May 25, 2015

LinkedIn for Business: Do I Really Need It?

The very short answer is yes, you do. But truthfully the answer varies depending on what type of business you own, what you hope to accomplish on LinkedIn and the extent of your knowledge of the ins and outs of how to use LinkedIn for business. Opening a LinkedIn account with a fully developed profile, a comprehensive Company Page and inviting your colleagues to connect is a great start but will get you nowhere fast. Understanding your goals, defining what you hope to accomplish on LinkedIn and how it can be done is essential to successfully implementing a LinkedIn for business strategy.

Service Oriented Businesses – Any type of business that provides a service to its clients including but not limited to healthcare professionals, hair and beauty professionals, accountants, lawyers, architects, and building professionals should be using LinkedIn for Lead Gen!!!

Product Oriented Businesses – Both eCommerce Businesses and traditional retail businesses – your potential customers are on LinkedIn. With more than 350 million LinkedIn users and 2 more users joining per second, you are sure to find customers here.

B2B Businesses – LinkedIn is made for developing relationships between manufacturer and wholesalers and between wholesalers and retailers and other B@B relationships.

So you have a fully developed profile with links, projects, endorsements and recommendations, a comprehensive Company Page and you’ve invited the business contacts you’ve found on LinkedIn to connect. Now what? Take LinkedIn to the next level.

Import a CSV file of all of your e-mail connections and send them invitations to connect.
Ask your connections to introduce you to second connections whom you think will be beneficial to your business.
Connect with LinkedIn users who are suggested to you as “people you may know” by LinkedIn
Send a message to anyone who views your profile thanking them for looking at your profile, telling them a bit about yourself and suggesting you connect by sending them your e-mail.
Get involved in LinkedIn groups. Start discussions, comment on discussions and your valuable opinions. You can join up to 52 groups on LinkedIn so join your industry groups but also think outside the box and try to enter the minds of your prospects and figure out which of the over 2 million groups on LinkedIn they have joined.

At this point business professionals discover that one of two things has happened.

You’ve taken LinkedIn to this next level and love it! Your making connections and growing your network but don’t know how to channel it into real leads and customers.
You see the potential in LinkedIn but you’ve discovered that you are so busy running your business that you just don’t have enough time to really develop your LinkedIn strategy.

Don’t stop here! LinkedIn is a gold mine of contacts waiting for you to tap into. I have seen real businesses just like yours use LinkedIn to find business leads, customers and grow their business with powerful results. At eCI we have developed concrete LinkedIn for Business strategies for business growth. I’d love to help you figure out how LinkedIn can make a difference to your business. Contact us today.

How are you using LinkedIn for your business ?

Shoshi Shapiro

Shoshi Shapiro is the gal you want to know if you are looking to broaden your LinkedIn social media tactics! A born, bred and educated New Yorker with a Master’s Degree in Communications, she is dedicated to using the latest and greatest digital marketing techniques to bring the best traffic and conversion rates to her clients through Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest and other social media avenues. Her expertise in these areas brings results that only she can achieve. These only compliment her well rounded skill base in Social Media marketing and Adwords advertising. Shoshi uses all of the above to create highly successful and cost effective Lead Generation campaigns for B2B projects. Around here, Shoshi is known as the “Voice of Reason”. She humbly offers her words of wisdom, which in hindsight, always prove to be insightful and right on the money. By applying her wisdom, creativity and dedication to marketing projects, she implements innovative strategies that are uniquely advantageous to our clients. When she pulls herself away from social media strategy, blog management and SEO dabbling, you can find her enjoying her kids, cooking, baking and walking in the great outdoors. In fact, not only does she enjoy baking, we at the office often enjoy it as well! (If you are ever in position to try one one of her cakes, request the Double Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cake. If you have a marketing challenge, or specifically a challenge using LinkedIn for Lead Generation, try getting Shoshi on the case. If after hearing her advice, you don’t agree that she is the Voice of Reason, we’ll eat her cake!