If you are a business, you need to be using LinkedIn.

Whether you are selling to consumers or other businesses, LinkedIn is a platform that will help you build your presence online. LinkedIn excels in the B2B marketplace but also has great value in reaching individuals – especially professional ones.

This week, we are dedicating our blog to all things LinkedIn. We start our LinkedIn week with “Six Ways to Use LinkedIn to Build Your Business.” We will introduce some ideas and briefly talk about them today. But come back during the rest of the week to get more in-depth tips and advice on how to leverage to power of LinkedIn to build your business.

Start With A Company Page

If you are a business, you have to start building your LinkedIn presence with a Company page. LinkedIn provides a short instruction post on Adding a Company Page. It gives you basic instructions. When adding the page, be sure to be as detailed and complete as possible. The more information you provide, the more you will be seen by people searching. Add graphics when it asks for them, and write descriptions with keywords about your company. If there is already a company page out there, you may have to claim it.

Connect Your Employees to Your Company

Once your company page is built, ask your employees to connect with that page. First and foremost, they should follow it. Next, they should connect their current employment with the new company page. You will start to build an audience here. Once you begin posting content, ask your employees to share your content and make sure you do the same.

Post Content as Your Business

Content will help you stay in front of the people that follow your company and help you reach new people. So post valuable content about your company, product and services. Don’t be afraid to give away free content. Marcus Sheridan works for a fiberglass pool company. When his company was suffering, he turned to answering every imaginable question possible and turned the business around. On LinkedIn, it is important that you equate this content with your company. Once your content is posted, ask your employees to share it in their personal networks.

Build Your Personal Professional Network

As a business marketer, it is important that you build your personal professional network. Connect with co-workers, vendors, clients, connections from previous positions, etc. The more connections you make, the more you will be seen. As you build your personal professional network, share your company’s content on your page. This will bring your messaging to more people.

Explore Groups

LinkedIn groups allow people of similar interests to come together and share information. Engage with these groups. Share the valuable content about your products and services with these groups. However, do not share sales information. That does not work. However, if you share content that they need, you will have great success.

Experiment with Advertising

LinkedIn Advertising allows you to reach very targeted demographics. You can reach people on so many business-related criteria, like business location, size and type. Often they will offer advertising deals for new clients, so try it out. Our recommendation is that you sponsor content over just placing a normal ad. That positions you as a leader in information production instead of just an advertiser and people respect that.

There is a lot of potential with LinkedIn. If you can use that potential to build your business, you will be successful. I hope some of this information makes sense and will help you. If you are looking for help building your LinkedIn presence, Boxless Media can help you, as a coach or as a community manager. Contact us for more details.