LinkedIn is one of the fastest-growing social media networks for professionals. With 2 users joining every second, translating into 62 million per year, it’s the most powerful career development platform.
Recent data reveals that LinkedIn now has over 740 million users, where 90 million are senior-level executives, and another 63 million are professionals in decision-making positions.
LinkedIn is a great place to grow your business and the platform makes it easy to find and reach decision-makers, expand your network, and increase engagement.
Benefits of Using LinkedIn to Grow Your Business
There are numerous ways that businesses can use this powerful platform to promote and expand their brand, and here are a few benefits of using LinkedIn:
Now that you know the main benefits of using LinkedIn, we’ll look at 6 effective ways to use LinkedIn for business growth:
1. Create a Company Profile on LinkedIn
The first thing you need to do to grow your business on LinkedIn is creating a company profile or page. Not only does it help existing LinkedIn users to find your business, but these profiles also rank in search engines when people search for a particular business or job.
Try filling out the profile with as much information about your business as possible, and make sure to keep the contact information up to date.
Also, take the time to decide on the appropriate categories for your business since it’ll help you attract even more professionals and decision-makers.
2. Leverage LinkedIn Articles
Did you know that nearly 50% of social media traffic to B2B websites comes from LinkedIn? Even though Facebook and Twitter have more active monthly users, LinkedIn is the go-to place for B2B content distribution.
So, leveraging LinkedIn to post articles about how your products or service can solve different problems can help grow your customer base and boost sales.
The LinkedIn Article feature allows you to post long-form content and is entirely free to use. In fact, it lets you post content up to 125,000 characters, while the posting feature only allows 1,300 character posts.
Best of all, publishing your articles on LinkedIn increases brand awareness and engagement. Your network will be notified and can like, comment, and share your content.
The LinkedIn Articles feature also comes with a tracking tool to check your analytics and optimize your content to see what your network likes to read about.
3. Join Industry Groups
One of the best ways to ensure that people will notice your business is to join specific industry groups on LinkedIn. That way, you can interact with other professionals relevant to your field and establish yourself as an expert in your niche.
Try to engage frequently with the groups you’re active in to build trust. The more you like, comment, and engage in meaningful discussions, the more you can increase visibility for your brand.
But make sure to add valuable content, not just apparent sales pitches. This will quickly make people lose interest and trust in you and your brand. Instead, focus on building good and long-lasting relationships.
In addition, you can find industry groups by using the search field on LinkedIn and typing in keywords related to the industry you’re interested in growing your connections.
Another excellent way to engage with potential customers or clients is to create your own LinkedIn group and invite your network to join the group. That way, you can take the lead and share valuable information about your brand.
4. Advertise Your Business
LinkedIn Sponsored Content is an excellent way to accumulate new high-quality leads and get more sales for your business.
In fact, 58% of B2B advertisers are satisfied with LinkedIn’s ROI (Return-on-Investment) on ads. What this means is that if your business is mainly focused on B2B, you’ll get the best return on investment by advertising on LinkedIn rather than sites like Facebook and Instagram.
Even though the cost-per-click on LinkedIn is higher than on other social media platforms, the increased engagement rates and ROI make up for that. And even on a small budget, you can still create successful campaigns.
5. Encourage Recommendations
On LinkedIn, recommendations are equal to testimonials. Recommendations from ex-employees add credibility to your business and the products and services you offer.
It shows that your company is legit and will help you gain new clients and talents to grow your business and brand.
On that note, there are two effective ways to get more recommendations. For starters, make sure to encourage your employees to leave you recommendations. You can also be proactive and write recommendations for colleagues yourself, and they’ll likely return the favor.
6. Implement a Consistent Posting Schedule
LinkedIn revealed that brands that post once a month gain followers six times faster than companies that keep a lower profile. So, if you want to grow your network and keep your existing connections interested in your brand, you need to implement a consistent posting schedule.
So, make a habit of posting at least three times a week (no more than 5x times a day) for the best engagement. If you lack the resources to come out with new content all the time, you can re-purpose your old content and re-post it.
Another tip to maximize business growth is to look at what days and times users are the most active on LinkedIn and share your content accordingly. For instance, Wednesdays from 8 am to 10 am, and 12 pm are shown to be the best day and times for high engagement.
Final Thoughts
And there you have 6 effective ways to use LinkedIn for business growth. Using these tips will help you increase brand awareness, expand your network, and reach decision-makers. It’ll also help boost your SEO and rank your company profile on Google, which means even more eyes on your brand. Remember to share valuable content regularly, and you’ll grow your professional network in no time.