Why You Should be Using LinkedIn to Market Your Business

Often overlooked, LinkedIn is a hub buzzing with content and connecting businesses. This platform, when used properly, can be a powerful tool for many things; from growing your connections all the way to ‘business to business’ (B2B) selling. With more than 690 million users, and about a third of professionals on Linkedin, it’s a powerful marketing platform that every business should be making the most of.

Increase brand credibility and build your online presence.

Every business should include online networking within their growth strategy, and for small-medium businesses in particular. The advantages of online networking are considerable, with the function to easily connect with similar businesses, build credibility, grow your online presence and so much more. While it may be prudent to explore and utilise various social media platforms, LinkedIn is undoubtedly the place you should start, and expand on.

LinkedIn is designed for professionals and businesses looking to find and share opportunities. If it works for them, then why not you?

The professional network aimed at business networking.

LinkedIn is the ideal platform for businesses big and small to have a focused online presence, grow beneficial business connections, share great content, and even B2B selling.

Networking is a crucial element for any business and, with LinkedIn, it’s very easy and accessible for every professional who is looking to make tactical connections.

For example, It’s not always appropriate to search for business connections on other social media platforms and may feel a little too personal. However, LinkedIn’s explicitly business-oriented function allows professionals to reach out without worrying about propriety. So, reach out and make those connections that will benefit your business – you never know who you might click with.

Take advice, share ideas and get noticed.

Where there are professionals, expertise follows and LinkedIn has become a hotspot for professionals around the world to share their knowledge. As an excellent platform for content sharing, offering tips, sharing ideas, showcasing achievements and much more, it’s the perfect place for finding information that’s likely to help you or spark ideas with your own business. Eventually, you may even find yourself sharing your own content, which is also a great way to get noticed.

LinkedIn is also considered to be less ‘content-competitive’ as other social media platforms. As LinkedIn is niched for business and professional-related content, it narrows down the competition away from the rest of the internet, providing the perfect audience and the opportunity to stand out.

Grow your connections in specific professions.

It’s one thing to be able to grow your network, but for that to be useful to your business, you need to connect with people in related professions. LinkedIn allows you to target specific professions in order to connect with the right people and will help you by making suggestions based on your preferences.

Once you have made your connection, it’s much easier to strike up a conversation; especially if you’ve taken a chance to look at their profile, which will detail their professional background. From this, you and your connection can ascertain mutually beneficial suggestions, offer support, advice, referrals, and even opportunities to do business together.

It makes B2B selling much easier.

With all these connections now open to you and the option to establish relationships with other businesses, it also opens up the possibility of ‘business to business’ (B2B) selling. It’s the perfect place to find and build upon mutually beneficial relationships. These relationships hold the potential to convert into sales and perhaps even long-term business.

The chances are, there’s a businessperson on LinkedIn who is waiting to hear about what you can offer them and will likely be able to return the favour; and If you primarily sell to other businesses, then LinkedIn is the ideal platform for you to be marketing yourself on.

Loads of great features.

LinkedIn is packed full of free features, from being able to check and search for job postings, to easy talent spotting and setting up your own business page. Your profile alone may act as an online portfolio, feature endorsements, show off your certifications and accreditations, and much more. This means that you will be able to size-up who you’re connecting with at a glance.

LinkedIn has all the useful features of a social media site with the function to instant message, create and share content, and provide you with an up-to-date activity feed from the people and businesses you choose to follow. However, with targeted searches, keyword filters, professional galleries and much more, it’s completely set apart from other social media or networking sites.

While you may be familiar with groups and events on social media, LinkedIn features the very same, but exclusively related to businesses and professionals. By using LinkedIn’s function to identify where geographically you wish to focus on, expanding and narrowing to your requirements, you can choose groups and events that relate to your business.

The premium package.

While the free version of LinkedIn has a host of great features, there is also a premium version on offer for professionals who want to take things up a notch and get the most out of the site.

Firstly, not the most prestigious feature, but when you go premium you have the option of viewing profiles without the person it belongs to knowing that you can remain anonymous. Premium also allows you to view everyone who has viewed your profile, who isn’t also anonymous, rather than the typical select few.

With four tiers to choose from, you can pick the precise package to suit your needs. Some premium features include gaining access to additional company data, out-of-network profile unlocks, and considerably advanced admin functionality. Premium extends the use of LinkedIn by a huge margin, the decider is in how you choose to use the platform based on the needs of your business.

It’s not a matter of ‘if,’ but a matter of ‘when’.

How you choose to use LinkedIn is entirely up to you. However, with a very small amount of time invested on the platform, the benefits of its use are insurmountable, even simply down to targeted networking capabilities, or even just building brand credibility and recognition.

LinkedIn is a platform designed for the needs of businesses and professionals. So, when it comes to marketing your business, LinkedIn has everything you need to begin, grow, develop and build your marketing strategy, business relationships and much more.