LinkedIn has emerged as the world’s largest professional networking site. This American business is not just a social media platform that connects job seekers with employers but has transformed into a powerful marketing tool for small businesses.

LinkedIn marketing strategies enable small businesses to build the brand value of their company by creating new connections that matter the most to their business. It provides real-time business and professional relationships on social media.

But this is not all, LinkedIn can help you take your small-size or mid-sized business to the next level.

Keep reading, this article will cover:

- What is LinkedIn Marketing?
- Why LinkedIn Marketing is important for small businesses?
- How to use LinkedIn to Market your Small Businesses?

These are LinkedIn’s Frequently asked questions FAQs.

Let’s Dive-in…

What is LinkedIn Marketing?

Marketing on LinkedIn helps small business owner to engage with a group of professionals to drive actions that matters most for their business. It attracts followers, generates b2b leads, drives website traffic, and builds brand awareness by posting informative content on a free LinkedIn page.

“The process of utilizing LinkedIn to promote a business to get greater attention of the followers to their LinkedIn business profile is termed as LinkedIn marketing”

LinkedIn also provides additional functionalities such as –

1. LinkedIn Boosting

Boosting helps you to boost your high-impact content to a wide range of audiences.

Now, you might want to know – How to boost a post on LinkedIn?

Well, It’s “Just a small number of clicks and a credit card away”. Boosting on LinkedIn turns your content into paid campaigns to get more traffic and see faster results.

To boost your Rockstar post,

Simply click on the boost button
Next, select your campaign goals (engagement, views, awareness)
Select target audience
Set your budget and schedule
Add payment method

It’s done! You can track the performance of your boosted post.

2. LinkedIn Ads

Advertising on LinkedIn can be highly effective for B2B campaigns or for reaching the target audience on social networks. You need to use some part of your marketing budget for advertising on LinkedIn. LinkedIn ads are paid ads shared on LinkedIn. It may be quite expensive, but these ads help you reach the target audience and leaders of the industry, higher conversions, promote your services and products, track website visits, increase traffic, and connect your social media accounts.

3. LinkedIn Ads Manager

Allows you to create, launch and track the performance of an ad campaign.

The LinkedIn ads are categorized into 4 types

- Sponsored content
  
  Ads that promote content are called Sponsored content.
- Sponsored messaging
  
  Ads that allows sending personalized messages directly to the inboxes of LinkedIn member is called Sponsored Messaging
- Text ads
  
  These ads create texts that compel your target audience to visit your website and make conversions.
- Dynamic ads
  
  These types of ads pull information from LinkedIn profiles to use in ads. Dynamic ads incorporate personalization to connect with your target audience.
- Showcase Pages
  
  A LinkedIn showcase page works similarly to your community page. Showcase pages are created to highlight a particular area of your business. LinkedIn users can follow your showcase pages as per their interests on the topic. For example, Google shows three showcase pages inside their main community page Google Adwords, a career in Google, and think with Google.

For example, Google shows three showcase pages inside their main community page Google Adwords, a career in Google, and think with Google.

People only interested in “careers in Google” will receive updates related to the same topic.

Showcase pages help to segment the audience by-product which helps to increase brand awareness.

Why LinkedIn Marketing is important for small businesses?

You might have heard that LinkedIn is important for small businesses, but is it? If so, why LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is a platform with 800 million users today. Two new professionals join LinkedIn every second. The report says, companies include the use of any proprietary public-facing tools on LinkedIn for marketing purposes which includes organic and paid functions.

Here are 7 reasons to utilize LinkedIn marketing strategies for small businesses:

1. It provides a Powerful job board

A Jobseeker can research a company, business, or industry through LinkedIn before applying for jobs or accepting a job offer. LinkedIn allows people to search for jobs by keywords like company name, career interest, or location.

A human resource manager of a company who has a connection with a co-worker can easily find out when he is open for a job switch through LinkedIn.

2. It helps you to build your brand value

You need to build your company brand online. You must stand out in your business industry. Think of all the possible ways to make yourself marketable.

LinkedIn helps you to upload a profile and update a powerful summary that includes important company information. Brand awareness is a key factor in building a reputation, attracting leads to your page, and growing your small-sized business.

3. It helps you to rank higher on Google

Ranking a small business on Google’s first page is a tricky job, but a LinkedIn profile can help you rank on Google. That is why it is important to have a LinkedIn profile to stand out in the crowd. Your Linked Business Profile is social proof that must be tailored smartly.

4. It helps to maintain your contacts

Physically you might have met many interesting people and business leaders in life. But, can you remember all of them? Do you have their contact details?

Let’s say for instance, can you remember that intelligent young business owner you met at a business conference, who was interested in your business? The answer is NO. There is a possibility that you might have stuffed his business card somewhere in your desk drawer and his email-id somewhere in your old address book.

In cases like these, LinkedIn comes to your rescue. You can simply add these people to your LinkedIn network. Reconnect with them in the future when the time is right.

“A true business of every company is to make and keep the customers”

5. Keep audiences updated about your business

Every company needs to post updates, and information, and share company news and insight on LinkedIn. Audiences find these updates from their connections, and groups on their LinkedIn timeline every time they log in.

To gain trust and build brand value small businesses need to connect with their new and old customers to update them with the latest news about their businesses.

LinkedIn allows you to connect with different people, but you can’t just follow anyone you want. You must know someone professionally before they accept and connect you.

That is why … LinkedIn!

How to Market on LinkedIn for Small Businesses?

You can connect your brand with over 800 million professionals across the globe.

Below are 10 of the finest ways to help you generate leads, and establish your brand and strategic partnerships on LinkedIn.

- Optimize your LinkedIn Business profile
- Create an effective LinkedIn page
- Cross-Promote your LinkedIn Business Profile
- Identify your Audience and Objectives
- Optimize Page Search
- Publish Engaging Content Consistently
- Grow your follower base
- Ask your employees to connect with your company’s page
- Take advantage of LinkedIn groups
- Get advanced in LinkedIn analytics

1. Optimize your LinkedIn Business profile

The first impression is the last. Your profile can decide your future. So, don’t miss this opportunity to impress the audience visiting your business profile.

2. Create an effective LinkedIn page

A LinkedIn page is just like a profile for a company. You can share important information about your business or company like who you are. What do you do? Who do you do it for? And why customers should choose you? But, don’t just go on telling them about what you do – tell them how you serve your customers.

Be sure to add your phone number, company size, website, type of business, and industry. Add your company logo and a username to your LinkedIn page which will help people recognize your brand.

3. Cross-Promote your LinkedIn Business Profile

Once you set up your LinkedIn profile start cross-promotion on different social media networks. Use your LinkedIn icon on your website and email signature. Share LinkedIn your information in the profile section of different social media accounts like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

4. Identify your Audience and Objectives

Targeting is the key, whether you are generating new leads or raising awareness. Firstly, understand what you want to achieve. Once you are clear about your vision, it’s easier to define your goals. If your company sells a marketing tool for social media, your goal may be to reach people with job titles like “social media manager”.

5. Optimize Page Search

A well-organized company page can help you get more visibility among audiences searching for your company.

Use keywords: Insert keywords and phrases in your article that a potential customer might use to search for your services.

Link your page: Link your company website to your LinkedIn page. It is a win-win formula to drag traffic to your website.

6. Publish Engaging Content Consistently

Publishing the finest content regularly on your company page has a good return on the investment of your time and efforts. Watch out for your competitor’s page and find out what kind of content they publish. Find out what type of posts get the most engagement. Is it video content or just an article? Studying a lot about your audience can help you drive engagement on your website. Tag your brand partners to increase visibility and gain more leads.

7. Grow your follower base

Your updates directly appear in your follower’s feeds on LinkedIn. If your content is relevant and informative there is a high chance to drive more followers. Use a “Follow” button on your company page.

You can promote your page in newsletters, emails, and blog posts.

8. Ask your employees to connect with your company’s page

Employees have a larger network than the company. Leverage this resource and expand your reach by asking your workers to connect to your company’s page. When your employees comment on your content that post is shown to all their connections. This is one of the best ways to reach far wider than usual.

9. Take advantage of LinkedIn groups

LinkedIn has millions of groups on the platform. You can engage in relevant conversations with other members and bring them to your page. Aim to build authentic connections.

10. Get advanced in LinkedIn analytics

Discover which content is evergreen, which means which is the most compelling content for your audience. There are different options like LinkedIn page analytics and LinkedIn campaign manager that can help you find out the performance metrics of a campaign.

#TIP: Cater to your follower’s craving for visual content by experimenting with various rich media contents like images, videos, etc.

Conclusion

There you have it! Now you can grow your small business tremendously using the above-mentioned tips. I hope you enjoyed reading this article.

For any queries or help, you can reach out to us.