LinkedIn - The overlooked network

As businesses across the globe gradually learn the true importance of social media tools, it has become crucial for any company to maintain a notable presence in the online world. With Facebook and Twitter, businesses can consistently coax more clientèle; assess the business needs of consumers; humanise a company image by forging an online community and form valuable partnerships with other businesses.

You may, therefore, think that this dynamic duo of social networks is enough to reach you whole target market. Surely dedicating your social media marketing efforts on the two giants is the best use of resources, right?

Well, not quite. The famous two have been amazingly effective for Business-to-Consumer (B2C) firms as they can quite easily strengthen the connection between customer and company. However Business-To-Business (B2B) firms are increasingly looking to Facebook and Twitter to create and strengthen their partner and client relationships, but they may be carelessly neglecting the most useful social network for this task …

Despite existing for almost a decade LinkedIn, the professional networking site, is often an afterthought for businesses who have fully committed to their social media marketing.

LinkedIn can and should be used for much more than displaying a CV or a company’s basic information. In fact, the social network works as a search engine in itself and will spread your company name across Google, Bing, Yahoo! and other popular search engines. It also allows you access to over 150 million professional users and to promote your unique business across a plethora of over 1.2 million specialist interest groups.

But what are the merits of using LinkedIn and how can your company use it to its full advantage?

Here are a few tips to help get your company name noticed in the world of LinkedIn:

List your website links as keyword phrases which describe your business services, such as ‘social media marketing’; this will give an immense boost to your company’s search engine presence.

Make use of LinkedIn’s Ad Campaigns. Remember, this is a professional site, so your adverts can be far more targeted than most other social networks. Setting up an advert on LinkedIn takes only a few minutes and your ad can be designed to target audiences by company size or service, industry, location etc. as well as a by host of personal demographic information. Join a group and show your company’s worth. By joining a a specialist community you can share your business interest and insight with an interested audience. Or you may want to start your own group and grow an audience who genuinely value your business opinion.

Share the wealth. Recommend and refer other users and companies to increase the chance that they will extend you the same favour.

Promote your other social networks. LinkedIn may be superior to Facebook and Twitter when it comes to businesses networking, but it never hurts to share links to your other networks and blogs.

If you want to know more about how to use LinkedIn and other social networks effectively, give us a call on 0207 226 0099 for some honest and down-to-earth advice on how to get started, or use our contact page to drop us a message.