Half a billion potential customers, informal brand ambassadors, influencers, vendors, and suppliers are waiting for you on LinkedIn. Precisely target your marketing campaign, engage your customer base, and build better brand awareness—all without paying a dime in member fees. This platform is a marketing powerhouse for attracting customers from down the street and around the world. So why haven’t you gotten started with LinkedIn for your business yet?
In digital marketing terms, it’s simultaneously the best of times and the worst of times. Social media platforms like LinkedIn offer instant access to countless customers—far more than you could ever reach with a newspaper ad or TV commercial. But, the downside is that most companies are little fish in a big pond. It can be a little intimidating to think that you’re competing with half a billion LinkedIn pages. According to an article in Fortune magazine, those 500 million LinkedIn users are from about 200 countries. Over nine million companies have pages on LinkedIn. With so many businesses clamoring for connections online, it takes clever digital strategizing to make your company stand out. Savvy entrepreneurs recognize this, and prefer to outsource their social media management to seasoned digital strategists who stay on top of the latest trends. The following list includes some of the primary defining characteristics of companies who attract followers on LinkedIn:
- Positive, consistent brand messaging
- Active engagement with followers
- Genuine solicitation of customer feedback
- Responsive to customer complaints
- Regular updates with useful, unique content
LinkedIn is an equal opportunity networker.
So what exactly can LinkedIn do for your business? For starters, it’s an equal opportunity networking device—everyone’s on it. LinkedIn boasts millions of students, recent graduates, corporate executives, venture capitalists, department store purchasers, and branch managers. From stay-at-home parents to celebrity stylists, you can find exactly the audience you’re looking for on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is set up for exponential growth in business connections. As you build your own network, you can harness your contacts’ own connections. This spreads awareness of your brand and lets you deliver your pitch to more people. Plus, when it’s time to expand your company, you can use your LinkedIn networking capabilities to find the perfect job candidates.
LinkedIn is an efficient alternative to Chamber mixers.
The days of getting gussied up for Chamber of Commerce mixers are over. Those inefficient, time-wasting meet and greets are no match for the opportunities that await you on LinkedIn. Your company page can connect you with vendors and suppliers from near and far. In fact, LinkedIn has effectively replaced cold calls, and even cold emails. According to LinkedIn, 75% of B2B buyers rely on social media when making purchasing decisions, and 50% of B2B buyers specifically use LinkedIn. The majority of those purchasers have expressed a preference for purchasing from companies recommended by their LinkedIn networks.
LinkedIn is the perfect vehicle for increasing traffic.
When you use LinkedIn to connect to other brick-and-mortar businesses in your area, you open the door to referral traffic. For example, let’s say you’re a chiropractor and you’ve got a patient who could use a deep tissue massage. Refer your patient to a massage therapist in your network, and in turn, you could see your own referral traffic on your daily appointment list. In addition to getting more feet through your door, LinkedIn can enhance your virtual traffic. Connect your business’ main website to your company page on LinkedIn, and then sit back and watch your site analytics go through the roof.
It’s easy and free to get started.
Creating a bare bones company page takes just a few minutes. But to truly reap the rewards of social media marketing, you’ll need to put in far more effort than that. A fully fleshed-out company page should accomplish the following:
- Establish your industry expertise
- Build brand awareness and credibility
- Inform customers of your services or products
- Attract highly qualified job candidates
- Boost your Google search rankings
To get started, you’ll need to upload your company information, logo, and banner. Then, you’ll have a maximum of 2,000 characters to explain who you are, what you do, and why customers should choose your company. It isn’t easy to fit all that data into an aesthetically pleasing package in just 2,000 characters, which is why plenty of businesses hire social media strategists for this purpose. A digital marketing specialist can also make your company page more attractive and creative by adding meaningful updates that are in line with your overall brand personality. Your LinkedIn company page should offer regular news updates, industry tips and trends, thought leadership pieces, and informative posts that your customers will actually read.
Outsourcing your social media marketing has never been easier. The digital strategists at Pennington Creative offer customizable marketing bundles, which can include engaging social media campaigns, blogs, email marketing, and more. Get in touch today and let’s chat about your growth objectives.
