Used properly, LinkedIn can help you grow your business and help with your networking. Here are 9 ideas to get you started!
Strengthen face to face meetings by connecting online
If you have had a meeting with a potential customer or important contact, a great way to stay at the front of their mind and to build on the relationship is to connect with them personally on LinkedIn. This can also include people you meet at exhibitions and other sales events.
Write Pulse articles
Pulse articles are a bit like blog posts, apart from they are on LinkedIn. Unfortunately, they aren’t as powerful at driving visitors to your website like blog posts are but you can benefit from getting more exposure on LinkedIn. If you have connections who are potential customers then you can use LinkedIn Pulse articles to demonstrate your knowledge and experience in what you specialise in. Writing articles will also help to show potential customers why they should consider the products or services that you sell.
Use hashtags in posts
If you think hashtags are just for Twitter and Instagram - think again! Hashtags were once stopped on LinkedIn due to ‘poor user response’ but over the last 2 years, they have grown in use and in their effectiveness!
On LinkedIn it’s possible to follow hashtags that you find relevant, meaning that even people who aren’t connected to you can still see your posts in their newsfeed. All you need to do is include the right hashtags in your posts that your target audience is following.
Follow hashtags
If you want to find out what your competitors or your customers are talking about then follow relevant hashtags and their posts will appear in your feed! You can then decide what your next action should be, which could be to follow them or like/comment on their post (or if it’s a competitor then you may use it in your tactical planning!).
Create a company page
Company pages add credibility and include features such as being able to advertise, which you can’t do with a personal profile. You don’t need to post on a company page every day but having posts going out a few times a week will help increase your online presence. If you need help with writing articles. Do get in touch with us via webdesign@aprompt.co.uk and ask for our website management options - we can write your content for you on a regular basis.
Create a LinkedIn Ads campaign
LinkedIn Ads allows you to be more specific with your targeting than you can with Facebook or Twitter because it has more data and accuracy on information such as job titles and companies people work for.
Added to this, you can also run a messenger campaign, sending a personal message to your target audience. The response rate for message advertising is higher than general ads that appear in social media feeds.
Send messages to connections
If you have built up your connections and have potential customers in your network then you can message them to build up the relationship. This might include a message to let them know about a special offer or event you are planning or to ask for their feedback. Whatever the topic, it’s free to do and you should get a good response rate if you aren’t sending too many messages to them (in other words, don’t spam them!).
Use LinkedIn Premium
If you are going to use LinkedIn a lot for your business then it’s worth paying for LinkedIn Premium. There are various options which we won’t cover here but Sales Navigator allows you to search deeper within LinkedIn to find customers and then save them as Leads. You can also, among other things, send a limited number of messages to people who you aren’t yet connected to.
Recruit talent
LinkedIn has over the years been a great source for recruiting talent for HR staff and recruitment companies and today, many people still use LinkedIn as a main tool for their own career progression (rather like a virtual business card or CV). If your business is growing, you can use LinkedIn to find the right talent that will help your business grow further!
There are various ways you can use LinkedIn. Posting a job is a great way to start. You can also advertise to relevant candidates as well as create regular posts promoting the positions you have available.
If you are looking for help with your online marketing, do get in touch by emailing kirsty.paget@aprompt.co.uk.
We are happy to provide support for all sized businesses!
