Are you taking full advantage of social media? If not, you could be holding your business back without even knowing it. While Facebook and Twitter are discussed time after time, you don’t want to overlook a third option: LinkedIn.
Did you know that there are more than one million small business owners on LinkedIn? Chances are that your main competitors are already using this social networking giant to find new customers, communicate with prospects, and network with others.
With all this in mind, there is one question you need to answer: what are you waiting on?
There are many ways to benefit from LinkedIn, with these five among the most important:
1. Receive testimonials and recommendations from those in your network. With LinkedIn, it is simple for people to let the world know how good you are at your job. Does it get any better than that?
Tip: be sure to return the favor, if applicable.
2. Hunt down the best talent. Are you in the process of searching for new employees? If so, you may want to use LinkedIn as opposed to more traditional sources such as newspaper classified ads.
With LinkedIn, you can do more than post a job. You can also do your own search, seeking talent that matches all your requirements.
3. Promote an upcoming event. Is there anything worse than planning an event, just to have nobody show up? This can waste a lot of time and money.
By using LinkedIn, you can promote your event well in advance. If nothing else, this will get the word out to people in your network. And remember, others can share the event information as well.
4. Increase traffic to your main website. While it can be beneficial to increase traffic to your LinkedIn profile page, what you really want to do is push more people to your actual website.
Not only will you get “click through traffic” from your LinkedIn page, but having a “social presence” will help improve your organic rankings.
5. Find help. Are you in need of a new CPA? How about a business attorney? What about a supplier for a new product? From time to time you may find yourself seeking the help of another business or professional. By searching LinkedIn, you can find those who are highly recommended.
LinkedIn for Business is Growing
Simply put, if you are not using LinkedIn right now you are being passed up by the competition. As you can see above, there are many benefits of joining forces with this business social networking giant. The sooner you get involved the sooner you can reap the rewards.
