- Welcome to "The Journey."
This is the ultimate guide to LinkedIn for your business.
Now, when you hear about LinkedIn, what do you think of?
Probably job searches,
resumes, and networking, right?
Well, this platform might hold a lot more potential
than you think.
And if you aren't using LinkedIn for business
you're missing opportunities to attract potential customers
and clients, generate leads and drive sales.
- With over 660 million users in more than 200 countries
and territories across the globe,
LinkedIn is the perfect place to promote your business
while making genuine connections.
- In this video, we're gonna teach you how to use LinkedIn
for your small business and explain why entrepreneurs
need to be on LinkedIn to grow their authority,
visibility and ultimately their business.
So let's talk about why your business needs
a LinkedIn presence.
And yes, at its core LinkedIn is an online community
where thought leaders are born, products and services
are promoted and employees are recruited.
But if you can take the time to build out
a robust LinkedIn account, you can begin to share content,
including blog posts and links to other videos,
websites, and other relevant resources
that will establish your expertise
and raise brand awareness and grow your community
of followers.
- Let's say you own a graphic design firm.
Well with LinkedIn, for business you can showcase
your experience and education on your personal profile
while also managing a brand.
Add a branded company page about your business
to post company related news and status updates,
share company blog posts.
I love when GoDaddy does that.
Advertise job openings and connect with your clients
and strategic partners.
- While personal social media outlets such as Facebook
or Twitter can be used with limited success
for building client relationships,
LinkedIn is almost a perfect online forum to do business.
Whether trying to build a client base or cast a wider net
for decision-makers for future opportunities,
LinkedIn provides a number of different ways
to sell and market your services
that can have a positive impact on your bottom line.
- So let's talk about setting up a profile
in just four steps.
Step one, create a personal profile,
if you don't already have one.
And in order to create a company page for your business
you first need to have a personal profile.
And creating a profile is simple and similar to the process
of creating a profile on other social media sites.
Here are some tips to take your profile the extra mile.
Starting with profile picture.
Remember this isn't Facebook or Instagram,
you need a high quality professional headshot.
Also fill in every section. (chuckles)
don't skip over anything.
Include relevant keywords related to your industry.
That'll help the other users out there to find you
via search.
- Right, and having a well-rounded profile
adds credibility to both you and your business.
And once you add the information that you need
to build out your profile, you can begin boosting
the authority and appearance of your profile even more
by adding just a of things.
Starting off with connections.
So add contacts, you know, and look for other professionals
that you wanna connect with.
It's also good to personalize each invitation that you send;
don't make it generic.
- Also don't skip over skills and endorsements.
Add skills and take quizzes to add a badge to your profile.
I should probably try and doing that sometime.
Endorsements are given to you by other LinkedIn users
and by giving endorsements to your connections
the likelihood that they will return the favor, pretty high.
Again, this adds credibility, right?
And once you have these elements in place
you'll have a professional personal page
that will start to get you noticed on LinkedIn.
And you will have what you need to set up your company page.
- Once you have that all down you have what you need
to set up your company page.
And really to create the profile for your business,
you're gonna visit the create a LinkedIn page
while logged into your personal account.
Again, this is all very straightforward
but be sure to take your time, fill out everything.
But here are some helpful tips to get you going
in the right direction.
- Starting with choosing your LinkedIn public URL.
Keep this as simple and easy to read as possible.
Use just your brand name, if you can
and make sure you have your logo.
Keep in mind that your business name is usually
displayed next to the logo so the image can simply
be the icon version of your logo.
And have a description.
So tell your company's story just like you did
in the About Us section of your website
or on your Facebook and having a consistent brand message
is key.
- And again, use keywords that are related
to your industry to help potential customers
and clients find your company page through search.
And lastly, this is nice and automatic
but a follow button will automatically appear
on your profile.
And this allows interested audiences to receive updates
and notifications from your brand in their newsfeed.
But next to the follow button, you can add
a custom button too.
So you can use this button to drive users
to a specific off-site website,
good for a call to action that leads to a dedicated
landing page just for LinkedIn visitors.
- And choose your CTA button by looking
at your current sales funnel.
If you have a page on your site that starts your funnel
you may want to drive traffic there.
Or if you have a compelling lead magnet,
you can drive audiences directly to the signup page.
Which leads us to our third step.
Encourage your social circle to connect
with your company page.
Remember, engagement is a good thing
and this helps spread your brand exposure
and build up the authority of your business on LinkedIn.
So if your business has team members
encourage them to connect their profile to their brand page
and they can add their position at your company
to the experience section.
- So another cool feature of LinkedIn is LinkedIn ProFinder.
Now, if your business is a service
or consulting based business, consider signing up
for this service.
But basically this connects freelancers
with businesses that need their expertise.
If you apply to be a LinkedIn Pro
and are accepted, LinkedIn will send you proposals
from customers who are looking for services you provide.
In addition to your brand page, LinkedIn Pro is another way
to leverage LinkedIn for small businesses
and connect with more customers and clients.
- Attract attention to your business.
So if you go through the steps that we've covered today
you'll have an engaging LinkedIn company page
ready to receive visitors and drive interested audiences
toward your brand.
Actively participating on LinkedIn is important
for establishing your legitimacy and driving interests.
You shouldn't just set it and forget it.
- Yeah, building relationships on LinkedIn
it involves consistently publishing relevant content,
responding to other's content and reaching out
to make new connection.
But now you know how to use LinkedIn for small business
you have all the information you need
to start making an impact on the world's largest
business networking platform.
Now take all this advice and put it into practice.
Start using LinkedIn for small business
to grow your brand visibility,
stay top of mind, attracting customers,
engage existing audiences and customer base.
- Alright, that's a wrap.
You just learned how to use LinkedIn for your business.
Comment below with your favorite tip
and be sure to subscribe to our channel.
- Hey, and make sure you ring that bell,
to see these episodes first.
This is "The Journey."
We'll see you next time.