Social media is evolving as one of the most effective marketing tools other than every platform has its distinct features that can help you create business growth strategies. These platforms help you connect better to your customers through their communication and advertisement features. This is the reason companies are relying heavily on social media marketing irrespective of their size, as these platforms are cost-efficient, time-efficient, and result-oriented.
But, with the rise in importance of social media marketing, there is a rise of new platforms every other day, which makes it difficult to choose the most suitable one for your business. You can make the best of these social media platforms only when you have the proper knowledge and skill to use them efficiently.
Some platforms are versatile in their reach because of their characteristics. LinkedIn is one such online social media platform that has been in use for more than 20 years. It helps brands to reach out to professionals and other businesses. As of 2023, this LinkedIn has 808.4 million global users, of which 66.8 million users are from the U.S. The data can prove how much efficiency the platform has.
So, to make the best use of LinkedIn as a one of the marketing tools and form business growth marketing strategies, this post will act as a guide, so read the post till the end.
If you’re not using LinkedIn for marketing, you’re missing out on enormous potential. This guide will help you learn more about LinkedIn marketing and its benefits for your brand. It will also give you tips on using the platform for growing your organization.
LinkedIn as a Marketing Tool:
LinkedIn is one of the largest online networks for job seekers and companies worldwide. Over 20 years, millions of professionals and brands. And since LinkedIn is a platform used to grow professional connections, you can use this feature to promote your business as you can build relationships, drive traffic to your website and more. Along with being one of the effective B2B marketing tools, it can be a valuable platform for various small businesses such as HVAC marketing, legal marketing, or plumbing marketing.
You can use LinkedIn for:
- publish professional content
- take part in industry talks
- share professional experiences and stories through videos, posts and articles.
- You can also share information and solutions to the problems related to your business.
Whom can You Target Through LinkedIn?
Professionals from various industries can use the platform to grow their connections.
- Potential employees
- Competitors
- Customers
- Industry leaders
What are the Benefits of LinkedIn as a Marketing Tool?
Unlike other popular social media tools such as YouTube and Instagram, which are mostly entertainment-oriented, LinkedIn is more business-oriented; therefore, the users are a better audience for marketing because they are already looking for work, products or services, which further makes it an efficient lead generating tool.
Here are some of the benefits of LinkedIn as one of the Marketing Tools:
Builds Authority and Grows Brand: You can show expertise in your field and provide people with valuable insights about your field. Sharing knowledge is one of the most effective tools to influence people and turn them into potential customers.
Target Relevant Audience: LinkedIn provides a platform for businesses to launch and promote products or services, which will further help them attract new customers. You can also create and share informative content related to your niche, attracting more people to your business.
Additionally, the sponsored updates offered by LinkedIn can improve your reach to the selective audience based on various factors such as:
- Age, sex, and location
- Company name and size
- Industry
- Job title
- Seniority
- Level of education
- LinkedIn groups
Enhance Website Traffic and Lead Generation: content not only help to attract more people to your LinkedIn page but enhance your website traffic. Because the more you share your content, the more people will become curious about your business. You can post links to your blogs, articles, videos, or any other content which can help people land directly on your website.
Expand Social Proximity: LinkedIn is a platform where people can recommend services, products or even each other’s profiles. Like word-of-mouth marketing, the referrals also help businesses gain new connections, which may further refer your business to their colleagues or others, which will further expand your social proximity.
Great Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Tool: the platform displays the interests of its users, which can help businesses understand and learn about the preferences and interests of their potential customers, which can further help to form business growth strategies and will help to connect better with your followers and customers.
How to Make the Best Use of LinkedIn as an Effective Marketing Tool?
LinkedIn is full of potential to grow your business with its versatile features. All you need is to form strategies to make the best use of LinkedIn one of the effective marketing tools. So here are a few tips you can incorporate into your strategies:
- LinkedIn Profile and Page are Different: A profile is more personal and lets you have direct one-on-one conversations. A more business-oriented page lets users follow your content in real-time without waiting for approval to interact with you. You can optimize both the services as your marketing strategy. This can help you maintain consistent brand identity across profiles.
- Customize Your LinkedIn Public Profile: You need a customized and attractive profile to stand out from the rest. It would help if you optimized your URL to make it look more professional. Also, keep a professional background picture related to your brand to give people an idea about your brand at first glance. Furthermore, you can use SEO to optimize your LinkedIn profile and page by using relevant keywords.
- Make More Connections: since the main feature of the tool is to provide a platform to connect professionals from different backgrounds, you can use the feature to make as many connections as you can in just a few clicks. But make sure you choose the relevant ones. You can send them monthly newsletters with valuable information about brands, such as upcoming discounts, new product launches, or other updates regarding your business. It will help you sustain your connections and convert them into your potential customers.
- Create and Share High-Quality Content: Like content plays an important role on other marketing platforms, it is of the same value on LinkedIn; therefore, create informative posts and share them with your connections. You can also use relevant links to add weightage to your content, which will help gain the trust of your followers.
- Stay Regular and Updated: irregularity is a big no for social media. You have to keep your audience in an engaging loop, so they do not forget your existence and look out for your alternative, which does not sound good for any business. So, keep posting regularly. You can make a calendar to prepare your post beforehand. Furthermore, you can post about any updates related to your business or overall niche to keep your audience updated. It may help your audience to rely on your profile for updates.
- Create and Join Groups: You can create a group and let people interested in your business or niche join. Also, join relevant groups, post your content with links related to your blog post and landing pages, and watch your website traffic rise.
Thus, LinkedIn as one of the effective marketing tools offers endless ways and possibilities to expand your connections and grow your business.
Author Bio:
Joe Martin is a long-time contributor in the tech industry as a leader at Adobe, CMO of CloudApp, and SVP at Scorpion. With his business and marketing degress from Utah and Stanford and his work in tech he brings a unique balance of strategy and execution to help businesses large and small grow.