Ever wonder how to use LinkedIn to promote your business? In Sri Lanka, when it comes to social media, what comes to mind is Facebook or Instagram or to a lesser extent Twitter. However, by the effective use of LinkedIn, it can turn out to be altogether a different beast to propel your business to new heights.
Let’s get one thing straight, say you are promoting a brand of milk powder or chocolate, which is available at any supermarket shelf, LinkedIn is of no use, as a promotional tool. On the other hand, if you are marketing high-end retiring chalets in Nuwara Eliya, LinkedIn could be a blessing in disguise to target potential clients. However, doing this requires you to master some technicalities related to LinkedIn.
What is the main advantage of LinkedIn?
Principally, LinkedIn started as a networking site to find employment opportunities. However, over the years, it has evolved as an influential Business to Business (B2B) site with many opportunities to market and network with likeminded potential clients.
When it comes to Facebook, you can still target advertisements but, you cannot prune or pinpoint to attract specific professionals. Basically, Facebook targets masses. Moreover, with LinkedIn, you can network easily and communicate directly with influencers and industry leaders.
In this post, we are going to show you how to use LinkedIn to promote your business in Sri Lanka.
1. Start by creating a company profile.
A company profile will give information about your business, where it operates from, what it does and for how long the company have been in business and contact information. Generally, this page show-up when people search on Google, also showing up when searched within LinkedIn.
2. Highly potential business connections
One of the key factors of LinkedIn being, it is entirely patronized by professionals who are taking their careers seriously. In other words, forward-thinking professionals operate within LinkedIn. Also, businesses looking for targeted exposure in the business pipeline use LinkedIn effectively. This takes off the clutter compared to other social networking sites. The individualistic culture of LinkedIn makes connecting easier and makes it more professional.
3. Try LinkedIn polls
Use your connections to get answers for a few pertinent questions related to your business or on general topics. If you are into real estate business, you can ask a question like, where do you like to spend your retirement? Or questions related to retirement living. By doing this you can get feedback whilst building a gilt-edged relationship with your connections.
4. Why not answer a few questions
You can give feedback by using your industry knowledge for the benefit of others. By doing this regularly, you can create a knowledgeable persona for your organisation. The questions are posed in Linkedin Answers.
5. Share Articles or Links
Creative a few original articles relevant to your industry or share links with your connections. Also by sharing blog posts you can increase the reach of the blog article and create engagement and awareness. When sharing a blog article don’t forget to post a personal comment beforehand.
6. Start a group
Create a collaboration-based group managed by your organisation. This could be an important step to facilitate discussion relevant to your industry or business. When you create a LinkedIn group, you make a forum for customers to connect.
7. Interact with groups
Already you may be a member of many groups on LinkedIn, but to make us of that membership for your benefit you need to take part in discussions. Remember each time you participate in a discussion, your photo and the name that gets highlighted.
8. Request for recommendations
You can frequently request your clients for recommendation by way of testimonials. Each time you seal a business deal successfully, you can ask the other party for a recommendation, on LinkedIn. These reviews will be listed, as part of your organisation’s information for good. In effect, recommendations can be a great tool to enhance the brand image.
9. Start to advertise
When you advertise on LinkedIn, you can target based on industry, job designation of the people they want to see in their display ads. Also, by advertising on LinkedIn you can do key account targeted marketing. This is done by targeting your ads for people who work in specified organisations.
10. Post job openings
Many individuals visit LinkedIn daily to search for new opportunities to enhance their careers. When you post a vacancy ad with LinkedIn jobs, LinkedIn matches the job with people with the required skills and experience. This helps you to find the correct individual to fit into your specific requirement.
11. Create a company buzz
If your company is an established brand in the market place, by using Company Buzz feature, you can monitor what is said, about your company on LinkedIn. Having this marketing intelligence data will help you to respond swiftly. Also, it is a way to measure the performance of your brand on LinkedIn.
12. Flaunt your accomplishments
By displaying and talking about your achievements in the course of business, you can build trust with potential clients. During the normal course of business, achievements vary depending on the industry. However, in the eyes of your connections achievements gives our company image an edge over others who have nothing to show-off.
Presently, you should be on LinkedIn if you are trying to grow and promote your business. Having said that, its benefits vary depending on the size of the organisation. For example, by posting vacancies on LinkedIn by a highly accepted brand or conglomerate in the market can help attract specific talent to such organisations. Meanwhile, if your brand is a leading advocate in a certain sector for example like real estate, you can make use of LinkedIn to attracting potential customers to your product. Also, such firms can act as a sector specialist or an evangelist.
Conclusion
New-gen business organisations will require a strong online presence to be in line with a competitive marketplace. The targeted connections that you make on LinkedIn are more effective than those on other social media networks. LinkedIn is a mighty platform to help kick-start that presence. Here’s to your success!
Now you got an idea on how to use LinkedIn to promote your business. We at Tectera, the fastest growing Digital Marketing Company Sri Lanka wish you a very all the best.
Editorial Staff at Tectera are experts on web design, SEO, social media and other digital marketing channels.