LinkedIn for Growing Your Business

Have you just started a new business or thinking about one? If so on either account you should investigate LinkedIn and find out how to grow your business on LinkedIn.

By reading below you can learn some tips that have helped various companies grow their businesses with LinkedIn.

Why You Should Be on LinkedIn

Many experts believe LinkedIn is the globe’s most popular business social network. Did you know daily more than 600 million professionals use LinkedIn for making personal connections, discussing their industries, sharing knowledge, and developing careers? If you want to have the best chance of succeeding in business learn how to grow your business on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is also the social media platform considered the best if you are into B2B prospecting. On LinkedIn, businesses have direct access to their customers, competitors, investors, possible hires, and prospects. Marketing and sales can use LinkedIn to attract new businesses as they learn how to grow your business on LinkedIn. Studies report that 80% of B2B leads come from LinkedIn, and 94% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn to disseminate content.

This means it’s a good idea that the social media platform is part of your arsenal and marketing plan as you maneuver and learn how to grow your business on LinkedIn. LinkedIn can also be a great platform for B2B companies if it is used properly.

Identify Your Goals

Like most marketing initiatives, it’s key you begin by identifying your goals. The typical  B2B marketing goals for LinkedIn may include:

• Increasing brand profile and authority.
• Generating, capturing, and creating leads.
• Driving relevant traffic to your website.
• Promoting event appearances.

Once you come up with your goals, it's easier to create a marketing plan that works for you while you are learning how to grow your business on LinkedIn.

Make a Company Profile

On LinkedIn, your company profile is front and center for your online brand. As people look for your business online and learn more about your products and services, it’s so important to have a top of the line company profile since this help when you are learning how to grow your business on LinkedIn.

Remember first impressions do make a difference and a company profile is a place where most people in your target market will visit when they visit your page.

Ideas to Help Grow Business on LinkedIn

Here are some ideas for creating a great company profile as you continue learning how to grow your business on LinkedIn:

• Complete 100% of your profile without leaving anything blank.
• No typos or grammar errors.
• Research profiles of competitors consider how can you make your business shine next to them.
• List ad industry awards or distinctions, certificates you earned.
• Got any well-known or high-profile clients? Add them to the profile, but ask for permission first.
• Include a link to your company website so if visitors like what they see in your profile, they will look for more info about you/company.
• Use the banner space wisely; for example, if you have a specific campaign message you want to highlight here. Think of this banner as your online storefront does take advantage.

Finishing your LinkedIn profile is very important because it lets you be found in searches and gives you the chance to capture potential clients. It also gives credibility needed to attract new prospects to contact you via LinkedIn and begin communication. This is just another great way to help you when you are creating your online profile and to aid in how to grow your business on LinkedIn

Optimize Your Page for Search

While a perfect company profile is key, it’s not the be-all-end-all especially when you are figuring out how to grow your business on LinkedIn. This is where search engine optimization becomes important. Go ahead and insert keywords into your company profile. And bear in mind those keywords must be relevant and descriptive of your business and what you provide.

Start by asking which words or phrases a prospect would type into Google when hunting for a product or service.

Start Sharing Content

After you have completed the profile, get busy creating content to help you in your quest on how to grow your business on LinkedIn.

Content marketing is the main element of any social media platform, and LinkedIn is a good place for it. Content marketing on LinkedIn can be more successful than on any other platform so be sure to create content that is readable, insightful, and interesting to your target audience.

With LinkedIn, you have a captive group of professionals who are in search of knowledge and information - 91% of executives rate LinkedIn as their first pick for professionally relevant content.

Take advantage by sharing blogs, webinars, and videos based on those topics relevant to your target market and to help you in terms of how to grow your business on LinkedIn. Hone in on quality by possibly reaching out to thought leaders in your industry who are active on LinkedIn and ask if they want to contribute content. Share content regularly and you will build an audience that returns weekly.

If you are on a budget, there are various free tools to create graphics and videos:

• Canva - a free graphic design tool.
• Unsplash - a library of free hi-res images.
• Piktochart - an infographic creator.
• Lumen5 - turns text into video in minutes.

Some good practices for sharing content:

• High-value posts are best added Tuesday-Thursday (new/hero posts or high-engagement events).
• Low-value posts: Monday or Friday (re-shares, repurposing, old content).
• Headlines for posts are suggested to be 40-69 characters (including spaces). You have 220 characters before the copy breaks and is hidden.
• Great performing headline types should have questions, lists, and how-to guides.
• Hashtags should be used with discretion and on a new line when possible.
• The link you post will typically be a piece/page, to pull the image and increase the click area. It’s suggested to always use a tracking link if you can.
• LinkedIn’s algorithm rewards posts without corporate links, so occasionally – usually from personal accounts - write engaging post copy and put the link in the comments.

Grow Your Network

Content marketing is just another way to gain new followers when you are thinking about how to grow your business on LinkedIn. There are other things too:

Make sure all your employees follow your company page and like your posts as they are your largest group of brand cheerleaders, and the most likely to share your content.

Invite customers and partners to follow your page. Promote your LinkedIn presence on your blogs, email newsletters, and press releases as you center your attention on how to grow your business on LinkedIn

• Share other people’s content regularly if you see a blog post or article that you like. Why not share it?
• Tag connections in your content promotions if you think they’ll find it helpful.
• Ask successful customers to write recommendations and testimonials for your company page and write recommendations for others in return.

Don’t Be Afraid to Experiment

When you’ve got the basics of LinkedIn marketing down pat, go ahead, and diversify. Experiment with posting at different times and if you find that a particular type of post gets more engagement than others do more of that type of post. It’s fine to explore and experiment when you are trying to figure out how to grow your business on LinkedIn.

Always Keep Track of Your Results

To get better at data-driven marketing on LinkedIn, you need to analyze your efforts regularly. Most social media schedulers include a reporting function as standard. If you’re not using one, it’s OK as  LinkedIn’s analytics pages can offer insight. All of this helps when you are in the process of going about how to grow your business on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn Analytics is split into 3 sections:

Visitor Analytics

Everything you need to know about the people who click on your page, including:

• The total number of page views and unique visitors over time.
• The ratio of visitors from desktop and mobile.
• Demographic information such as job function, location, industry, and company size.

Update Analytics

Engagement metrics for all your LinkedIn posts, including:

• The total number of likes, comments, clicks, and shares you’ve had over a specified time.
• The ratio of engagement between organic and sponsored content (if you’re running any LinkedIn ads).
• Real-time data on a post-by-post basis, including impressions, views, clicks, and LinkedIn’s own aggregated engagement rate.

Follower Analytics

All the information you need on your audience, including:

• The total number of followers you have and how many new followers you gained in the last month.
• Demographic data on all your followers, showing where they reside and work.
• A competitor tracker, comparing followers and updates of other similar companies.

Build a Winning Team

LinkedIn has helped 75% of job switchers make informed career decisions, making LinkedIn a top recruiting network. What are candidates looking for when making those decisions? Numbers reveal that 66% of candidates want to see the company culture overall. To take advantage of this think about enhancing your Company Page with a LinkedIn Career Page when you are learning how to grow your business on LinkedIn.

Career Pages also let you target audiences with a personalized look into your company, culture, and jobs. They give you dedicated Life and Jobs Tabs on your Company Page that attract and engage pertinent professionals.

In addition to creating Career Pages, ask employees to share job postings and regular content as well. This gives visitors a good idea of what it’s like to work for you and adds to your authenticity. If you have some employees who are tops in sharing content, consider linking them to your Company Page’s Life Tab. Their shared articles and recent updates will automatically populate, giving visitors up-to-date information.

Hire Freelancers

You’ve probably had an employee who took on a task outside of their domain. You might have even done it on your own. While the effort is nice, learning quickly can also be detrimental.

Finding the perfect talent isn’t as hard as it used to be even if you can’t pay the salary of a full-time employee.

LinkedIn ProFinder lets you post projects, get free proposals, and hire trustworthy professionals in one area. ProFinder will also connect you with local professionals to make sure you have the best freelancers possible. With a large number of professional services available on ProFinder, it’s easy to find the perfect professional for any job as you learn how to grow your business on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn vets the professionals on the platform to ensure their qualifications and leverages your network to find freelancers your connections have hires, so you don’t have to guess about who you’re hiring.

By choosing freelancers, you’ll get access to outside perspectives and broad experience of professionals ranging from creating websites and designing logos to managing books or developing a marketing strategy. Also, with none of the management overhead of a full-time employee, you can focus on the present job.

One of the better marketing channels to aid with the creation of your business is LinkedIn as it helps you as you learn how to grow your business on LinkedIn. When it comes to professional online networking, it's at the forefront of most people’s minds. Your business needs to be on there and you need to be making the most of the opportunities it offers.

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