In this blog post, I'm going to cover the pros and cons of using LinkedIn vs alignable. So if you have never used either one or you are not exactly sure where to start, then this is the blog for you.
We're going to cover some 'basic' ground rules of both platforms. If your business is hyper-local, an in-person business. For example, if you're a flower house, if you're a retail shop or e-commerce.
When you're serving your local community, chances are pretty good that alignable is going to be the way you want to go. But if you can do B2B sales anywhere in the world or anywhere around the country, LinkedIn is going to be your best friend.
Now, I have made a million videos on LinkedIn, why you should be there, how to make money, how to prospect, all that kinds of stuff. Go check out those blogs on my website, Harrison Baron if you haven't already. For this blog, we're covering predominantly Alignable.
There is a reason why I'm doing this, it's because I have made a bunch of blogs on LinkedIn. But LinkedIn is a phenomenal resource for B2B, if you are in the B2B space and you are looking to make sales, to connect with people, to get in front of key decision makers, LinkedIn is where you want to spend your time and there's a reason why.
LinkedIn gives a 'ton' of information of who people are, what business that they are a part of, when they have changed jobs, and even how much money they're making because if you are dealing with somebody on a certain threshold of money, maybe that's someone that you want to go after.
Regarding Alignable, I haven't paid for the premium version because I haven't found the for me and what I do, but I have spent a lot of time on Alignable and contributed to forms. So I will share my experience with you guys of Alignable.
Number one, Alignable is a very new company, it just hasn't been around as long as LinkedIn. Number two, it is a much smaller customer base. Number three, it is amazing! That is for local businesses.
If you are looking to connect with the local people, within five to ten towns locally, that's how local you can connect with. There is a beautiful and rewarding feeling that comes with connecting with the local people, it keeps the money in the local economy, it keeps you connected and it tells you the news that's going on in the local area where LinkedIn doesn't really do that.
There is a real power in local networking and local business, so because of that and people understand that money is going to stay in locally, they are more inclined to buy from you. There are a couple of things that I don't like about Alignable, I want to tell you guys about it. However, there are also a couple of really good things, and that was one of them, being able to connect with local people, potentially, local influencers is worth giving it a go.
My biggest gripe with it is that the news feed stinks. At least on the news feed of LinkedIn, there is a ton of stuff in a sequential order that comes up, relevance, date and time. Alignable, on the other hand, doesn't necessarily have that kind of feed where you share messages and things like that. However, it doesn't mean that it's not going to be coming down the road. It just means that for now, by clicking the 'like' button, you are absolutely going to get more connections on Alignable.
So you are on Alignable, you probably want to do a couple of things before you do anything with connecting with other people. This is the most important thing, if there's anything that you are going to take from this blog, this is it, build out your profile. It is critically important for your business. If you do not fill out your business profile, you would never know, you have no idea who is going to reach out to you, and because of that, that's not a good thing.
You want people that could potentially buy from you or could potentially represent you in front of one of their customers, and Alignable is a great place for that. The other huge benefit that I really like Alignable is that you have recommendations, and recommendations on LinkedIn are way harder to get than on Alignable. It does a really good on pushing local recommendations, and that way when somebody goes and looks for somebody, they come out with a ton of recommendations. This is because Alignable does a really good job of promoting you, your recommendations, and how everybody perceives you.
The key to this whole is you need a filled out profile, if you do not have a filled out profile, nobody's going to find out who you are or what you do. Alignable puts you on a smaller category that if you don't conform to it exactly, you might run into a lot of trouble. So using the full extent of your profile, your bio, profile picture, background image, it's going to tremendously help your success on the platform. I do have a couple of problems and I want to share them with you.
The first problem that I have with Alignable is that there is no news feed as I have mentioned earlier. I can't comment, add positive information, or answer people's questions.
The second problem is that Alignable is a little childish. LinkedIn is super clean, super professional while alignable on the other hand, it has lots of colors, it doesn't look like it's quite done yet and it's like they're just trying to get people on there. That's what I get when I look at Alignable, it's not bad, it just doesn't look like it's all there. Alignable does have some premium features that are far cheaper than LinkedIn and those features are really good.
I don't know many people that have closed business on Alignable. Personally, I have yet to close business on Alignable, I have built out my profile and I have done all the things that I told you about, but I have yet to get business on the platform. Maybe it's me, I know that I am very good at prospecting, I'm not a 100% sure. Whereas on LinkedIn, I can close business all day, I can go find the people I want to find.
On Alignable, I haven't seen that yet, however, I do know people that have closed business on it locally and it has been a source of revenue for them. Has it been the best source of revenue? Probably not. I have definitely closed five-figure deals on LinkedIn, and none on Alignable, but that just maybe me. If you're somebody local, looking to deal with local people. For example, if you are a lawyer, it's a no brainer for you to be on Alignable because you can only serve your local city, maybe community and state. If you are not known in other states, maybe it doesn't help to be on LinkedIn all that much. Yes, it's a very professional platform, you may very well get more business off of Alignable.
So there are a ton of pros and cons on both platforms. I will be posting more blogs on Alignable, subscribe to my site, Harrisonbaron.com for updates on Alignable and LinkedIn.