LinkedIn is a prime site for helping you market your small business. As of 2023, there are over 190 million users on LinkedIn in the U.S. Having the right LinkedIn marketing strategy is essential for tapping into this vast resource.
There are many benefits of LinkedIn that you can’t find on other social media platforms. It is a dedicated B2B platform that makes it easy to connect with other businesses and professionals across the globe. This makes it ideal to use LinkedIn for business and marketing.
If you want to learn how to boost your brand and market your small business effectively, keep reading below for tips on how to use LinkedIn.
Create Your Business Profile
The first step in how to use LinkedIn is to get noticed. The best way to achieve this is to create a business profile that wows. When using LinkedIn for business, it is important to have a business profile that helps you attract and reach your target demographic.
Always use a professional headshot or high-quality image of your business logo on your profile to drive the point home that this is a business profile and not one that you link to your personal social media accounts. You want to differentiate between your small business profile and your private social media profile.
You’ll also want to ensure that you complete 100% of your profile setup for the best results.
Define Your Target Audience and Marketing Goals
If you haven’t done so already, you need to hone your LinkedIn marketing strategy to reach the proper demographics. Think about what your ultimate goal is. Do you just want to boost your brand or do you want to sell products and generate more leads?
82% of B2B marketers cite LinkedIn as their most effective platform for content distribution. But you need to how to use LinkedIn effectively. You also need to know who you’re creating this content for and where to share it first.
If you’re a small business in the healthcare industry, you should be actively seeking out other healthcare groups to connect with. From there, you should narrow it down to a specific sub-category like wellness supplements.
Connect and Build Up Business Links
Once you’ve established your LinkedIn marketing strategy and target audience, it’s time to make connections. After all, that’s the main reason for why and how to use LinkedIn in the first place.
Start with any existing lists you may have, from previous clients and customers to work colleagues and other business connections to build up your profile connections. The more connections you have, the better your chances will be to get others to accept your invitations.
Craft a short message stating your business’ purpose, goals, or vision. Thank each profile that accepts your invitation to connect to your business page. Make sure to stay in contact with these links to build up a stronger professional connection.
Actively Recruit Connections
Don’t just be satisfied with the bare minimum number of connections. One of the beauties of how to use LinkedIn for your small business is the possibility to grow your connections by leaps and bounds with minimal effort.
Even if you only spend 15-30 minutes per day sending out a wave of connection invites while working remotely, you could still get a big payoff of new connections in return.
Embed a “Follow” button on your website or through your email newsletter to entice more potential customers or clients to connect to your LinkedIn business profile. Share links on other social media platforms that will link back to your LinkedIn page for your small business.
Develop Your Business Profile
To keep your business connections invested in your small business profile, you need to understand how to use LinkedIn content to keep it interesting. This could entail a variety of material from informative articles to business tips and industry-relevant blog posts.
A record 97% of digital B2B marketers use LinkedIn for business to successfully boost their content marketing outreach. So, if you’re looking to boost your brand, this is where you should direct the majority of your efforts.
Use relevant keywords to show up in searches on both LinkedIn and other sites. Keep your page updated with new content and other resources. Send out messages with links to newly published content to your LinkedIn connections to attract more interest.
Publish Informative and Engaging Content
You also need to know how to use LinkedIn content to your advantage. Potential customers and clients are going to want to know why they should choose or trust your brand. Tell the story of your brand to build engagement.
You should highlight key features and benefits of your brand and its products or services through your content posts.
Posting engaging content is also one of the best benefits of LinkedIn since shareable content will get more eyes on your small business profile and garner more connections. Well-researched and informative content helps to boost your brand and establishes you as a trusted source in the industry.
Your content should flow naturally so you should avoid being too aggressive with trying to sell anything. Rather, you should target a major pain point and address the best ways to solve this issue. Visual imagery like infographics and videos will get even more attention.
Use LinkedIn’s Advertising Options
Content creation is a great way to boost your brand with LinkedIn for business. But there are other ways how to use LinkedIn through its advertising functions as well. There are three main types of ads on LinkedIn:
- Sponsored Content
- Self-Service Ads
- Managed Campaigns
LinkedIn’s Sponsored Content feature is its own form of native advertising, as it allows you to promote your most engaging content directly into the feeds of your target audience. Your messages are optimized for all devices, regardless of which one is being used. You can also test variations of your message, track how many leads you’re getting, and see where they’re coming from.
For Self-Service ads, LinkedIn has a Campaign Manager dashboard. You can use it to set up text ads and sponsored InMail campaigns in mere minutes. Then you can set up your budget, bid on advertising rates, track your results, and target your audience with LinkedIn’s built-in analytics.
Managed Campaigns have ad options for dynamic ads as well as more account-based marketing. These campaigns are more suitable for businesses with robust marketing budgets.
Discover How to Use LinkedIn and Other Methods at Network Marketing Team
With a host of features and benefits of LinkedIn to tap into, it can be a terrific resource for a small business to access. If you’re still not sure how to use LinkedIn effectively, Network Marketing Team can help.
At Network Marketing Team, our vision is a business world where profits remain with the hardworking and successful entrepreneurs who earn them, and where stay-at-home business models thrive. Our mission is to help aspiring business owners connect with resources that will help them succeed. We are honest and open about all aspects of network marketing.
Contact us today with any questions.
