When it comes to using social networks to market their company, many business owners have already heard about the two biggest: Facebook and YouTube. Many are already using those networks to market their brand and promote their business, yet many of these same business owners don’t have a LinkedIn profile yet. Why? It’s certainly not because LinkedIn is new to the scene. In fact out of the three, LinkedIn is the oldest of the social networking sites. YouTube was established in 2005, Facebook was launched in 2004 and LinkedIn was launched in 2003.
It’s also not because LinkedIn lacks any of the benefits the other two major social networking sites offer. LinkedIn actually holds more benefits over both for the small business owner. It allows much more interaction between a business and their customers than just posting a video; and it doesn’t include distracting games like Facebook does. The biggest reason why business owners don’t use LinkedIn is simply because they are unaware of the benefits, as well as how to use it. Add to that the myths surrounding LinkedIn, and it’s quite easy to see why LinkedIn is the least popular of the three.
The main benefit of using LinkedIn is that it’s going to translate into more profits for your company. The website can also offer your business more than an increase in its bottom line.
Here is a short rundown of some of the benefits of using LinkedIn:
Grow your network and target your network
Facebook and YouTube can help you grow your network just as well as LinkedIn can, but there’s a major difference. The former two networks can consist of just about anybody – from vendors you do business with every day, to people who simply “Subscribe” and “Like” anyone they happen to come across. You could end up with a great deal of people following you, that aren’t actually even following you, nor are they regularly checking out your channel. Maybe they’ve hid your news feed, or they simply don’t watch the videos you create because they don’t care. Other than building their own follower list and getting their name out to their subscribers, they’re not really interested in you.
However, every single member of LinkedIn is there for one reason and one reason only: to grow and market themselves or their business. Small businesses are using it to keep in touch with vendors and clients, all the while gaining new vendors and clients. Individuals are there to build a resume, to find work, or to create networks and build contacts that they can use later down the road. LinkedIn gives you all the social media benefits of building and growing your network, but it lets you target that network and create your own network out of other professionally-minded individuals and businesses.
Keeping in touch with your customers
Historically, focus groups used to be one of the main ways companies kept in touch with their customers and found out what they were saying about their products. Today focus groups are almost a thing of the past- primarily for one reason: social networking allows companies to keep in direct contact with their customers in a way like never before. While keeping in touch with your customers is one of the benefits that can be found by using Facebook and YouTube – you can also find it using LinkedIn.
Hiring new employees
Remember that many people who use LinkedIn are not small business owners, but are looking for a small business to work for – and yours could be just the one. LinkedIn allows you to perform an in-depth search on a person’s employment background, education history and industry experience. LinkedIn even goes one step further and will localize the search for you, so it’s just a matter of calling that person across town and setting up an interview. With LinkedIn, some companies might find that they can do away with advertising in the classifieds altogether.
Check out what your competitors are doing
Many business owners have already developed a LinkedIn profile for their business and more are added every day. The chance that your competitors are already on LinkedIn is good and this gives you another opportunity to find out what they’re doing, what campaigns they’re running, what they’re offering to customers and how you can continue to be better than them. Worried that they won’t want to be part of your LinkedIn network? Don’t worry about that – they’re going to want to keep up with what you’re doing too!
Keep up with industry trends
Unlike other social networking sites, this doesn’t mean keeping up to date on news and happenings within the industry. Rather, LinkedIn gives you a complete look at your industry on a whole. LinkedIn can tell you what the current trends are and where they’re headed. For instance, LinkedIn allows you to see what the average age of a person in your industry is, how large your industry is compared with others, and how it’s growing compared with other industries and businesses.
Increase your online reviews
Lots of business owners know how important online reviews are and LinkedIn is a great way to build the number of online reviews your business has. One of the unique features of LinkedIn is that you can recommend other people and give them referrals, and they can do the same for you. When people search for your industry or a product or service your company provides, they’ll be looking for these reviews and will easily be able to find them. And, because LinkedIn pages generally get very high page rankings in search engines, people will find those reviews whether they’re browsing within the platform or outside of it. Some business owners join LinkedIn thinking that it’s a simple matter of setting up a profile and waiting for the profits to roll in.
