Using LinkedIn for B2B Marketing

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Online marketing takes different forms such as social media marketing. There are many social media platforms that are very popular for this undertaking. LinkedIn is one of them and you might be surprised that the platform is already used by your competitors for their digital marketing campaigns. If you are not yet aware of it, LinkedIn has the social media marketing value that your competitors might already be leveraging their online marketing campaigns from. About 70% of the sales executives are taking the stance of positioning their market within the social media sphere and use LinkedIn in order to build social and personal linkages for their business. LinkedIn as a social sharing tool

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You can use LinkedIn for business marketing and as a social marketing tool in establishing relationship with your customers. Because professionals are using the platform, the consumers are getting savvier in looking for professional businesses and digital products and services. You competitors just might be aggressively undertaking social selling and you are already left behind in your marketing strategies. Here’s how you can use LinkedIn as a social sharing tool and boost your business reputation online.

• You can easily make your business known to the social media community by optimizing your LinkedIn business profile and follow up leads. About 70.6% of the LinkedIn users are checking out the other users’ profile and you can use the site’s feature on Who Has Viewed Your Profile to find target leads as LinkedIn users that might be interested about your business.
• Use the platform to share your business with others and build your authority within a particular niche. By using the LinkedIn Groups feature, participate in the discussion and commentaries by sharing your expertise to grow your business reputation.
• Your competitors are likely using the LinkedIn Premium in order to power up their ability to source out contact information and search for potential leads. You might as well pursue this feature instead using the free LinkedIn option with limited social marketing advantages.
• Grow your social media network in LinkedIn by connecting to other people whom you may know by using the site’s People You May Know feature. This will yield better results in growing your social media community network and business contacts.
• Build your business reputation to target potential leads for your business. The platform has about 8,000 new members every day and there will be at least a fraction of this figure that will likely be potential leads to present your business. In order to broaden your audience reach it is necessary to build you social presence and reputation.
• Engage into a conversation with your customers using LinkedIn. Successful sales representatives spend at least 75% of their time entertaining comments, feedbacks and discussions online. This helps build the customer engagement to your business as well as an opportunity to get to know your customers’ profile and understand their needs.
• Target the LinkedIn influencers within your niche group. It is easier to build social relationships through the influencers in your group. In fact, some marketers reported that about 45% of their LinkedIn connections are within the social groups of the influencers within their LinkedIn group. Your business can easily branch out your social connection and audience reach by leveraging on influencer relationships.

Optimize your professional profile in Linkedin If you want others to take notice of your LinkedIn profile, you need to beef it up a bit. This means that you need to provide more information that will help enhance the interest of your potential leads to your business and provide the first step of connecting your business to them. Here’s how:

• Constant profile updates

Your potential leads will be interested in following your LinkedIn profile once they find fresh and new information with constant updates. Profile updates involve providing brief statements that will maintain your connections to your customers and potential leads. Update your followers regarding the latest news about your business such as newly released products or give them statements to keep them at the edge of their seats about an upcoming product release from your business. This will keep your profile active while keeping your connections to your audience consistent for better social visibility.

• Connect your LinkedIn profile to your other social media accounts

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If you have a Twitter account you can easily integrate your LinkedIn profile to it in order to tweet the latest news and statements about your business. You can also do so in your other social media accounts that allow LinkedIn integration. This will help keep your social presence and social signals regular and consistent especially in connecting to your social media networks. It is easier to pass your business updates across the social media channels this way.

• Creatively promote LinkedIn profile to prospect customers

Publish Power Point Presentation in your profile in order to engage your audience better. You can also display images that will represent your staff or the people behind your business operation as well as to highlight the behind the scene operations within your company. Your potential customers will likely be engaged with higher interest in learning more about your business and the people behind its success. If you are holding an event you can post information and updates on your LinkedIn profile too. This will give your audience better engagement on what to look forward to from your business activities. Syndicate your blog posts to your LinkedIn profile where a link to your post will be displayed on your LinkedIn web page.

• Rearrange your profile sections according to significance to your business

You can arrange certain sections in your profile which is rarely done by LinkedIn users. If there are important events such as receiving important honors and awards for your business that can give a strong impression to your audience you should place the Honors and Awards section first to appear in your profile. This can attract more leads to your business as more people will get more curious about your business, products and services.