story, give your opinion on what it means for the industry, your business or clients.
Value doesn’t stop there, make sure you share your own content but don’t forget to expand your reach and comment on other opinions around you. Make sure you respond to comments on your content as well, get the conversation going. Remember LinkedIn isn’t just a publishing platform, it’s about building networks.
Optimise for great results
LinkedIn can be a great tool to help you grow your network, manage and scale your online reputation, increase your business’s visibility, attract valuable social traffic to the site, and find and nurture leads.
Even if you spend more time on other social networks, you should still create a LinkedIn Page for your business to start exploring these possibilities.
Want to get the most out of your LinkedIn?
Need help with your social media platforms? Studio22 are who you can rely on to optimise your digital marketing, content and SEO strategy.
Look to the experts in innovation and a Perth digital marketing agency you can trust. Contact Studio22 today.