4 Reasons Why You Need to be on LinkedIn

With Ali Hunter, Career Insights
As a biz mum, you’re already savvy when it comes to social media. You’re all over Facebook and you’re totally nailing Instagram. Heck you might even be using Snapchat. But how many of you have a presence on LinkedIn?
I’d be willing to bet not too many of you – am I right?
You’ve probably heard that LinkedIn is only for job seekers or people working in corporate. You might also think it sounds incredibly dull! Granted, you’re far less likely to see posts about celebrities, cute cuddly animals or what your friends ate for dinner, but don’t let that put you off. LinkedIn is every bit as useful for the small biz owner as it is for anyone else.
No doubt you’re also wondering where you would possibly find the time needed – even if you could muster up the enthusiasm – to manage another social media platform. Believe me, I get it! I know as a biz mum, you’re already juggling work with running your home, while trying to grow your business. But what if I told you that LinkedIn has the potential to grow your business for you?
No matter whether you’re a service based business, a product based business, or a bricks and mortar business, LinkedIn is a useful platform to be on. Let me tell you why I think so.

1. An opportunity to tell your story

When someone does a google search on your name, your LinkedIn profile will usually be in the top three results. So not having a LinkedIn profile is a missed opportunity when it comes to personal branding.
Potential customers, suppliers, stockists or anyone else considering doing business with you, will likely check you out online first. LinkedIn is the perfect place for people to learn more about you and has the potential to influence whether or not they make contact.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking LinkedIn is simply a version of your resume. It’s not – or at least it shouldn’t be!
It’s a place for you to tell your story.

So .… with that in mind, it’s a great idea to start pondering the following:

• Why you do what you do?
• How you do it?
• What makes you different from everyone else?

Your story could well be the one thing that sets you apart from others in your niche.
Of course you’ll need to know who you’re telling your story to before you start the writing process. Knowing who your ideal audience is, what their struggles are and how you can help them, will allow you to be more relatable and authentic.
The LinkedIn summary is the perfect place to grab their attention and to demonstrate your unique promise of value.

2. Research, Research, Research

LinkedIn is a great place to find both people and businesses you might like to connect with. Whether you’re a yoga teacher, you sell children’s clothes or you provide social media management services; with a network of over 467 million members, you’re likely to find the people you want to do business with on LinkedIn. It is the most up-to-date database of professional contacts available that you can freely access.
The advanced search functionality lets you very quickly narrow down your search to find the type of person you’re hoping to connect with. You are able to search by key words, location, company and industry, amongst other things, to find the right people.
Once you’ve found them, don’t be afraid to send them a connection request. Remember to personalise this. You’ll likely get a better response if you take the time to craft something a little more meaningful. Plus it will set you apart from everyone else, because so few people take the time to do this.

3. Building Relationships and Trust

Networking and building relationships is what LinkedIn is all about – but like most social media platforms, it’s usually a longer term strategy. So don’t expect to create a profile and get instant results. You have to put some work in. Rather than go in “guns blazing” asking for a sale or a meeting with someone you’ve just connected to, take the time to create the “know, like and trust” factor.
How do you do this?
Increasing your visibility by being a regular in their newsfeed is a good place to start. This needn’t take up a lot of time. You can usually stay top of mind in less than 10 minutes a day by interacting with your connections’ status updates. Liking and commenting with something meaningful, or sharing their content will start to get you noticed.
That said, don’t be afraid to start a conversation with your new connection. After all, LinkedIn is all about building your network and you can’t do that if you don’t talk to them.

4. Adding Value & Getting Value

You might already be blogging for your biz, and if so sharing your content on LinkedIn will help to get your knowledge in front of more of the right people. Adding value to your network with content that will resonate with them is so important when it comes to creating trust.
You can do this by either sharing a link to your blog post in the status update, or you could write an article and publish it directly into the LinkedIn platform. The latter will definitely help your content to get in front of way more eyeballs.
But if writing isn’t your thing, don’t worry. You can be lazy! Simply curate other people’s content, relevant to your audience and share it as an up-date. Again this will serve to keep you top of mind.
Joining targeted interesting and useful groups where you can be active is also a great strategy. Not only are LinkedIn groups a great place to be helpful they’re also a great place to learn. LinkedIn allows you to join 100 groups. Obviously that’s way too many for you to be active in. It does, however, give you access to more people and can increase your visibility, if you participate in conversations and share relevant content.
As an added bonus you can send 15 messages to fellow group members that you are not connected to each month.
So there you have it, four reasons why you should add LinkedIn to your marketing strategy.

Meet Ali

Ali is a Career Coach and owner of Career Insights. Drawing on more than 10 years recruitment experience Ali offers services to job seekers and career changers to help them navigate the complex world of work.
She also works with small business owners, corporates and teams to help them build their presence on LinkedIn so that they can attract their ideal clients.
WEB: www.careerinsights.co.nz
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/careerinsightsnz
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/careerinsightsnz
LINKEDIN: https://nz.linkedin.com/in/hunterali