LinkedIn may have started out as a small, niche type of social media site for professionals to connect, but today it is one of the most influential and important social media sites for B2B sales.
As a LinkedIn marketing trainer I am always surprised at how many businesses are simply ignoring or completely missing the potential for generating leads, marketing directly to a target audience, and building your brand through this social media site.
When I talk to groups and organizations about the power of LinkedIn it is as if a lightbulb goes on over the collective heads of the participants when they see the value of this site as a social media tool. Often individuals are using a few of the strategies we discuss in the LinkedIn marketing training, and with just a small amount of tweaking they have the ability to start to see a real change in their personal branding as well as corporate branding efforts.
The Profile
I spend some time in every training providing insight into how to improve your profile. Long narratives and detailed information about all the jobs you have held in the past aren’t important, but attention-grabbing, big name and big idea things are.
Your personal profile, or your corporate page profile, should draw the reader to what to learn more. You will want to do this by creating interest in both in the content as well as in the visual appeal of the page.
Use Sponsored Updates
For a corporate profile in particular, using sponsored updates to increase the number of people finding out about the latest changes in your company is important. These updates could include a community project you are contributing to or a new campaign you are launching or even a personal achievement by a staff member.
This will provide you with a much broader reach and, with carefully designed updates, you will see an increase in businesses and professionals linking to you and, even more importantly, visiting your website.
Get Active
One of the simplest ways I know to boost your LinkedIn marketing exposure is to get active and get involved. Make relevant and timely comments on posts that are interesting and helpful to the community as a whole.
You should also interact with others commenting on your posts, developing a personal connection. Then, when you ask to link, you can reference the conversation rather than just the stock request to add the person, increasing the chance of building your network.
