How can LinkedIn help you with your marketing? | SocialExcerpts

How can LinkedIn help you with your marketing? Oct 02

The most frequently asked question that we face around in our office is “How can LinkedIn help with marketing?” This was among the frequently asked questions with our clients, our employees and evens the know-it-all marketing guys. The below pointer will help you make the best out LinkedIn.

1. Optimizing your LinkedIn profile: What happens in LinkedIn is, people are looking to buy product or a service, and they might just stumble upon your page. So, a proper, clear and precise description of what kind of product or service you provide might help you with a good number of leads. The new feature of skill endorsement is another reason why you should list your skills and expertise.
2. Brand your company page and keep it active: LinkedIn is realizing the importance of a company page as a community building tool and is redesigning it to make it more apparent and visual in nature. Having a services and product tab, and updating status is a must. Get some existing clients to recommend your products or services that will give your page that initial buzz to kick start. Not only this, this will have a significant impact on the purchase decision of your prospect. Company pages also serve as a medium for current employees to ask for support, if and when needed. Once you have a good number of followers, you can tempt your prospective clients by “special offers” in addition to giving the existing ones discounts on repurchase.
3. LinkedIn Groups and Answers are a great way of identifying prospects: This one actually works like the magic lamp. It is always better to target people who are already looking for a product or service, which you provide. This is more of paradigm form “push to pull”. There are already numerous discussions going on in LinkedIn groups and answers, you just have to find the right one.
4. Advanced People Search: Adding people who fall in your target category and interacting with them is very important. LinkedIn advanced search helps you do just that. Be careful and don’t appear too pushy. You don’t want a social media backlash. You can also use Inmails for guaranteed responses are also a good option. Upgrading to premium account can be an added advantage. It will help quicken the above process and will give you insight on prospects visiting your LinkedIn profile.
5. Advertising on LinkedIn: For B2B, the ability to target people by job function and industry gives a great ROI. The advertising is available at $2 per ad click. You will get a better result when you target the mid-bottom section of the organizational pyramid. These people may not be the decision makes but definitely strong influencers.
6. Convert your weak social ties into strong ties: Quite a lot of times, the prospect you identify on LinkedIn may not convert into your customer immediately. In such a scenario, create a LinkedIn group and get all of your prospective clients to join the group including your existing customers. When your prospects hear the experience or testimonials of your existing customers, they sure will convert into customers. By doing this you are also creating a community of services/products/ brand evangelists and loyalists.
7. Be patient and stay away from the myths about LinkedIn: LinkedIn is not only for HRs. Also, people do not come to LinkedIn only when they want to switch jobs. Stay away from such myths. A recent survey shows that people come to professional networking sites like LinkedIn because it helps them perform better in their present job assignments as opposed to just looking for a new job. So be patient and you will have your results the “In” way.

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