The Power of LinkedIn to Improve Networks | A Huge Opportunity for Business Owners!
With over 500+ million users, LinkedIn.com is one of the fastest growing social networks for business professionals and it’s one of the best ways to connect with associates and prospective business partners. For B2B businesses, opportunities are plenty!
As a business owner, if you’re not yet networking on LinkedIn, you may be decreasing your chances of having rewarding business opportunities come your way.
By accessing the massive network potential that LinkedIn offers, this massive professional community can lead to an unexpected windfall when it comes to connecting with business owners and companies who may want to enlist in your services or invest in your products. As we all know, business people are consumers too. So, by joining the LinkedIn network, it can really catapult your business to a whole new level.
Here are some LinkedIn strategies that you can use to create greater opportunities for your business:
Join LinkedIn Groups – If you join groups related to your line of business while also contributing your insightful experience with valuable quality content on a consistent basic, this can lead to having a more targeted audience who can easily find your profile and website.
There are so many groups to choose from. This includes your university or school alum group, to industry associations, former and current employees as well as trade organizations related to your area of expertise. The range of groups is extensive.
By connecting with these groups and by ensuring that you include your website address throughout all of your online communications, this increases the chances that people will find you. And the best way to take this even further is if you can lead these business prospects to a website that is full of valuable content that they can use to help them in their business or can use for their clients. This will encourage them to want to connect with you on a business level. However, be sure you have a way of collecting their information once they arrive on your website.
By placing a lead generation form or opt-in form on your site, this will give these visitors an opportunity to sign up for your list after reading your highly informative content.
Now if you can go one step further and provide a valuable content upgrade – or bonus content that coincides with the article that your visitor has just read on your website, that’s even better!
By providing this extra piece of content which is extra informative - that they can readily use, it provides them with even more value by guiding them even further along their journey. And that’s the best way to build your list! By doing this, you’re able to increase your network of extremely targeted contacts who would otherwise not know who you are. But with this extra bit of effort, they will most likely have an interest in working with you at some point in the future!
Write Articles – If you can create content targeted towards your audience that shows your expertise while also helping them solve an issue they’re currently experiencing, that’s one of the best ways to draw people in – especially those people who are considering doing business with you. Not only will this expand your connection of prospective business partners, but it can open the door to more opportunities and ultimately greater ROI come year-end!
A bit of time spent writing an informative and valuable content piece is one of the best ways to draw people to you without you having to physically go after them.
On top of writing your compelling and informative article, if you can ensure that you are using the keywords that your audience also uses to find information on the topic that you’re writing about, you can increase your chances even further of having targeted prospects easily find you. It’s one of the best strategies which are highly underutilized on the LinkedIn platform.
Host Webinars & Events on LinkedIn! By hosting events, you have total control of your event. It also allows you to easily leverage the power of automated technology on a local and global scale so that you can reach more people! It’s one of the best platforms for this kind of networking. After all, the audience on the LinkedIn network mean business!
Start your own LinkedIn group! This will give you a captive audience of raving fans off the gate simply because they chose your particular group because they have a keen interest in what you do!
Recommend Others - Remember, it’s not about you. People don’t actually want to hear about what your specific duties were with your previous employer or what tasks you are good at – whether you’re a business owner or not. People want to know that you can be of value to them and can offer them some kind of benefit. Did you increase profits for the company? Did you lead the team to being the top in your industry? Think in those terms as people respond to results. So, instead, share how your expertise can be useful for them.
A great way to get recommendations without having to ask for them is to give recommendations to others you already know and have worked with in your network. They’ll be honored that you offered such a kind gesture and it’s likely that they’ll reciprocate the favour without you having to request it! Of course, requesting a recommendation is fine too, but by offering a recommendation for someone else, this simply makes the process easier. Recommendation work well to prove your professional expertise!
Do note that all recommendations do show up on your profile. So, this not only naturally allows others to see these recommendations, but it very organically opens up the door to showcasing who you are and that you’re a trustworthy individual to work with.
By seeing your recommendation on someone else’s profile, this makes others in the network more curious to then visit your profile and/or website to learn more about you. This is a great way to broaden your visibility and open the door to potential opportunities!
Colleague Introductions - By introducing colleagues in your network, this can be beneficial for your business. Just be sure that when you're contacted for an introduction that you are in full agreement with what it is that individual wants before you decide to introduce them.
Also be very clear on your intentions when also requesting an introduction to ensure that both parties are in agreement. This will allow these connections to more rewarding while eliminating any unnecessary confusion in the future.
Now, last but not least, complete your profile. This is the first greeting your prospective audience has of you. So, be sure that you have filled out your entire profile as thoroughly as possible. Then be sure to keep your profile updated.
As you can see, LinkedIn offers a ton of ways that you can use this platform to build your list and ultimately, build your business. With almost 500 million users, LinkedIn offers a unique way to quickly build your brand and your business.
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