Want to grow your small business? LinkedIn may be the lead generation tool your growth strategy is missing.
Whether you’re a startup or a global enterprise, LinkedIn can be an incredibly valuable tool for generating quality leads and increasing your brand awareness.
A massive networking platform with over 800 million members worldwide, LinkedIn offers an unparalleled social marketing opportunity. When done right, a smart LinkedIn marketing strategy allows businesses to leverage everything from professional connections and business groups to high-quality content and engagement for compelling brand outreach initiatives, increasing awareness, revenue, and even long-term growth in the process.
But despite its promise as a tool for brand building, business networking, and customer nurturing, LinkedIn remains a vastly underutilized marketing platform among small business leaders. While more than 50 million businesses are currently listed on the site, we’ve seen many fall short of their LinkedIn marketing potential, even with so many options available.
With that in mind, here are some tips to maximize your visibility on LinkedIn and unlock opportunities for growth and insight on the world’s largest professional network.
1. Target connections in your unique niche
For small and medium-sized businesses, LinkedIn marketing efforts should always begin by focusing on LinkedIn users most likely to purchase from your company. LinkedIn advertising offers a unique opportunity to target brands by size, industry, and even specific job roles, allowing you to tailor your advertising campaigns to quickly reach motivated companies and buyers.
Even if you’re completely new to LinkedIn for business or don’t have a presence on the site to speak of, this hypertargeting capability can help accelerate branding efforts (at least temporarily) while quickly getting your message, brand, and products in front of decision-makers across the platform. Taking advantage of this opportunity early on can help establish a LinkedIn presence, build brand awareness, and bolster business growth as your organic marketing efforts kick-start.
2. Be active on LinkedIn. Work on your social media marketing strategy.
Like branding on other social media platforms, building awareness for your brand or business name on LinkedIn requires a consistent, proactive approach. Providing fresh content, updating your feed, and regularly engaging with followers remains one of the best ways to keep your brand afloat and in front of customers, so it’s critical to incorporate LinkedIn into your social media marketing program and contribute to the site’s ongoing content changes when appropriate.
Of course, any effort to stay on LinkedIn users’ radar shouldn’t be done indiscriminately or without a customized plan tailored to your target audience. After all, LinkedIn is a professional networking site, and using content upgrades and lead generation and engagement strategies to reach customers should always be done with that context in mind.
But once you have an idea of what LinkedIn members are searching for and engaging with on the platform, you can better shape your time and focus to meet that need and cultivate connections that will lead to more in the future.
3. Publish content that adds value
Publishing value-added content is an integral part of an impactful LinkedIn content marketing strategy. Not only does it provide specifically targeted members with useful information that addresses real pain points, but it also provides a jolt to your industry’s authority by providing users with engaging content that positions you and your business as thought leaders in your space. With each new high-quality LinkedIn post, you offer professionals a free yet valuable resource that strengthens trust and brand recall when it comes time to make a purchase.
LinkedIn’s blogging feature offers an excellent opportunity to reach decision-makers and make a lasting impression on future clients. Posting new procedures from your business page or even from a senior leader’s LinkedIn profile can help improve brand visibility in ways not possible through other means, allowing relevant content to be featured directly in LinkedIn news feeds and attract immediate attention.
And if a post starts to inspire engagement and gain some traction, LinkedIn is likely to rank it and highlight it even further. Once it goes viral, that basic rule of thumb for pro-how-to tips or pro-to-pro tips has the potential to impact thousands or more readers and potential clients across the platform.
4. Your LinkedIn page is important. Make it a priority.
Where do potential customers, followers, and job seekers go when they want to learn more about your business? If they’re on LinkedIn, chances are those members will visit your brand’s LinkedIn page. And if that company page is generally out of shape or your company description is riddled with inconsistencies, it not only creates a negative impression on those users but also seriously impacts your impact and credibility, damaging lead generation and growth in the process. That makes curating your company’s LinkedIn homepage absolutely essential.
Regularly updating your LinkedIn Company Page and aligning it with your company’s colors, content (mission statement, values, etc.), and logos ensures a consistent brand message and cohesion, which strengthens the trust that comes with it. Small business owners who regularly update their Company Page also show that their brand is active and engaged on the platform. Doing so helps avoid the appearance of profile inactivity, which in itself can raise questions about brand legitimacy and scare away potential leads and quality hires.
Good LinkedIn page hygiene should be firmly integrated into any digital marketing effort. Those who don’t keep their LinkedIn pages polished or use LinkedIn to showcase their best qualities are missing out on a relatively easy branding opportunity.
5. Join LinkedIn groups and create your own
Connecting your business to one or two LinkedIn groups offers multiple opportunities to interact and build stronger connections with your target audience. Done smart, joining LinkedIn groups relevant to your prospects creates a valuable conduit for listening to customer conversations, offering helpful tips and advice, and cultivating relationships that lead to future sales opportunities and clients.
As part of a LinkedIn Group, your company can gain crucial insights into customer trends and industry messaging—essential for fine-tuning your own outreach approach before it’s too late. And even if you’re not connected to other group members, you can still message those users while avoiding LinkedIn email costs, allowing you to engage with your target audience and build relationships while maximizing your LinkedIn budget.
Going a step further, you can also create your own LinkedIn Group, an excellent marketing tool for identifying and gathering high-quality leads in one easy-to-manage location. Once established through your Business Page, you can search other groups with members who fit your ideal client profile and invite them to that group. You can also leverage your own Page followers and other LinkedIn connections to recruit new members.
As your group grows, you have more opportunities to target and generate carefully selected, well-sourced leads, and to share content and build awareness among your best LinkedIn prospects.
