Why LinkedIn needs to be a part of your startup’s marketing strategy

LinkedIn offers your startup many opportunities. Not only can you create a business page for your startup, but you can leverage LinkedIn’s paid advertising channels as well.

Today we look at why LinkedIn needs to be a part of your startup’s marketing strategy.

Business people use LinkedIn

With more than 76% of business executives checking into LinkedIn at least once daily, it’s the perfect place to meet potential customers and employees.

Not only are your potential customers and employees using LinkedIn, but venture capitalists are using the social media platform as well, and they are in business mode when they are exploring.

LinkedIn is where the business professionals go during the day for downtime, business articles, and job information. LinkedIn can help you get your startup in front of more people.

LinkedIn is good for new business

LinkedIn is the perfect platform to promote your staff. As a new startup, you can not only promote your products and services, but you can promote your professional staff by letting people get to know them.

Sharing behind-the-scenes content is a strategy to boost your impressions and comments. Consider an employee spotlight of the week to introduce the business world to your exceptional staff.

Posts with photos work the best, so be sure to include a high quality image.

LinkedIn generates contacts and leads

On your startup’s page, you can see who’s interacted or commented on your post. When someone interacts with your posts, you see their name listed and can click on it to visit their profile.

Now that you can see who is interacting with your posts, you can keep track of your users. You can decide whether the person is a potential customer, the competition or possible employee.

Once you know a bit about the person, you can reach out and introduce yourself to them and encourage an ongoing relationship.

You can spy on the competition

LinkedIn provides the perfect avenue to see what’s going on at your competitor’s company page. You gain some insight into their business, future products and even industry trends.

By learning what’s going on business-wise with your competitors, you can position yourself to rise above and meet the competition head-on with your own marketing content.

As a startup, you’ll gain understanding and learn what makes your competitor successful or not so successful. Don’t forget, though – if you’re watching them, odds are they’re watching you.

Your startup gains credibility

Endorsements are a respectable way to gain credibility for your startup.

Credibility is one of the traits that separates the successful startup from the failure. If you’re trying to convince someone to finance you or to purchase your product or service, they especially want to know if your business is legitimate and honest.

LinkedIn Endorsements can provide this credibility. One way to make this work for you is to endorse or commend your colleagues or others on LinkedIn and ask for their feedback in return.

This is a great tool for startups in the first year. Once your startup has some recommendations, you are instantly deemed trustworthy and viable.

To use recommendations to your advantage, you’ll want to make this an active part of your startup’s marketing strategy. You can solicit recommendations, but be sure to return them in kind.

Recommendations have the potential to garner a lot of attention rather quickly. You can even use the recommendations on your website, social media and email marketing.

Reach out to people already on LinkedIn with recommendations of their own because odds are their network is strong, and you’ll benefit from it.

Final thoughts

LinkedIn needs to be a part of your startup’s marketing strategy. We do want to emphasize that you’ll need to be patient and make a long-term commitment to your LinkedIn marketing strategy for the best success.

Your marketing strategy on LinkedIn should include time for your ongoing management, posting, monitoring and analysis. It should also include time for revisions and adjustments to your strategy.

Here are a few steps to follow when creating your business presence on LinkedIn:
• Create a LinkedIn company page.
• Use intriguing graphics and text that mirror your website.
• Invite your employees, clients, customers, vendors, partners, friends and family to follow your page.
• Use LinkedIn paid advertising to promote your page and sponsor your updates. Use targeting to reach additional people.
• Create a plan for soliciting recommendations from LinkedIn influencers.
• Create posts that are interesting about your industry or business. Don’t try to sell on LinkedIn. This is the place to discuss the business side of your startup.

LinkedIn, like other social media channels, isn’t something you set and forget. It requires a commitment to your marketing strategy as you work toward your goals.

Now that you know why LinkedIn needs to be a part of your startup’s marketing strategy, it’s time to get to work!

Are you a new startup? Are you looking to get your new business off the ground and watch it rise to success? We are here for you. We can help answer your questions and guide you through the process. Outsource your finances, payroll, HR duties and more to us. Contact Escalon today to get started.
Image: Olu Eletu