Build a Network in LinkedIn to Grow Your Business

LinkedIn is on the up and up. Especially in light of the pandemic, LinkedIn is better than ever and if you haven’t already gotten on board, it’s a fantastic platform to grow your business.

Whether your brand new to LinkedIn for your business or you want to revamp your current profile, here, we’re doing a LinkedIn deep dive, sharing the best ways you can get building your business network on LinkedIn.

Make sure your profile is set up properly with correct branding.

The first step towards effective networking on LinkedIn is making sure your profile is up to scratch. Fill out as much information as possible and use keywords where relevant.

Have a company or personal header that shows what you’re associated with and share any portfolio work or tangible examples of what you do on your profile.

But, don’t worry -- you don’t have to do everything all at once. Take an hour every day for a week to focus on your profile. Maybe one day you work on your bio, the next day flesh out your work experience, and on and on.

Breaking up the process can be super helpful and ensure that your profile is branded and complete without burning out.

Start doing basic PR through the platform.

Once your profile is finished, it doesn’t stop there. Every so often, make sure your profile is up to date with correct information. PR is all about storytelling, so make sure that you’re communicating your personal and professional story on LinkedIn.

Careers and businesses are always changing and evolving. So, it’s a great opportunity to share change and growth on LinkedIn as a way to generate organic interest in your journey.

Share company news regularly, make updates where relevant, and start doing basic PR through the platform by humanising your brand and telling your ever-changing story.

Get your staff involved.

LinkedIn is a wonderful way to engage with your staff in a way that can naturally boost your business.

Make sure your staff have LinkedIn profiles and encourage them to post their achievements and highlights. Then, you can reshare these posts on your own profile to further the conversation.

You’ll be building your own network on the platform while exposing their accomplishments to a wider audience. Overall, it’s a win-win to get your staff involved.

Post quality content regularly.

Yes, when building your network on LinkedIn, you’ll want to be posting regularly. But, you want to make sure you’re posting high-quality content that your followers will actually enjoy.

So, what kind of content is best to share on LinkedIn?

As we mentioned above, resharing staff posts are a great place to start. But you’ll also want to be posting quality content yourself. This helps your staff have something reshare as well.

You might write weekly articles right on the platform. Or you can post daily thoughts like a mini-blog on the newsfeed. Videos are also wonderful forms of content or you can reshare blogs and articles from your own website.

You can also reshare content from thought leaders in your industry. Often, what other industry leaders are talking about can help you get ideas while also growing your network.

All of these are examples of quality content that can help boost your LinkedIn status.

Start following users within your industry.

Another sure-fire way to build your business on LinkedIn is by following other users within your industry. Social media is all about connection and connecting with others in your space is an amazing way to share the love.

You can use the “people you might want to follow” feature to get recommendations from the LinkedIn algorithm. Or you can find people to follow through the Sales Navigator.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator helps you automate and network at scale. It’s a paid sales solution that creates a more effective way to generate leads and land better deals. So, it’s certainly something to look into if you want to bring your LinkedIn networking to the next level.

Connect with local, small businesses to cross-pollinate your posts.

Cross-promotion on LinkedIn is another great way to build your network and reach a bigger audience. By connecting with local, small businesses in a cross-promotional business partnership, you can post about them and they’ll post about you.

Partnership Marketing is essentially a trade where you work together for a mutually beneficial aim. Often, these partnerships look like sponsoring an event or co-hosting a retreat. However, cross-pollinating partner posts on social media is easy to do as well.

Check out our recent blog all about Partnership Marketing and how you can get started today!

Run LinkedIn ads.

There are two types of advertising you can do on LinkedIn to build your network even more: dynamic ads and sponsored ads.

Dynamic ads on LinkedIn are tailored to each member based on their profile data. Dynamic ads can serve a variety of goals including brand awareness, website visits, engagement, and job applicants.

Dynamic ads are also available in formats such as follower ads, spotlight ads, and jobs ads. Generally, you’ll want to create specific materials to be used as dynamic ads to boost your business on LinkedIn.

On the other hand, there are also sponsored ads available on LinkedIn. Essentially, you can boost a post from your LinkedIn feed to reach a wider audience. For these, you can either design a specific ad or sponsor a well-performing post.

Either way, LinkedIn ads can help with conversions and visibility, especially if you have a specific goal in mind.

Work with a PR agency to build your LinkedIn network.

For business owners that are serious about taking their LinkedIn networks to the next level, you could hire a PR agency to help you.

It’s no secret that experts in the fields of marketing, PR, and advertising have learned the best practices when it comes to all forms of social media. And LinkedIn is definitely on the list.

PR agencies can help you with your messaging, targeting, and overall brand storytelling to make sure that your LinkedIn profile and posts are coming across in the best possible way.

Whether you hire them for a specific campaign or incorporate LinkedIn with your current PR strategy, there’s no harm in getting a little help.

Benefits of Growing Your LinkedIn Network

There are countless benefits of using LinkedIn to grow your business and expand your network. You’ll engage with your staff, showcase your brand, find new customers and business opportunities, learn new skills, and improve your recruitment.

Let’s expand on these benefits.

Helps your staff engage with your company.

Sometimes, as a business owner, it can be difficult to make sure that you’re truly engaging with your staff.

While making time to sit down with your employees and getting to know them on the ground is important, building your network on LinkedIn is a great way to engage with your staff in another way.

Especially if your company is growing and you’re opening locations in cities outside of your main headquarters, creating these organic connections with your staff via LinkedIn is a no-brainer and can make the difference in building a strong work culture.

Simply resharing a post or commenting on their passion project page helps ensure that talented employees stay onboard and goes a long way toward building a strong company.

Showcases your brand to a wider audience.

LinkedIn hosts over 740 million users in more than 200 countries and territories across the globe. Chances are that your small business hasn’t reached all of them yet.

All jokes aside, LinkedIn showcases your brand to a much wider audience than you’ll manage to reach on your own.

Sure, other social media platforms expose your brand to potential consumers. But LinkedIn exposes your brand to potential consumers, business partners, and employees.

In short, you’ll be reaching demographics in a whole new way by building your network on LinkedIn.

Helps you find new customers and potential business opportunities.

As you begin to reach a wider audience, it tends to have a ripple effect, helping you find new excited customers and interesting business opportunities.

As the saying goes, it’s not what you know but who you know and even in our digital age, networking is still essential.

LinkedIn is the key to successful B2B networking and with so many job seekers looking for work on the platform and other business owners looking for like-minded entrepreneurs to connect with, there’s no better place to be.

It may take some time and you’ll need to be patient but investing in a presence on LinkedIn and growing your business on this incredible platform will pay off.

Opportunity to learn new skills in digital marketing, PR, and advertising.

Even if you feel like you have no idea what you’re doing at first, simply starting the process of networking on LinkedIn will teach you valuable new skills.

Digital marketing and branding your company on LinkedIn is crucial. You’ll get hands-on experience by simply giving it a go.

Sure, you might make mistakes and feel like a fraud, but, first of all, you’re not alone, and second of all, you’re engaging in a living platform. That’s right, LinkedIn isn’t going to be the same next year, so you might as well start experimenting.

There’s no right or wrong way to do LinkedIn. Everyone has a different opinion. So, doing your best is all we can ever do anyway. Be open to what you might learn along the way.

Helps with recruitment.

Recruiting quality candidates for your staff is one of the most headache-inducing parts of being a business owner. And that’s saying something!

Recruiting the wrong people can be expensive and it’s certainly not great for business success when you’re constantly seeking, hiring, and firing ill-fitting employees. Beyond job boards and cold calls, recruiting through LinkedIn really stands out.

Not only do they have a robust job board of their own, but when you genuinely interact on the platform, future employees get a real feel for your brand and what it might be like to work for you. You might be surprised at how often job seekers will start coming to you.

Long story short, LinkedIn is a powerful recruitment tool to attract higher-quality candidates.

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As you can see, LinkedIn is a powerful networking tool and a smart way to grow your business.

By perfecting your profile, posting and sharing quality content, and embracing everything this incredible platform has to offer, you can connect with your staff, other businesses, and future opportunities like never before.

So, what are you waiting for?! We’ll see you on LinkedIn.

Want to learn more how social media can boost your business? Check out our other blogs?

• How to measure ROI on social media
• How to Take Good Images for Social Media
• 6 Marketing Trends You Can’t Ignore

If you have any questions about how Physio Inq can help support your business and provide you with the tools to grow, you can reach out to our team for a free business consult by filling out the form below.