With over 770 million members in more than 200 countries, LinkedIn is beyond a social network but the largest professional network globally, for professionals and businesses to connect, expand their business, and build relationships with their target audience.
Thus, the platform has been the go-to platform for recruiters and talent acquisition professionals from all over the world due to its intuitive and straightforward interface.
Moreover, there are various marketing tools that you can use to grow your business regardless of its size or industry.
For example, you can reach out to companies that might be potential clients and develop a strong connection through messaging services on LinkedIn.
However, this guide will explain how to use LinkedIn to expand your business with the best tools and show you how to maximize your LinkedIn marketing strategy.
Let’s get started
Why Is LinkedIn Important?
Linkedin is one of the most popular social media platforms for professionals looking to grow their businesses. Though it was designed to help users find jobs, you can also seek other professional opportunities like networking or finding colleagues.
Hence, whether you are a professional or a business owner, the platform is a great place to connect and build business relationships and partnerships.
In addition, you can research the competition through its search engine or by using its lead generation tools. This will help you connect with your target companies, leading to increased sales opportunities.
Thus, LinkedIn can help you generate leads effectively, improve brand awareness, and drive mass traffic to your website. According to Hubspot, LinkedIn is 277% more effective for lead generation than Twitter and Facebook.
How To Grow Your Business On LinkedIn
LinkedIn is becoming increasingly important to many established businesses. However, it is an invaluable tool for companies just starting.
You can find clients and expand your reach quickly, but you can do the following to get the most from LinkedIn.
Create a LinkedIn Company Page: Keep your personal LinkedIn profile page concise and informative. And remember to optimize your page using relevant keywords. It will increase your company’s chance of appearing in search results.
In addition, it’s best to have a website for your business.
Talk about Your Company: Once you have created your company page, promote it by telling your connections and friends about it. Then encourage them to recommend the page to others.
In addition, ask your employees to follow the page. And when you make content or send emails, include a link to your company’s page to increase exposure.
Get leads with LinkedIn: LinkedIn is a social media platform where professionals and businesses find potential clients and generate leads. But before you can do this, you need to know your target audience first.
Share Your Company Culture: This will help you connect with LinkedIn users and potential clients. For example, share photos and videos of office outings or interactions if your company is not online.
If your company works online, you can share pictures of funny moments on the internet.
Create a LinkedIn Team: Finally, create an all-star team with LinkedIn. These could be local employees or freelancers. Make sure you look at their profiles and learn about their past experiences.
Can I Build My Personal Brand On LinkedIn
Of course, you can. Here’re four vital tips for growing your brand on LinkedIn.
Promote Yourself: Use the “About” section of your LinkedIn profile for marketing yourself. Again, it’s essential to be concise and detailed.
If you are sharing your knowledge or talking about your expertise, be sure to mention the names of the companies you worked for.
Connect with Groups: Linked up with groups relevant to your niche or create a group yourself. But be an active member by posting status updates, asking questions, and sharing content from these groups with your network.
With that, you’ll build trust, make new connections, and strengthen your relationships. Connecting with your LinkedIn contacts and asking them to recommend you to their connections can help you establish a strong network of potential employers also help you build a more robust, professional profile.
In addition, sharing your knowledge with others will enhance your visibility because members will learn more about you and work with you.
Use A Professional Profile And Cover Photo: Remember, a picture speaks a thousand words. Since LinkedIn allows you to upload a cover picture to your profile, you can upload photos of yourself, company logo, or images related to your field.
Share your Portfolio: Your portfolio shows proof of your abilities and experience. After visiting your LinkedIn profile, visitors will be interested in seeing the work you have done.
8 LinkedIn Marketing Tactics For Small Businesses
1. Make A LinkedIn Company Page
If you don’t have a LinkedIn company page, it’s essential to create one. Simply follow the steps below.
How to make a LinkedIn Company page:
From the LinkedIn home page
- Locate the work icon.
- Then click “Create a Company Page.”
- Select the proper category for your business – small business, medium to large business, showcase page, or educational institution.
- Enter your company information – The page preview shows how it will look as you add content. It would be best to choose a URL relevant to your brand and, if possible, use the same URL as your username on social media.
- Fill in the details for your LinkedIn company page.
- Add your tagline and upload your logo to LinkedIn. Although you can ignore this step, it is crucial. Logo-equipped companies get six times as many visits as those who don’t have them.
- Click the verification box to confirm that you can act on behalf of the company.
- Then finally, click Create Page.
2. Complete Your Company Page
You can take your LinkedIn Page to the next level by completing and optimizing your company details. Stats show that pages with completed information receive 30% more views.
In addition, it will give potential customers more information about your company and increase your rank in Google and LinkedIn search results.
Remember, you have up to 2,000 characters, so use it to connect with your target audience. Let them know what you do and how you can help them reach their goals.
To get started, click the pencil icon under your company name.
Description of the company: Write about your vision, mission, and values, and briefly describe your products or services.
Google results can preview up to 156 characters from your page’s content. Hence, make your description SEO-friendly by including keywords.
Include your office or store location. So, select “+Add Location” to add additional addresses.
Hashtags: You are allowed to add up to three hashtags to your profile to make it more searchable. Choose hashtags most commonly used in your industry to best suit your business.
Cover photo: Images are powerful, and you can get over six times more engagement by using pictures.
A background photo can add polish to your profile but make sure your image represents your business. Also, avoid images that are cluttered. The recommended size is 1584 pixels (width) by 396 pixels (height), and to encourage action, add a custom button to your profile.
Make sure you add the URL to the appropriate button to place people who click it on the right page.
Language management: You can add your name and tagline in more than 20 languages to manage language if you are a multilingual brand.
3. Share Your Page
Let others know that you have launched your LinkedIn Page. For example, you can send emails to all employees informing them to follow the page and add it to their workplace.
Take pride in your company’s success by connecting potential customers and employees to thought leaders in your company.
In addition, promote your page to your customers through newsletters, social channels, and website – and ask for follows.
Tell people what you have in store for them, including job opportunities and LinkedIn Live sessions.
LinkedIn allows page administrators to invite their connections. So, click the Admin Tools dropdown at the upper right corner and select Invite Connections.
4. Create Great Content
An excellent way to keep your profile visible on LinkedIn is by posting evergreen content regularly.
Write high-quality articles to attract your target audience and help you establish your authority in the field.
In addition, you will build anticipation within your community if you share content regularly.
Use the Right Keywords: Unless you use the correct keywords on your profile or someone searches for your name directly, your page will not appear in search results.
So, look at your brand and choose keywords related to it to find these words.
5. Create a LinkedIn Marketing Strategy
Now that your Company Page is ready, it’s time for you to start thinking about your LinkedIn marketing strategy.
What are your goals with LinkedIn? You can use LinkedIn for business recruiting, social selling, customer connection, and above. Do you need ads in your LinkedIn marketing budget?
Learn more about LinkedIn demographics: This is an excellent starting point to learn about who uses LinkedIn and whom you can reach. Next, do a LinkedIn competitor audit. Learn how they use LinkedIn, what works, and how to set your page apart.
Plan a LinkedIn content calendar: You can plan content to source images and write thought leadership articles ahead of time. This allows you to cover all aspects of your LinkedIn marketing goals, from webinar promotion to engagement.
Hootsuite Planner and other visual tools make it easy to see your content plan.
Start email marketing – I can’t emphasize it enough that email marketing is still an effective way to build a lasting relationship with your audience.
First, register with an email service provider, then give out informational and valuable freebies to encourage people to sign up.
6. Use LinkedIn ads
LinkedIn offers tools, features; use the campaign planning template to create campaigns.
Then use the LinkedIn insight tags to see how your ads perform; content engagement, comments, followers analytics, page views, and audience demographics.
In addition, you will see your best-performing content that drives the most engagement.
7. Add LinkedIn Buttons
To make it feasible for people to find your LinkedIn page, add social media icons in the header and footer of your website or website.
LinkedIn Plugins also allow you to add Follow and Share buttons.
8. Subscribe to LinkedIn Premium
Even though you can achieve success with the basic membership plan, you tend to gain even more with the premium membership.
So, if you want to explore more advanced features to expand your business, I suggest you use the one-month free trial to see if it’s a good fit for your business.
However, whichever option you pick depends on your business, target audience, and what you want to achieve on the platform. Here are the available premium options.
Can I Use LinkedIn Free?
Yes, there’s a free membership plan with many features for job seekers, entrepreneurs, and companies.
However, you need to pay a monthly or yearly subscription fee to have full access to the sites. For example, InMails are a premium feature of LinkedIn that enables you to reach out to someone in your network.
And according to LinkedIn, it’s 2.6x more effective than emails alone.
Now let’s look at the differences between the LinkedIn basic and premium plans.
What Are The Differences Between LinkedIn Free And Premium Plan
Basic Plan (Free)
- Create your portfolio
- Add people to your network.
- Join, and create a professional network
- Access only the last five people who viewed your profile.
- Access 100 searches a day
- Receive unlimited Inmail messages within your network
- Only send messages to the people in your network.
Premium Plans
Premium Career $29.99/month (billed at 239.88 annually)
- 3 Inmail credits
- See details of who viewed your profile in the last 90 days
- Access to hiring managers
- Online video courses to learn new skills through LinkedIn learning
Premium Business $59.99/month (billed at $575.88 annually)
- 15 Inmail credits
- Promote and grow your business
- Teaching courses to learn new skills
- Advanced and unlimited searches.
Sales Navigator $79.99/month (billed at $799.88 annually)
- 20 Inmail credits
- Advanced and unlimited searches
- Lead and account recommendations
- Access real-time insights
- Integration with sales tools
- Access LinkedIn sales navigator
Hiring Plan $119.95/month (billed at $1,199.40 annually)
- 30 Inmails credits
- Contact top talent directly
- Automatic candidate tracking
- Integrated hiring tools
Final Words
Linkedin is a networking site with various career opportunities from which to choose. So whether you’re looking for a job, offering your skills as a freelancer, or expanding your professional network, Linkedin is the perfect place to do so.
Thus, it’s the most widely-used social network for recruiting top talents and retaining them; and more companies now use LinkedIn marketing for networking, connecting, and selling.
So, why wait? Start growing your business on LinkedIn right away.
Related Articles
How to grow your business on Instagram
12 clever tips to expand your business on Pinterest
Thank you for reading!
And if you have any questions, please drop them in the comments.
Follow us on Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram.
SHARE THIS POST WITH YOUR FRIENDS!
