LinkedIn can be a powerful business tool if you maximise its advantages. Let's take a look at what you can do to get LinkedIn working hard for your business.
1. Have a stand-out profile
The basic LinkedIn challenge is the same as for all social media - how to get your profile to stand out. If your profile is a sales pitch, no one is going to be interested in reading it. It’s not so much about what you want to say as what potential contacts want to see. Ask yourself whether your profile page is one that’d you bother reading if you were an agent, a customer looking for a rental, someone thinking about moving house, or whoever your target audience is.
2. Customers want to know how you can help them
Customers don’t want to see a summary of your brilliant track record in business. However, they will read on, and add you to their network, if you’re someone who seems to know what you’re talking about and who is passing on valuable information and help that they can’t get elsewhere. So add a summary, but make sure it tells an engaging story that customers can relate to.
3. Branding and visuals are key
Your entry has to look inviting. You need a great photo, a strapline that isn’t your job title but actually means something to your customer, and a banner that shows your branding.
4. Demonstrate that you’re on it when it comes to the local market
It’s a great help if you have a tool, like the nethouseprices.com sold prices map, that enables you to give customers the accurate, market-driven news that they want, but can’t get for themselves. You can then use a call to action, to drive them to your business website.
5. Be personal
Don’t just ask to connect to contacts - it can come across as impersonal and people may even think you’re a bot! Send an engaging note. Look at the people who are viewing your profile and if you want to connect, write them a friendly word.
6. Don’t use buzzwords on the LinkedIn cliches list
Each January, LinkedIn releases a list of the most overused buzzwords on profiles. In January 2017, these included words such as passionate, specialised, experienced, strategic, expert, excellent and focused.
So make sure that your profile is not subjecting your readers to a blizzard of buzzwords.
7. Understand who’s on LinkedIn
While Facebook use is pretty much universal, LinkedIn has much lower usage. However, the users are concentrated in a market segment that you may wish to reach. The Pew Research Centre looks at the US stats, and over there, LinkedIn users tend on average to have higher incomes, and are more likely to have a degree. Slightly more men than women use the site. The same is likely to be true here, for the simple reason that the site attracts people who are building careers and are therefore likely to be employed, and working in better-paid jobs.
8. Realise that Google likes LinkedIn blogs
Unlike Facebook posts, Google can search LinkedIn blog posts and blogs on LinkedIn score higher for traffic than simple website blogs. So it’s worth using some keywords that you know your target audience is likely to search on.
Remember, you don’t have to write the blog posts yourself - you can get a provider like nethouseprices.com to supply relevant, market-focused pieces that are up to date and will engage your networking targets.
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