Starling business customer, Beesting Digital, is a content strategy agency. Following the success of their own organic LinkedIn strategy, here’s a guide to using LinkedIn for small business owners, written by their Director, Heather Murray.
When it comes to LinkedIn, most small business owners fall into two camps. The first of which set up a profile years ago to use as an online CV, but haven’t been back since. The second realise the platform’s value and have dabbled, but aren’t quite sure where to begin.
If you’re not quite converted yet, here are a few of LinkedIn’s statistics to catch your eye:
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4 out of 5 LinkedIn members drive decisions within their business
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40% of B2B marketers surveyed indicated LinkedIn as the most effective channel for driving high-quality leads
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78% of social sellers outsell peers who don’t use social media
LinkedIn has evolved well beyond a recruitment platform. Whether you’re looking to drive brand awareness, encourage interaction, build relationships or generate leads, LinkedIn is a critical tool in the arsenal of any business professional, but can also work for small business owners in a variety of industries and sectors.
This guide is intended to help small business owners navigate the ever-changing world of LinkedIn. We’ll work through set-up, network growth, content creation and how to stand out.
Personal page vs company page
First things first: the power is in your personal profile. We’re not companies, we’re individuals and as a small business owner you are the brand - it’s this power that drives the strongest social selling strategies on LinkedIn.
Company pages are certainly useful, but this guide focuses on personal profiles only.
Step 1: Your profile
Your profile operates like a mini personal website or some would say a digital business card. Whether or not you’re active on LinkedIn, your customers and prospects will be looking at it.
Header image
Your header or banner image is the first thing visitors see when they view your profile. For some, more service-related businesses, this can make a great free banner ad, and include the following information:
- Business name
- Key services
- Website URL
- Call to action, e.g. DM me / email me
For others, this space could be used to showcase your product, for example a cake maker or designer could use the header image for a gallery of their creations. Here's what mine looks like: