Mehar Gulati, Founder, Scarlet Relations studied Fashion Public Relations, and communications at the London College of Fashion. After which she worked with the top agencies in London for Media Relations, Brand development & consultancy-( Branding, Social Media, packaging, Store designs, and much more), and Crisis Communications. After studying Fashion Public Relations and communications, her passion translated to the profession for Mehar at an early stage.
With over 740 million users in more than 200 countries across the globe, LinkedIn is one of the most widely used social media platforms and the world’s largest professional network. First introduced as a hiring tool, LinkedIn has gradually transformed into a multi-faceted personal branding platform that helps businesses to connect with industry experts, stay up-to-date with trends, find high-quality leads, and build the credibility of the brand. With the right LinkedIn marketing strategy, businesses of every size and type can grow visibility and build new opportunities. As the platform is ever-expanding, more businesses are utilizing its true potential for their growth.
Here are the top seven reasons why LinkedIn is an important tool for your local business growth.
Share Valuable Information
Creating and sharing valuable information about your business on LinkedIn in the form of articles, videos, testimonials, product releases, etc. can help you gain more traction on the platform. If you post relevant and compelling content regularly, users are likely to interact (like comment or share) with it and that would bring more traffic and exponentially increase your profile reach. Focus more on sharing visual content including images, videos, slides, or podcasts directly on the platform rather than just posting a link redirecting users to another site that hosts it. Besides, re-share content posted by other users that provide helpful insights to your audience along with adding your opinions, suggestions, or questions to spark conversations. Increased content exposure can also help to establish your business as an authority that could help in creating brand credibility.
Make Strong Brand Positioning
Brand positioning is what sets your product or service apart from competitors and establishes a unique brand identity in the mind of consumers. LinkedIn is not merely a social media platform but a community of sophisticated professionals that simultaneously provide value and seek innovations. Thus, LinkedIn is an amazing medium to gain recognition within your niche and reach potential audiences across the globe. The first step of online branding is to optimize your LinkedIn profile that adds a personal touch as well as instigates the emotional side of the brand. Then, maintain consistency in posting engagement-worthy content for more visibility that could help in brand awareness and promotion. Make sure to represent your brand ethos through quality connect in order to connect with like-minded audiences.
Reach Larger Audiences
Produce content that appeals to the type of audience you want to appeal. Also, make sure to respond to all the comments on your post to boost engagement with prospects and encourage dialogs. Join LinkedIn groups to actively communicate with industry experts in order to stay on top of industry trends. When you network with peers and share ideas in the group, more and more users will begin to visit your profile that could gradually turn into followers. For expanding reach beyond existing connections, you need to consider SEO best practices while developing content. Make sure to do some research on keywords and include them organically in your content to get the best LinkedIn search engine results.
Localize Audiences
Small businesses can localize their pages for a more diverse and targeted audience network. Rich targeting capabilities make it easy for small businesses to connect with the right people and potential customers on LinkedIn. One can combine their location filter with industry and company size filters for reaching small manufacturing firms in a particular geographical location. You can also filter groups, skills, job titles, or field of study to reach a particular community but make sure to not narrow your scope too much because you want a reasonable audience size for your business expansion. Besides, small businesses can post updates for a targeted group of audiences on their LinkedIn page so that followers only see what’s relevant for them.
Track Your Page Performance
LinkedIn analytics provide a treasure trove of data related to impressions, clicks, interactions, followers, and engagement on the content published on the company’s page, that you can use to improve your marketing strategy. LinkedIn demands more polished and professional content thus metrics can help to know what works best on the platform and maximize your reach. Moreover, you can also check fluctuations in your audience demographics based on their seniority, industry type, company size, function, and employment status and develop actionable goals to attract the right audiences and increase follower count.
Redirect Audiences
LinkedIn and other social media platforms have completely different audiences altogether. While Facebook and Instagram are more dedicated to lifestyle and entertainment purposes, LinkedIn is intended for hiring, sales & marketing, and engaging with professionals. But the best part about sharing content on LinkedIn is that the competition is a bit lesser whereas other sites are filled with content, most of which are irrelevant. Therefore, start sharing your company’s blog on LinkedIn to build a loyal horde of visitors or viewers and drive traffic to your website. Contribute to LinkedIn blogs to increase authority in your niche and gain even more traction on your business website. Share relevant industry news attaching the blog or article link published on your business website in LinkedIn groups to reflect your expertise. You can also add social media profiles of Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, or Instagram in the company’s profile to redirect connections on other platforms.
Lead Generation
LinkedIn is one of the best platforms for lead generation as one can find potential customers based on the demographics. According to a survey, out of all social media platforms, LinkedIn accounts for more than 59% of lead generations. However, generating leads on LinkedIn requires time, patience, and skills. Optimize your LinkedIn profile before sending out invitations otherwise, you could be marked as a spammer. Make sure to include a picture, your job title, accomplishments, experiences, etc. to ensure your legitimacy, and spend time to personalize your approach with every prospect to build a relationship before making the pitch. Join groups where you can find quality prospects and refrain from connecting with those who don’t add value to your business in any way.