How to use LinkedIn to Grow Your Business (Easy To Implement Steps)

Published in

The Startup

8 min readSep 16, 2019

Get more business and sales leveraging LinkedIn

It might not be the easiest platform, but it is possible to use LinkedIn to grow your business. When it comes to advertising your business, digital marketing makes it easier. You can also leverage the perks of digital marketing for its cost-effective solution provided to small business owners.

There are many social media network giants like Facebook, Instagram, and Google that allows you to use their tools to your advantage. In this post, we want to talk more about using LinkedIn to grow your business. If anything, it is one of the best networks to help you connect with other professionals as well as meet potential new customers.

What is LinkedIn?

“It’s not what you know, it’s who you know”

In a nutshell, LinkedIn is an innovative social media platform specially built for professionals to network with each other.

The platform takes on a social approach but allows professionals to find internships, mentors, jobs, online courses, and lots more.

Why should you use LinkedIn to grow your business?

There are so many benefits with LinkedIn that you cannot afford to miss out on it.

1. Excellent exposure for your business

The social network has more than 570 million registered users. That’s a large number of people and no doubt your ideal customer is amongst them.

Using the network to advertise your brand is definitely a good option and one that won’t cost you much. This takes us to the next point.

2. Affordable marketing options

LinkedIn offers a bit of something for everyone. If you cannot afford the premium packages, the free account with LinkedIn, while limited, will still help you get the exposure and connections you need.

LinkedIn Premium Packages include: Premium packages offer so much more such as:

More exposure (more profile views)
You’re able to see who viewed your profile even if it wasn’t a member from LinkedIn.
InMail (allows you to email anyone on LinkedIn) without connecting with them.
You can check out more information about other companies (exclusive to premium users)

3. Speak their “tongue” with the language tool

LinkedIn allows you the opportunity to change your profile into another language which is especially great if you want to attract clients and potential customers from other countries.

Sometimes people customise their profile with the language tool to emphasise that they also speak a different language. Hence, clients and recruiters will recognise this and thus you’ll be given more opportunities.

Simply put, the language tool offers more exposure to your business page.

4. Post media content and reach your audience

Just as it is with any online network, the more active you are on the platform the more you’ll get exposure and be recognised. Fortunately, LinkedIn is not as content-heavy as platforms like Facebook and Instagram.

That said, posting regularly and consistently will go a long way to establish credibility.

Post quality videos, pictures, and blog posts; because the quality is the first step in making people want to take action.

5. Connect with groups

Your connections may start a group and invite you to be a member. In it, you can comment and be an active voice. People will see your enthusiasm for the brand you represent.

You’ll also be actively communicating with others in the same market as yourself which is great. You can learn from each other. Remember, one of the best ways to gain trust is by giving before asking to receive.

So be generous with your support and advice.

6. Analytics to your aid

Analytics plays an important part of digital marketing. It helps improve engagement, getting to know your customers, focusing content for your audience, and overall factors that will influence your marketing strategy.

LinkedIn analytics can help you track the progress and interaction of your audience with your posts. You’ll be able to see how many people are following and viewing your pages.

You can also see which areas are engaging your business page the most. LinkedIn offers courses about analytics to give you a better understanding.

7. You have exclusive access to webinars and training

As a business owner, you could continue to sharpen your skills. Using LinkedIn to grow your business is a good way to start. You’ll have access to online training and courses that you can enjoy in the comfort of your home. Webinars are always great as they give you valuable information.

Some quick steps to start using LinkedIn to grow your business

As we have already mentioned, LinkedIn is a good place to meet and connect with other professionals in various markets. The network is simple to use and offers essential tools to help you improve marketing for your business. With a premium account, you’ll unlock even more.

How to use LinkedIn to grow your business:

1. Set up a profile for your company

LinkedIn allows you to add company details and mention what your products and services are. Your company profile gives you the opportunity to introduce your brand to the world.

2. Put a face to your profile

Having a business means connecting on a personal level with your audience and LinkedIn can help you do this. One way you can connect on a personal level is to add a picture to your profile. This can be your business logo to represent your brand.

People can often remember and relate to seeing pictures, especially those of good quality. So help them relate to your business brand by adding those quality pictures.

3. Add content do describe what your company does or what you are about

With the picture and profile insights, you need to flesh this out even more. By adding information that will tell your viewers about your brand, this will help them understand what you have to offer. This information can go into the description box.

4. Time to go live

Once you’ve sorted creating your business page for LinkedIn, you’ll have to go live by publishing it. In this way, everyone will be able to see it.

In the “settings & privacy” tab, you’ll be able to change various setting options. This will help you manage your account, privacy, ads, and communications within the network.

The privacy settings help you to have more control over your account and who sees your account details. Whether you want it to be public or restricted to your LinkedIn connections or LinkedIn members, you can decide.

5. Do you need administrators on your pages?

These days, small business owners turn to digital marketing professionals to help them. Digital marketing is a difficult topic for many people, so with professional help; you’ll simplify things for yourself.

LinkedIn allows you to appoint members as administrators to your business pages with permission to post and/or advertise on your behalf. They would also have to be part of the LinkedIn network and connected to you.

6. Post blogs

You can share your own blogs or repost someone else’s blog post through LinkedIn for your connections to see. This will help with organic reach to your websites as well as help people become more familiar with your business brand and message.

7. Call to actions and optimisation

CTAs are crucial to help get exposure and drive traffic. When it comes to your business LinkedIn page, you need to make sure that it is optimised for search engines. Add a call to action because it can help you move traffic to your website and other pages.

Using LinkedIn to grow your business compared to Facebook and Instagram

When comparing these social media networks giants, it’s clear that the competition is tight. However, each one has special features that make them stand out from one another. When you look closely, you’ll see that they use similar principles and this is why you can use these networks to grow your business.

Instagram

Picture and videos

When compared with LinkedIn, Instagram takes a different approach. It’s easily recognised for its picture stories as opposed to content written. As a small business owner, you can use this to your advantage. Quality videos and pictures attract crowds.

Post more

Unlike LinkedIn, IG (Instagram) requires more frequent posting, so you need to keep those posts rolling in. The more content you produce on your business account, the more you’ll improve the chances of your audience recognising your brand.

Here are some resources to help you with content creation:

Unique hashtags

Instagram coined the hashtag (#) feature and hashtag words are considered as keywords. Instagram allows you to use 30 hashtags per post and it helps users to find posts associated with that hashtagged word.

CTA to boost action

Call to action words are essential in your posts as well as your bio. Your bio gives people an introduction to who you are and what your business has to offer. In it, you can prompt a call to action to redirect them to your website.

Facebook

Facebook, the biggest social media network, is a great resource for small business owners. They’ve gone to great lengths to encourage community, conversation and connection between people. This includes you and your audience. Facebook groups in particular are an excellent way to serve your ideal clients.

Like buttons

With Facebook, you can encourage interaction by prompting your viewers to like your posts. This will help with engagement and organic reach.

Use Facebook ads to your advantage

Target your audience through paid Facebook ads. The ads can help you target your audience through specific analytics such as locations and interests for that matter.

Market through your Facebook page

You can generate more traffic by adding the link of your business website page to business cards and email signatures. This is great for organic engagement.

The takeaway on the benefits of using LinkedIn to grow your business

If you are already using Facebook and Instagram to promote your business growth it’s time to add LinkedIn into the mix. People enjoy social media and follow brands that they love.

Using LinkedIn to grow your business is a win-win for you and your clients and potential prospects. Since it’s free to set up a profile, why not give it a try for your own business?

The main benefit of LinkedIn is that it connects professionals and doesn’t require as much frequent posting when compared to other social media platforms.

Many people start with the free account then progress to a premium one. Either way, use LinkedIn to build your connections and connect with the right people.

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Originally published at https://blog.bigdomino.co.za on September 16, 2019.