Unlike the other popular social media platforms, LinkedIn isn’t a place for all! While people of all ages join social media platforms like Facebook, Google+ and others for all or no reasons, those signing up on LinkedIn come with specific agenda including career growth, sourcing support, business promotion and others.
According to LinkedIn website, its mission is to connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful. However, the fact is- not all professionals and businesses connected via LinkedIn emerge successfully or become more productive through professional networking. While the reasons for that could be numerous, here are some tips to help you make your business grow if you haven’t yet been blessed with LinkedIn.
4 Tips to grow your business via LinkedIn
1) Brand your profile page
If your LinkedIn page hasn’t been of any help to your business, the first thing to do is to take a closer look at your profile page. Many LinkedIn users fail to notice that their profile page looks half done with incomplete information and missing fields. The objective here shouldn’t be to create a completed profile, but to create a brand-aligned page which would look less like a resume and more like a corporate page. Start with the company logo and banner image and then move on to other areas such as company description and service highlights. To make your page look even more professional, customise your public profile URL with your brand name or a name that’s relevant to your business. To customise your public profile URL visit http://www.linkedin.com/myprofile?editwp=#
2) Don’t just exist, be alive!
If you are creating a LinkedIn page hoping that it will breed business on its own, that sounds too ambitious and unrealistic to any sensible mind! Remember, your LinkedIn page is just one among the 300 million pages across the globe. It means that you have to compete to an umpteen number of pages to be found to your prospects and customers. The mantra is- be alive and make your existence known to your target audience, without having them to do a microscopic search to find you. Make use of LinkedIn’s publishing platform to post blogs, articles and other relevant content to your target group. Studies show that member who publish regularly have higher chances of lead generation and better success rate than others. Publishing is just one of the effective way to make known your bubbling presence. There are many others such as joining groups, taking part in discussions etc.
3) Search and find your prospects
Apart from the various inbound lead generation techniques, a few of which are mentioned above, LinkedIn has tools to go outbound as well. The advanced search tool is one such tool that allows the user to identify people who closely match your target group. You can narrow down your search by applying filter options such as location, industry, job title, language, interest and many other. If you wish to further narrow down your search with business specific keywords, upgrade to the premium search version. For professional staffing firms and those looking to fill in a talent gap at a senior level, this is nothing but a cardinal tool for success. If you haven’t yet used this tool, go to the LinkedIn header menu and select Advanced option, which is next to the search bar.
4) Not just connect but foster relationships
LinkedIn is all about building professional relationships. The various network building initiatives mentioned in the earlier points including creating a professional-looking profile, starting groups, publishing value-adding content and others are all directed towards establishing relationships that’ll help grow career and business. Like all other social media platforms, engaging your connections is important in LinkedIn as well, but at a higher degree. The mantra is to make smart use of the various engaging tools offered by LinkedIn to nurture and build relationships. It could be congratulating someone on their work anniversary or on a new job, tagging others in posts that are relevant to them, liking and commenting on posts, initiating discussions and groups, sharing job opportunities, endorsing and recommending your connections, inviting others to webinars and local events and the many other relationship fostering initiatives. If your objective of being in LinkedIn is to generate leads and grow your business, the key is to be consistent in the nurturing process. It will help your prospects keep your services at top of their mind and remember you whenever in need.
