For small businesses, people mostly prefer Twitter and Facebook. But you might not know this, LinkedIn too, is a great tool to grow your business. The general assumption is it is only good for big businesses. But, is LinkedIn good for small businesses? Well, it certainly is.
You can reach out to a whole new audience if you add LinkedIn to your social media marketing strategy. With nearly 700 million users, full of professionals, it has a powerful marketing potential. So, if you know how to get the most out of it, LinkedIn can be a great tool for your small business.
How LinkedIn is Good for Small Business?
To understand why and how LinkedIn can be good, or even better for your small business, let’s compare it to other social media platforms, keeping small business utilization in mind.
1. User Engagement: LinkedIn vs Other Social Media Platforms
Most social media platforms use heavy visual elements for storytelling. For example, for successful marketing on Instagram or Snapchat, you’ll need to utilize original photos heavily. For small business owners, gathering such heavy resources can be time-consuming or too expensive, or both.
Twitter too is very time-consuming. Because successful Twitter marketing takes more than a couple of tweets per day.
Also, they don’t necessarily drive traffic back to your own website or towards the original content.
LinkedIn however, is a universally accepted social media platform that takes very little engagement from you once you have set up everything. And you don’t need much on the budget front either.
2. Business Focus: LinkedIn vs Other Social Media Platforms
Unlike other social media platforms, LinkedIn is business-focused in the first place. With millions of professional users worldwide, it’s the largest professional network available today. It’s geared towards creating business and professional connections.
For B2B (business-to-business) businesses that are trying to make connections and business prospects, there’s no other social media platform like LinkedIn.
What LinkedIn Can Do for Your Small Business?
Here are a few things that LinkedIn can Do for Your Small business.
- Give you a place to tell your business’s story and provide people with links to get your service.
- Provide a summary of who and what you are. In short, it’ll give an overview of your business.
- Highlight your offers, features, and products.
- Connect with not only clients but also other businesses, who are potential clients.
- Advertise for talents that your business needs.
- Gives your business more SEO optimization for free.
Ways to Use LinkedIn for Your Small Business
Here are 10 ways you can use LinkedIn to get the best results for your small business.
- Join Groups similar to yours to learn what the professionals are doing.
- Participate in conversations and ask questions.
- Start a group when you are comfortable enough with your knowledge and understanding.
- Use high-quality visuals for your company page, you want to be as eye-catching as possible.
- Pick out the proper category (s) for your business.
- Create and promote engaging blog posts.
- Always make your page and content search engine optimized.
- Use the showcase feature to showcase what you offer.
- Use pictures, whenever you can. Pictures grab way more attention than texts.
- When your efforts start to pay off, go premium. It’s money well spent in our opinion.
Frequently Asked Questions and Answers
How do I grow my small business on LinkedIn?
You can grow your small business on LinkedIn by targeting connections and clients, as well as by posting high-quality content.
Is LinkedIn for small business free?
Yes, you don’t need to spend a penny to open your company page on LinkedIn.
Who is LinkedIn target audience?
The target audience of LinkedIn professionals is using the platform on a business level.
What are the disadvantages of using LinkedIn for business?
It is more professional than social, needs a larger network to be effective and a premium subscription can be a bit costly.
Bottom Line
LinkedIn is not the most fun of social media platforms, but it certainly is the best for businesses, be they big or small. While for bigger businesses, it works mostly as a talent-hunting tool, for medium to small businesses, it is a great tool to reach, engage and enhance their business opportunities. Mark Pollard, CEO of Mighty Jungle once said, “LinkedIn is a place where you can test your voice.” You too can use it as a platform to test and enhance your business strategies.