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LinkedIn hosts a community of more than 100 million users around the globe. Linkedin is now one of the most influential social media networks on the internet when online “business networking” is concerned. No matter who your B2B customers are, they are almost certainly on the platform.
The platform is used by Recruiters to find the best candidates, sales professionals to generate leads and entrepreneurs to build a professional network. Here are a few fantastic facts about LinkedIn:
- More than 65 million professionals are on LinkedIn. In every second that counts, there is one person that logs in on LinkedIn.
- Approximately 50% of its members are part of the team that makes decisions in their organizations. You call them the “Decision Makers”.
- The “professional social network” has connected millions of professionals around the world. I would not be wrong in saying that LinkedIn is the preferred choice of networking for professionals from all across the globe.
- And the platform is not just restricted to working professionals. Even entrepreneurs, freelancers, investors, and mentors equally love to promote their brands in the community.
LinkedIn – the best platform for B2B Marketing!
The backbone of LinkedIn is "the professional network".
According to the latest statistics, it is estimated that more than 90% of B2B Marketers use LinkedIn to promote their business. In addition to that Linkedin Automation tools help to connect people a lot faster and easier. If stats are to be believed, there are approx. — 40 million decision makers.
If you are someone who is looking for a career in Digital Marketing, LinkedIn should be on the top of your list for Business and marketing promotions.
1. How is LinkedIn used in the Business World?
- Networking: LinkedIn is used by professionals from all across the globe to get connected with professionals of their industry. The motive is to take professional networking online and LinkedIn has had good success in doing the same. They have grown multi-fold from approx. Three hundred fifty million users in the first quarter of 2015 to 510 million users by 01st Jan 2018 (source).
- Recruitment: With a vast network of working professionals, LinkedIn has turned into a perfect ground to find the best talent for your company. As per the latest statistics, more than 94% of Professional Recruiters use LinkedIn to find the best talent for their company.
- Brand Awareness: Companies are investing a lot of time and money to promote their brand on LinkedIn by posting content which not only gives updates about the company but sharing content which helps them with many events such as product launch, etc.
- Lead Generation: The holy grail of Marketing. At the end of the day, Businesses want leads and B 2 B Businesses are investing all the time in the world to generate valid leads from LinkedIn.
2. How can you use LinkedIn?
To use LinkedIn, you need to set up a professional profile on the platform. While individuals can set up their personal profiles, Businesses can set up professional pages on LinkedIn.
Recommended: How to use Social Media Platforms for Your Business
Both types of profiles have their use on LinkedIn, where a professional or personal profile is more of your own identity on LinkedIn - while the LinkedIn business page is an identity of your business page.
Let’s have a look on the difference between LinkedIn Profile Page and LinkedIn Company Page:
A profile page is a personal page you create on the LinkedIn platform that is written with a personal tone. It is only you who can manage your profile page. It also includes your personal information, such as:
- Who are you? : Name, Gender, Education History, About you, etc.
- Your Professional History: Job History, Current Designation, etc.
- Your Accomplishments: A section where you can update information about certifications, awards, etc.
A LinkedIn Company’s page, on the other hand, is the profile of your company. Different users in a company can manage this page. The main objective of the page is to broadcast the Company’s updates to increase its visibility.
3. Who should use LinkedIn?
LinkedIn is a professional network. It can be used by professionals who are looking to grow their professional network. One in every three professionals in the world is on LinkedIn, which makes it a perfect social media platform for professional networking.
Furthermore, you can use LinkedIn if you are looking to get noticed in the professional world through your ideas, suggestions, content as the platform allows you to post updates, participate in discussions, etc.
You will find LinkedIn relevant as 13% of LinkedIn users do not have a Facebook account (I am one of them) and believe in keeping the discussion tone - professional.
4. How to do LinkedIn Marketing or How to use LinkedIn for Sales & Marketing?
- Set up a “Perfect” LinkedIn Profile:
The first noticeable thing in a LinkedIn Profile is the profile image. Ensure the picture is of you in professional attire and not of your cat. Take a little effort to make yourself look "Professional".
The profile picture should be clear and an official one too and note, after you upload an image for your profile, LinkedIn shows it as 400*400 pixels.
Next comes the headline of a profile. The headline should have at least 130 characters. The first thing that a visitor will notice, once they visit your page or profile is your profile image and the headline of your profile with relevant keywords.
These small details, like using the right picture, help you to build trust. Based on the first look, someone will quickly decide whether they want to connect with you or not. Once you are done setting up the profile, you need to update the Summary.
In summary, you should add a professional overview of yourself. You can also attach videos of you giving a speech or receiving an award.
Remember, LinkedIn is all about pitching you professionally. Do not add things which do not link to your professional side. It is advisable to add keywords to the experience and summary, but even if you do not add them, they are not a deal breaker.
Once you have set up the necessary information, you must now get a little active in asking for recommendations from past colleagues, clients, bosses, etc.
Be Strategic. Ask every person to give their opinions on specific areas. You can even offer to recommend them, in lieu of a recommendation from their side. Do not forget to thank your recommenders. And once you have all the recommendations, check if any section is incomplete else you are good to go.
- Create a LinkedIn Page for the Company
A LinkedIn page helps you professionally promote your business. Marketing and Sales on LinkedIn can only be a success; once your profile is in sync with your LinkedIn Business page. Both must complement each other in terms of content and status message posted there.
Start by selecting a cover image which reflects the message of your brand. This will enable you to put more information and update posts. The posts will look better and more professional coming from a brand than a person. Similar to your personal profile, you must update all the relevant information on the LinkedIn Page regarding the business.
- Update Content Regularly:
You must plan your LinkedIn Content Calendar before you start posting regular content.
A good content marketing strategy is the first step to succeeding on any platform. Random posts, ideas might get you accidental success, but you are here for a long game and for that, your content must align with what you are promoting or advertising on LinkedIn.
You can use your company’s page to post news or Latest updates in your industry which is beautiful and will help you keep your followers in the loop with what your business is up to, but it won’t set the stage on fire. You need content which would make the user think and get engage better with your brand.
Use a ContentStrategy which involves a mix of the following content:
- Industry News and Opinion: You can pick up the latest, trending news in your industry and post the link on LinkedIn along with an opinion of your own. This kind of content portrays you as someone who understands the industry and has something useful, meaningful to share on the latest trends. You can use your company’s page or your profile to post this content.
- Blogs on Pulse: LinkedIn’s blogging platform is called Pulse. Time and again, you can see trending blogs written on Pulse show up on your LinkedIn wall. LinkedIn is a great platform to reach to a vast professional network, and one of the methods to do that is by writing regular blog posts on Pulse. You need to use your personal profile for blog posting on Pulse. Company pages cannot directly blog on Pulse.
- Humour: A little joke does not kill anyone 😊 . Get some Humour in the game. I usually use a lot of Dilbert kind of office Humour to post status messages with a personal story attached to it.
- Company’s progress and updates: Finally, a content you are dying to post. Go ahead and post your achievements on LinkedIn with some witty messages. I would suggest “Do not overdo your brand promotion” because this may make LinkedIn users to get frustrated and they might even stop following your brand.
- Participation in Discussions: Last but not least, get active in discussions on LinkedIn and use it as an opportunity to grow your profile
To get an appropriate solution to the question “How to make your LinkedIn profile popular?”. Here are three simple steps to follow:
- Identify your business domain.
- Find Influencers and discussions in your business domain.
- Participate in discussions or respond to comments (Remember, do not pick up a fight. You are a human, not a Troll 😊 !)
The better is your participation (valuable), the more are the chances - LinkedIn users will get attracted to your profile and will send you LinkedIn Connection request or will start following you.
I see a spike in my profile visits whenever I participate in discussions happening in my industry. LinkedIn groups is an another important feature of LinkedIn which allows you to find relevant discussions.
You can join other active groups and Engage with other users. From the engagements, you will form new ties and even genuine business relationships. The time users spend on LinkedIn and the engagement percentage, users have on LinkedIn in comparison to other platforms is the edge LinkedIn has over other social networking websites.
As per some amazing stats posted by Alex Rynne on LinkedIn People spend time on other social media network, but they invest time on LinkedIn, they value the time they spend on LinkedIn.
It's been estimated, 94% of Business marketers use LinkedIn to distribute content. The verdict is – LinkedIn users are serious users, and they value the time they spend on the platform. Undoubtedly - Posting relevant, engaging Content is the best strategy to engage them.
- Grow your professional Network:
With Content getting more engagement, your professional network will also grow with time. This in turn will help your profile get more attention from strangers who will value you for your content on LinkedIn. These strangers will, in turn, become followers.
With time, you can generate leads from the followers. The above-mentioned steps are the concepts of lead generation for businesses in marketing and sales on LinkedIn. The better the profile, the more are the chances of you getting noticed.
The better is the company’s page; more are the chances of your page gaining more followers. And the more engaging the content, more will be the followers you will have on the platform.
As you can see, every step is interrelated and contributes equally to creating a brand whose brand awareness leads to more connections. Since the network you grow and engage here is full of professionals of your industry, LinkedIn, a platform is an excellent place for B2B Companies to do sales and marketing.
5. How can LinkedIn help a Business?
- LinkedIn helps Businesses with brand awareness.
- LinkedIn helps Businesses grow their network
- LinkedIn helps Businesses with Recruitment
- LinkedIn helps Businesses with Marketing.
- LinkedIn helps Brands improve their Client support system (mainly when their product/service is targeted towards Business).
- LinkedIn helps you with better PR.
- LinkedIn helps you get direct testimonials from clients on your profile in the form of recommendations and testimonials
LinkedIn has always been a perfect platform for your Business to grow on the internet. I highly recommend Business owners looking to leverage the power of social media to grow their business online to invest time on LinkedIn and grow their business by increasing their professional on LinkedIn.
Happy Networking!
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