You’ve mastered your social media presence on Twitter and Facebook and now you may be wondering if that’s enough. Would your business benefit from including LinkedIn into your social media marketing plan? The answer is yes—the more social media sites your business is featured on, the stronger your reach will be.
Ready to establish your presence on LinkedIn? Check out the effective tips below:
Step 1
Set up your LinkedIn profile. As a business owner, you should always be thinking about ways you can incorporate search engine optimization into your headlines, content, and links. Your LinkedIn profile is no exception. When describing your experience, summary, and specialties, use keyword-rich content. If you’re going to include your website or blog on your profile (and you should) you can use keywords to describe it and include a hyperlink.
Step 2
Add as many people to your network as possible. It’s best to stick to people you know, however, so try to connect with as many past and current customers, as well as personal friends, family, and acquaintances as possible. To make connecting easier, you’ll be able to upload your address book and view the people in it who are already on LinkedIn. You will also have the option of inviting those not on LinkedIn currently to join. Once you’ve built up a solid number of connections, start asking your past and current customers to give you recommendations. Any recommendations you get will appear in your profile for everyone to see. Be sure to connect with any of your employees, too.
Step 3
Create a group for your business. To get started, find the ‘Create a Group’ link and upload your company’s logo or make it more personal by uploading a company photo. Next, fill out the summary and description and add a hyperlink to your website and/or blog. To ensure people can find you when they search, click the “Display this group in the Group’s Directory Box.” The benefit of creating a group is that you will be able to create discussions, post jobs, let people know about important company or industry news, and more.
Step 4
Just like any other social media site, you need to engage frequently or your profile won’t provide any benefits. Post content regularly by linking to your blog posts or other industry-related content you find on the web. You can post status updates regularly too, just like on Facebook. Be sure to use LinkedIn’s ‘question and answer’ tool that allows you to engage with your connections in a fun and interactive way.
Step 5
Finally, don’t forget about the benefits of cross-promoting your social media accounts. Send out a ‘tweet’ asking your followers to be a connection on LinkedIn and post on Facebook asking them to do the same. If you have an email newsletter, put links to all of your social media sites in it. Remember, the more work you put into your social media accounts, the more beneficial they will be for you. Whether you have time to handle social media yourself, need to delegate to a capable employee, or want to hire a professional, a strong social media presence will help you build your brand, which can pay off in many ways.
Photo (Source)