What is LinkedIn?
LinkedIn is an increasingly popular business networking website that many of you may have heard of or may be using. People generally use it to look for new jobs, employees or contacts. It can also be used as part of your marketing strategy to create new business leads. This is strictly for business 2 business markets and not part of a mass market strategy.
So how can it raise the profile of your business and produce leads? Many of you may be wondering this and LinkedIn has many different tools and features that if used correctly can produce results. Everyone likes a list so here it is – the list of “How to market your company using LinkedIn.”
1. Improve your Google Page Rank
In your LinkedIn profile you can add your website URL, blog and keywords. As LinkedIn has a high PageRank in Google these inbound links will help your search engine optimisation activities and help you get higher rankings. For example we have three websites promoting our services which we have added plus key words like web design, advertising, branding email marketing etc. Ask other people in your organisation to do this as well to create more inbound links.
2. Raise awareness of your company and brands.
LinkedIn allows you to add your company details. People will find your profile when searching for someone to do business with. They can also see who you are connected to. If it’s someone they already know then this increases your chances of them contacting you.
3. Build a network
People like to do business with people they know and trust. LinkedIn makes it so easy to build a network. Use it to add people you already know. Then ask them to connect you to people they know that you would like to meet. However don’t start spamming people and approaching people you don’t know.
4. Market Research
You can use LinkedIn’s search facilities to find out more about people and companies. For example say you wanted to find out who the marketing director for Company X is, do a search on that company. Go through the results to find out the info LinkedIn has on that company and current and ex employees.
5. Promote events and conferences
In LinkedIn you can add business events and announce them to your network. For example if your company is appearing at an exhibition then add it to your profile and announce it on LinkedIn.
6. Visit LinkedIn Answers
This tool allows people to post a question. “Does anyone know of a good IP lawyer?”, “Can anyone recommend a web design agency?”. There are many opportunities here to network, find new customers and suppliers and raise the profile of your business. Your answers are seen on LinkedIn so it’s also a good place to promote your business.
7. Get recommended
Ask people in your network to recommend you on LinkedIn. The more recommendations you have the better your business looks.
8. Advertising on LinkedIn
If you are planning online advertising then definitely consider LinkedIn. It has millions of profiles and allows you to specifically target by job, gender, industry, age and location. You can either pay per click or per 1000 views.
9. Join Groups
There are many professional groups in LinkedIn that you can join. These can be anything from local networking groups to professional organisations. Once you are a member you can connect and network with other people in that group.
Currently 8.5 million professional people have a profile on LinkedIn and this is increasing everyday. This may seem like a lot of work to start of with but once you have produced your profile and started building a network you will start to see the benefits.
