Andrew Riedel, SEO Gold Coast
As a local business owner, you have to use every online resource possible to help build your brand and promote your company online. The more exposure to your business, the better off you will be. You’ll attract more prospects and potential customers by expanding your reach.
That’s why a LinkedIn is such an important piece of the puzzle when it comes to building your online brand. You can leverage this incredible community and use it to your business advantage.
We would like to provide some tips and tricks that will help you do just that. If you learn how to use LinkedIn correctly, you can achieve extra exposure and do so in conjunction with your other social media activities.
Would you like to learn how to leverage LinkedIn? Let’s get into the nuts and bolts of the process right now…
Network by Joining LinkedIn Groups
Joining LinkedIn groups is a fantastic way to network with potential customers and other members of your industry. Basically, LinkedIn groups are online forums that talk about specific topics. They are a great way to raise the profile of your company and establish your presence online with other colleagues as well as target customers.
Here’s the way you should handle networking through groups…
Be an informative and trustworthy resource. Help as many people in your industry as possible, and stand out as a trusted authority. Do not try to pressure others into buying your products and services. Do not try to sell your stuff as a member of this group. Just establish yourself as a credible authority in your industry and the sales of your products and services will soon follow.
Because let’s face it. This can also be a disaster us experience if you handle it improperly.
If you join groups and constantly push your products and services, not only will you upset the group, but you will look like a parasite in your industry. You will look like you do not care about providing value to your customers, potential prospects and other members of your community.
You can actually kill your reputation if you handle this incorrectly. So join groups for networking and nothing more. Do not look at these groups as a sales opportunity. You do not want to be labeled as the pushy salesman. This could hurt your credibility and blacklist your company.
Be as helpful as possible. Be as friendly as possible. Be as useful to the group as possible, and your prospects will begin looking at your company profile. They will look at your company website and learn more about your business. They will look to you as a credible authority and want to do business with you because you’re such a helpful, generous member of the LinkedIn community.
Here’s the next tip…
Prospect by Using LinkedIn Answers
Here’s where the magic happens. Now it’s time to use your LinkedIn credibility and goodwill and turn it into prospects for your business.
LinkedIn Answers is the key to prospecting success.
It allows you to ask and answer questions about any topic possible. This includes topics related to your industry.
It’s great as a prospecting tool because it allows you to directly help your potential customers. It gives you the opportunity to provide a detailed answer, and then you can turn around and point the person to one of your products or services.
But more importantly than anything else…
By providing a solid answer, it shows that you are an expert in your industry. It shows that you are not only in it for the money, but you are hoping to help people solve the problems that they face. This will go a long way to establishing your business as the go-to company in your field.
Here’s an example to help you better understand…
Let’s say you are in the plumbing industry. One of the members of your community has a plumbing related question. They want to know…
“When is the best time to hire a plumber?”
In truth, they probably need a plumber already. But if you provide a detailed enough answer and offer many examples, your potential prospect will see that they are in need of a plumber right now. You can then expect the prospect to give you will call to handle their plumbing needs since you took the time to provide such a detailed answer.
Remember, this is a huge industry and spending five minutes to provide an answer could end up bringing in tens of thousands of dollars in business. Because somebody else might read your detailed answer, recognize you as the best expert in their area and give you a call as well.
The great thing about LinkedIn is that there are so many members joining this community each and every day. You never know who is going to end up reading one of your detailed responses and realize that you are the best person to help them with their particular problem.
Let’s take a look at one final way to leverage LinkedIn…
Use LinkedIn to Find Services for Your Business
LinkedIn is a great source to bring new prospects into your business. There’s no question about it. But think about it from the other side of the coin…
Maybe you need an expert to provide some type of service for your company. You can always check out the local services in your area to find an excellent prospect to help you complete your company project.
As an example, maybe you are looking to design a brand-new website. Did you ever think about looking at service providers on LinkedIn to help you with this need? There are plenty of excellent resources that you can instantly tap into right away.
So just remember that LinkedIn is not only great to bring new customers into the fold, it’s also an excellent resource to find service providers to help fulfill your own needs.
That’s all for today…
Please use this info to leverage LinkedIn and all of its capabilities. You’ll be happy that you did as you increase your company’s bottom line and find excellent service providers to help you along the way.
Social Networking Image by: FreeDigitalPhotos