How to use LinkedIn to grow Business

LinkedIn is one of the world’s largest social networks with over 470 Million users globally. While most use LinkedIn to manage their professional profile on the web, SMEs have made the most valuable use of the professional network. Today, LinkedIn is considered to be amongst the top platforms for B2B lead generation globally.

The Sales-cycle is usually longer for B2B businesses. This happens because there are multiple decision makers involved in the process of onboarding a new vendor/partner. The most powerful way for B2B Businesses to increase sales while reducing the overall cost of selling is to build powerfully engaged customer communities. Building customer communities provides deeper insights into what customers find valuable.

Clearly define who your customer is and search – For a software development company the customer is the CIO/CTO/CMO/CEO. The second level to defining your customer is his/her geographical location. Once you define your customer clearly, use ‘LinkedIn Search’. The powerful LinkedIn Search shows results categorized into people, companies and jobs. Choose from the options and enter the location where you think most of your customers will be. LinkedIn will show the people working in various organizations who are your target audience. Even if LinkedIn displays a list of people that you are already connected with, visit their profile and explore the similar people suggestions that LinkedIn gives as ‘People also viewed’.

Connect and build relationships – Once you have a list of potential customers, it’s time to make connections. Being a professional network, it is important to keep in mind that you must not choose people at random and send LinkedIn invites to them. You must see if you have a common connection between you and the person you intend to connect with and ask for a recommendation. If you want to still explore the option of doing it yourself because you believe that people will find you valuable, before sending a LinkedIn invite, ensure that you write a ‘custom message’. When you are connecting with a third person for the first time, offer a valuable opportunity instead of asking for something on the invite itself. An invite tells the other person that you are valuable and you will not be another random connection that adds no value to the professional network.

Engage and Communicate Value – LinkedIn offers a powerful way to engage with one’s network at scale. Use the LinkedIn posts feature to author blog posts that you feel will be highly valuable and relevant for your network. Share actionable insights and thought leadership via your LinkedIn posts. As your network starts engaging with your content, your profile discovery increases. While LinkedIn posts are engaging and have an amplified reach via LinkedIn Pulse, the ones who find it hard to express their thoughts as a blog post can use images as status updates on LinkedIn.

If you carefully spend time to build a network of the most relevant and valuable people around you, it increases the probability of your message reaching out to the most relevant people who could be your potential customers or the audience that you intend to engage with. LinkedIn is a powerful platform for SMEs and startups. When combined with great quality content marketing it can help SMEs establish great relationships and grow faster.