LinkedIn is an unbelievably powerful platform for businesses, but it’s also really underestimated – because spending time on Facebook is way more fun!
However, if you can implement the right strategies you can use LinkedIn to generate revenue, grow your network and email list, connect with amazing people who can help you to grow your business, spot incredible opportunities and raise awareness of your business and drive a load of traffic to your website. I have found that LinkedIn not only allows me to do all these things, it helps me to do it fast.
Spending a bit of time everyday learning how to leverage LinkedIn and testing different strategies will definitely help you to grow your business.
It’s helped me so much. I want to share with you 3 strategies that will help you to leverage the power of LinkedIn…
Strategy 1: Generating revenue
LinkedIn is amazing, because it allows you to connect with people who will love and need your product or service. One of the ways I generate revenue through LinkedIn is through finding people to advertise in my magazine.
The first thing you need to do is get really clear on who it is that you think will be interested in the service or product you’re offering. So for me, I firstly establish the companies that I think will benefit from advertising in my magazine – the companies whose product or service can really help entrepreneurs to grow their business. So for example, people who run social media companies can help female entrepreneurs to grow their business – so I do a search on LinkedIn and make a shortlist of the companies who I think would be a perfect fit. I then do a search to find the person within that company who I need to connect with in order to start having the conversation with them about it. This is powerful, never before has it been so easy to reach out to the right people within organisations.
Strategy 2: Building your network
Your network is one of the most valuable assets you’ve got. It can help you to seriously grow your business and fast. The great thing about LinkedIn is that you can find the right people that you want in your network and connect with them easily. If you have a premium account your can connect with people who you don’t know at all through sending an Inmail. But, if you aren’t a premium member then there’s a way around this… groups.
You need to find relevant groups to join, whose members are people you want to connect with. So for example, if you want to connect with female entrepreneurs, because you have a service or product that they will love then do a search for female entrepreneurs groups and LinkedIn will display all groups for you. Then you can select which groups you want to join. Once you’re a member of a group you can connect with all the other members.
Here’s a tip: when you invite someone to connect with you don’t just say, “Hi, I’d like to invite you to connect with me.” You need to make an effort to see who they are and what they’re about and then make your message personal. You could say something like, “Hey Sam, I noticed that you’re a member of the Female Entrepreneur Association and I saw that you run a social media company. Would love to connect and find out more! Best, Carrie” By doing this you’re showing the person that you’re actually interested in them and your beginning to develop a relationship with them – you’re opening the door to more conversations.
Strategy 3: Raising awareness
You can use LinkedIn to raise awareness of your business by sharing content on it that gets seen by thousands of people! If you write articles or blog posts about your business it can be tough at first when no one is coming to your site to read them! So you have to go out there and put your brilliant article in front of people who will love it and value it. The easy way to do this is through Linkedin!
One of the benefits of making the effort to connect with relevant people on LinkedIn is so that you can share your content and add value to them – and they will probably be interested to see, because youv’e already established that they’re a relvant contact.
Firstly, make sure you post out an update on your profile about your article/content – this will then be seen in the newsfeed of all of your contacts! Amazing!
Secondly, you can use the widgets on LinkedIn to connect your blog with your LinkedIn profile, so that every time you update your blog it automatically posts it out on LinkedIn!
Thirdly, share you content in the groups you’re a member of and get people talking about it!
There are SO many other ways you can leverage the power of LinkedIn. It’s a great platform to help you to really get started with growing your list and raising awareness of your business.
I hope you’ve enjoyed these strategies!
On Thursday 21st February I’m hosting a free, live training session with LinkedIn expert Lewis Howes where he’s going to be sharing his top strategies for growing your business through LinkedIn. If you want to join us, register here (it’s free, but spaces are limited).
Lewis is going to be going into detail on the following areas:
- Build a Massive Email List on Auto Pilot
- Be the #1 Authority in Your Industry
- Increase Your Search Ranking with the new Endorsement Feature
- Drive Thousands of hit to Your Site (with one simple click)
- And much more
It’s going to be AMAZING! See you there!
Carrie x
