In today’s highly competitive landscape, LinkedIn has come to the rescue and become an effective marketing tool – for both individuals and businesses. It helps people and businesses stand out,find, connect, expand professional networks, identify partnerships, recruit talent, look for clients and build relationships with target markets - regardless of industry or location.
LinkedIn is undeniably an incredibly powerful and essential online marketing tool. It is a highly regarded social media platform that can’t be ignored. In our ever-growing online marketing world of connectivity, it has become known as ‘The moment of truth’, for many reasons.
Personal branding.
Personal branding in today’s world is more important than it has ever been. Buying behaviors of consumers have changed dramatically over recent years. Todays’ consumers care more about the people they do business with, more than a brand or service itself. Best products or services in the world todays’ world don’t mean anything unless people want to do business with you. Based on what is seen and read online, customers are increasingly deciding upfront whether, or not they want to work with you, even before they agree to meet or are even prepared to consider doing business.
Increasingly LinkedIn is becoming the professional profile of people’s record online. A scary futuristic world consideration. People are maintaining their profiles, and since everyone has access to their details it is likely to be accurate. If someone wants to know about your career history, they just look it up on their LinkedIn profile and expect it to be up-to-date and accurate. More so than anywhere else, LinkedIn has become the primary place where people create, update and access those records.
A content platform.
Over the past few years LinkedIn has been busy positioning itself as the content platform of choice for B-B marketers. To achieve this goal, it has unleashed a whole host of content-focused updates – from its powerful publishing platform to its successful ‘Sponsored Updates’ and inspiring influencers’ programme.
Growing networks, building partnerships and accessing talent.
With LinkedIn connecting millions of professionals across the globe, it is the place to access talent and develop professional relationships.
Finding the right joint venture and alliance partners has become less challenging with LinkedIn as it facilitates this process through fluencer’s community members. Once partnerships have been set up, messages can be broadcasted to hundreds of targeted contacts with whom a trusted relationship has been developed. Once strategic partnerships have been formed, they can refer clients to each other, and businesses can leverage their offering of complimentary products and services.
Finding Clients.
Building a database of potential targeted clients has never been easier. LinkedIn allows businesses to find, connect and build a relationship with hundreds of potential clients quickly and easily as it all falls under one platform.
Media exposure
As anyone in the industry knows, media exposure is critical for raising brand awareness and positioning your brand in the market. Getting noticed can be an expensive and time-consuming PR exercise. For this reason, LinkedIn has become journalists and editors preferred professional networking tool with the ability to build and access large networks of media contacts and get out news stories quickly.
Sponsored Updates
Through the LinkedIn platform, a brand is given access to a whole host of educated, skilled and influential people. When someone accesses LinkedIn they already have their industry ‘hat on’ and are actively seeking knowledge.
LinkedIn Sponsored Updates ensures that your content reaches the right audience and decision makers. It ensures advanced and niche targeting options - the kind of subliminal advertising that brands are increasingly moving towards. You get the typical demographic information most of the main social media channels offer - age, gender and location – but you can also target by additional factors like job title and industry, so it gives a range of more in depth insights and targeting options. The more information a LinkedIn user provides the better chance their profile being found i.e. industries (company sizes and names), job titles (job functions and levels, schools, skills, gender and age, location, and followers.
Engage with Influencers.
The goal of a LinkedIn Group is to create a ‘hub’ for industry discussions. Identify and join relevant groups that gives you access to the right influential people in your industry. Choose groups and ensure that you are insights and ideas. It’s also about building relationships with the people who you want to engage with.
This allows you to target the right people and industries without having to pay for advertisements,so good for small businesses with limited budgets. You can tap into an engaged community who are able to provide feedback, ideas and thoughts. You can read other people’s content and learn from their insights. All of which can help to inform your strategy.
In a world of content overload, LinkedIn can’t be ignored. It should be viewed as one of the most powerful and engaging marketing platforms for both individuals and businesses - to harness exposure and drive achieve strategic objectives – whether in a personal or business capacity.
Do you need assistance to align your business goals with your digital strategy? One of our part-time Marketing Directors can help you focus your efforts, see return on your investment and grow your business.
