The benefits of using the LinkedIn Social Media Platform.
LinkedIn has been around since 2003 and is well known as a professional networking media platform.
The benefits of using LinkedIn are enormous when you have a LinkedIn profile. You can join groups, go on forums, meet like minded individuals and build up friendships and professional relationships which can be great for developing both your career and your business. And even better you can do all of this for free.
As a business owner, LinkedIn is ideal if your business is B2B as this is where you can find and build relationships with other business owners who need your products and services. By having an ‘All Star’ profile – their rating! – you can let people know what products and services you offer and more importantly how they can benefit from them. You can also meet other business owners that have services or products that compliment your own and build alliances to help each other.
A good profile will also tell others your experience, what your clients experiences have been through testimonials and your areas of expertise.
LinkedIn is very much about building relationships and giving our information. It is after all a social media platform albeit a professional one and the idea is not to be on there just to sell but to give value and nurture the relationships with your connections just as you would if you were networking face to face – except on LinkedIn you can find and connect with exactly the kind of people you want to get to know.
LinkedIn was taken over by Microsoft last year and this has resulted in a massive increase in people signing up to use the platform – particularly after Facebook have changed their algorithms and their rules and regulations.
This has also, however, resulted in a change in the types of account on LinkedIn, but you should start with the free account and build up from there as it has all the features you need to develop your network.
To use LinkedIn successfully you will need to do the following activities:
1. Set up an ‘All Star’ profile. Your profile is very important as it is this that people will see first when they are searching for you or your kind of business.
2. You need to invite people to connect with you and accept invitations from people you would like to connect with. There are several search parameters – such as geographical area, type of company or industry – you can use to find people in your ideal target market and can then concentrate on building up relationships with them.
3. But to be successful in building these relationships you have to have a presence on the platform. You can build this up by regularly posting information, updates or anything that is topically related to what you do. You also need to read other peoples posts and comment or share as this also raises your profile. Remember this is a social media platform and people do not want to be sold to – it is all about building the relationships!
Once you have your account set up and you are posting regularly you will find that you will have a very valuable network. Don’t forget to connect with all those that you meet at other networking events and your valued clients or customers who will hopefully share and comment on your posts.
It is very easy to build a marketing campaign to help you get many customers or clients through LinkedIn and the main benefit is that you can do this free – except for your time!
For additional help with your LinkedIn account, click here.