LinkedIn and Social Media Strategy

 

 
Do you use LinkedIn to sell your business to professional contacts?
Out of the two-thirds of UK business professionals who use LinkedIn, only a third of those use LinkedIn as a tool to grow their business.  82% of UK LinkedIn users expect that LinkedIn will be used as a professional tool, so it’s  a suitable and engaged audience if you are looking at growing your business through LinkedIn.
LinkedIn is now no longer solely a place for a job hunting exercise – although 30% of LinkedIn users still use it for that reason, it’s a place where people go to network and keep in touch with business, business news and sector trends. With 8 million UK users, it cannot be ignored as a Social Media site for business.

Getting the most out of LinkedIn

• Say cheese. Make sure that your LinkedIn profile picture is up to date and most importantly that you have a picture of yourself rather than a company logo.
• Connect. If you have a business card then make that connection. Fill in some details in the connection box to personalise the connection request.
• Recommend. Write recommendations on LinkedIn for contacts and don’t be shy about asking for recommendations either. Don’t leave your recommendations languishing either – show them off front and centre by adding excerpts to your LinkedIn summary section where casual visitors to your profile can’t fail to see it
• Company page. Add a Company page to your LinkedIn profile and keep it up to date with blog entries, pictures, videos and news. It will go straight to your subscribers’ news feeds so is a good way to keep contacts abreast of what is happening in your company.
• Comment in Groups As with all Social Media, it doesn’t do to be only transmitting – no matter how great and interesting your content is!  Join some groups and have a look around.  Like and share others’ posts and content.

What benefits could your business gain from LinkedIn? Do you need help using LinkedIn – is this something you would welcome?