According to statistics provided by Alexa, whilst social networking platforms Twitter & Facebook continue to be the most popular, behind the scenes LinkedIn has been growing at a rapid pace which has now seen 2 new members joining the revolution every second.
With over 187 monthly active users worldwide, LinkedIn has certainly proven to have its own place in the social media market for small local businesses. Both on a business-to-business and business-to-customer scale, LinkedIn not only allows you to promote your online marketing and promotion needs, it also allows you to establish connections and build relationships with other businesses, potential customers and new employees.
In this blog you will find 6 simple reasons why your business will benefit from joining LinkedIn
What is LinkedIn?
Founded in December 2002, LinkedIn is a business oriented social networking service that currently has over 300 million registered users in 200 different countries. Although labelled as a social network aimed for business users, LinkedIn actually influences businesses, customers and potential employee users to interact and bring people together in a new and unique way by connecting with people.
6 reasons why any small business can benefit from LinkedIn
1. Instant business to business connection (B2B)
LinkedIn allows businesses to put a company name with a face, it encourages you to look at things that you may have in common such as interest, schools, past jobs, skills so you can get a feel for a business before approaching to do work with them.
Regardless of searching for suppliers, manufactures or any other type of service, striking up a relationship with other businesses becomes a breeze
With a premium account, you can also discover who has been viewing your profile, suggest connections which in itself could prompt anybody to pick up the phone and become a warm lead.
- Filter through dozens of local businesses in seconds
- Send a request to be introduced through a mutual friend
- Send an introductory email to strike up a connection in seconds
- Research their company profile and get a feel of their online professional presence
- Maintain personal relationships with current business customers
2. Build business to Customer relationships (B2C)
Promoting and building your brand is an essential part of any business plan. A well managed LinkedIn profile will help existing and potential new customers learn more about you, what you do and how well you can do it.
- Customer Review: If a customer is impressed with your services, they can recommend your services to other members and businesses or even leave a review on your page
- Endorse Your Skills: If you list a number of services that you provide, a satisfied customer will be more than willing to endorse your skills
- Promote Content: Business can post blogs, offers, new services, almost any type of content. The more you post, the more connections will learn about you and interact with you.
3. Recruitment
Statistically, there are over 39 million students and recent college graduates on LinkedIn who look to connect with local businesses for employment or work experience opportunities. Using your free small business account, you can create a ‘Careers’ section that will allow you to showcase your employment brand along with job opportunities completely free of charge.
Small businesses can also search for potential candidates that their job description and can directly approach them provided they are at least a ‘2nd degree’ contact.
4. SEO blog promoting tool
If you’re small business has a regular blog, LinkedIn is a great opportunity to promote, share and expose your blog to get your brand, message or service across to a wider audience.
LinkedIn will also allow you to make your profile information available for search engines to crawl and index. Since LinkedIn profiles also receive a high Page Rank in Google, this can be a great way to influence what potential customers see when they search for your business.
5. Expand marketing
With each company page, you are able to create a dedicated section that you can use to promote product or services. At untitled™, we have taken this opportunity to promote our ‘One Tap Technology’. You can also create custom campaigns that you can target on industry type, location and other requirements so they are as specific as required.
6. LinkedIn groups
Here you can search and discover like-minded professionals by joining groups that are of interest to your industry or by browsing other industry groups for a professional opinion.
Establish yourself as an industry expert: By joining a group relevant to your industry, you can make new business contacts by sharing content or by finding and posting questions and answers.
Extend your network: Being a part of any group allows you the opportunity to establish business relationships with 3rd party connections that you wouldn’t otherwise have the option to connect with.
Consult leading experts in other industries: If you have a question, you can browse through the alphabetical directory and find experts in that industry that will help you out. By posting in groups, you will easily find experts, consultants and second opinions on your questions.
Conclusion
LinkedIn can present your small business with a local, professional strong social media presence that will help build marketing activity and traffic flow. Statistically, any visitor is 4 more times likely to visit your website from a LinkedIn page than any Facebook or Twitter account.
If you would like to know how LinkedIn could help grow your small business, why not get in touch and find out more. Contact James Cox 01565 653616 on how we can help grow your business website.
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