Check Out Some Excellent LinkedIn Hacks for Your Small Business

So you’ve decided to join LinkedIn, or maybe you already have your resume on it. But your company isn’t there yet. And you might think you’re all set. After all, it’s just a small business, right? It’s just you, maybe. You may think you do not really need any LinkedIn hacks for your small business.

Think again.

LinkedIn can do a lot for your small business, if you are willing to invest a little time. So take a look at these LinkedIn hacks for your small business.

LinkedIn Hacks for Your Small Business: 5. Add Your Business

Even if all you do is add the name of your business, it will still help you. But why? It is because you can use LinkedIn to start to differentiate your business from others with similar names. If your business is XYZ, Inc., is that the one in Utah or the one in Hawaii? What does your company do?

LinkedIn Hacks for Your Small Business: More Benefits of Adding Your Business

Listing your business also means that:

• The company name is spelled correctly. And this includes whether it is an LLC or a corporation.
• The company page is clickable in your profile
• When you hire more people, they will also be listed under your company. But this is only true if they make sure to add their experience with you to their own profiles.

LinkedIn Hacks for Your Small Business: Another Vital Reason Why You Should Add Your Business

And if you do not list your business, not only will it not be found, but LinkedIn’s matching software might accidentally say you are working for a business with a similar name. Awkward.

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LinkedIn Hacks for Your Small Business: 4.  Enhance Your Business’s Profile

Just adding your company’s name and address is helpful. But you will do better if you start to add more detail. What does your company do? Have you been in the news lately? Even the local news is helpful.

Does your company have a blog? The more information you can provide, the more interesting your company is to prospective employees and clients. And it is even more interesting to people who might offer to buy your business.

Small Business LinkedIn Tips and Tricks: Leveraging Search With Your Business Listing

Pro tip: make sure to refer to your company’s purpose in as many different ways as you can. This is because this information is all searchable. Here, you want to account for what people might be searching for when they find your business. For example, for a law firm, you might write:

We are experienced attorneys. Contact our lawyers today.

While that is not terribly exciting copy, it gets across one vital piece of information: two common ways to say lawyer.

So consider all the ways people might search. If your company is in the Chicago suburbs, you might want to mention it’s in Chicagoland, which is a recognized name for that area.

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LinkedIn Hacks for Your Small Business: 2. LinkedIn Pulse

LinkedIn Pulse is where you can get stories from major thought leaders (think Bill Gates) or well-known publications, such as Entrepreneur.

And you can also contribute! Now, there is no guarantee you will have an audience, much like there are no guarantees of an audience anywhere else online. But do not count out LinkedIn Pulse just yet! It is a great way to start to establish yourself as a thought leader in your particular industry.

What should you write about? Anything, so long as it is not too sales-y. Hence you can by all means mention something your company is expert at. But it is not likely to be such a great idea to just blast out a demand for people to buy your stuff or your services.

As a result, the best content is going to be instructive or newsworthy, for the most part. If you are, say, a long haul trucker, you might want to comment on the best stops you have been to on the way. And if you are a residential real estate agent, maybe you want to weigh in on interest rates, as they directly impact mortgages.

LinkedIn Hacks for Your Small Business: 3. Add Updates

Got a new piece of equipment? Branching out to a new market? Moving to a new location? Hired new people? Celebrating someone’s retirement? Then while you are announcing all of that everywhere else, do not forget about LinkedIn. You can even showcase an employee’s non-work-related milestone or achievement, such as:

• Congratulations to Erik and his wife, Dale, on the birth of their second child, Emma.
• We are cheering on Susan as she runs her first triathlon!
• We are happy to announce last year’s summer intern, Chuck, has been accepted to the University of Idaho. He will be studying chemical engineering.
• We are so thrilled that Molly has published her first novel!

LinkedIn provides metrics on your updates. So if one was really popular, try to write another one that is similar.

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LinkedIn Hacks for Your Small Business: 1. Upload a SlideShare

While you are in LinkedIn, make sure to head on over to SlideShare. To contribute, all you need to do is click Upload and drag and drop your slideshow. SlideShare even provides tips and tricks to help you design your very best slideshow. People probably will not be too interested in a flat-out ad for your business. So why not showcase something related to it, which adapts well to slides?

If your business is a bakery, show how icing can be made from scratch. And provide the recipe. If your business is construction, show before, after, and ‘in progress’ images from your latest job. And if your business is flipping houses, show before and after shots. If you teach piano, why not show slides of you playing a difficult piece? The subject matter is only limited by your imagination.

LinkedIn Hacks for Your Small Business: Bonus: LinkedIn Advertising

You should be seriously considering advertising on LinkedIn.

Upsides

According to LinkedIn, there are over 600 million professionals on the platform. That is a lot of people!

A good 180 million of them are senior-level influences.  Hence about 30% of everyone on LinkedIn could conceivably be project owners or drivers in their respective companies. So you will not be wasting time with             quite so many people who might not have too much clout at their businesses.

10 million are C-level executives (CEO, etc.).

And, more importantly, a good 80% of them drive business decisions. As a result, advertising on LinkedIn is likely going to be better-targeted than ads on either Twitter or Facebook. Note: it does not replace ads on either of those two other platforms.

Another piece of good news is that members of LinkedIn have twice the buying power of your average social media audience.

Per the platform, it is the #1 B2B lead generating platform.

More Upsides

Another big upside is the ability to run your ad optimized for any device.  Hence your message will look good on tablets, desk top computers, lap top computers, and smart phones. You can also send personalized messages to people’s LinkedIn inboxes.

Yet another upside is that a decent minority of LinkedIn undoubtedly has a great deal of personal purchasing power. These are people who can afford fine imported wine, exotic vacations, and luxury cars.

The site offers targeting options and decent recorded metrics.

Downsides

But if your business is more B2C (business to consumer), you may find LinkedIn less than optimal for your advertising needs. You may still want to consider it although, if say you run a local nail salon, then LinkedIn advertising is most likely not going to help.

But if your business is more B2B, such as providing catering for businesses, or the like, LinkedIn advertising should be right up your alley. You will also tend to do well if you sell luxury goods, even if they are not 100% business-related. After all business owners go on vacation, too.

LinkedIn Hacks for Your Small Business: Takeaways

Just like every other social media platform out there, LinkedIn has its own look and feel. And it has its own personality. LinkedIn tends to be more sedate. So you are not going to score big points for the same kind of frantic posting you might do on Snapchat or Twitter.

At the same time, LinkedIn is a lot less image-heavy when you compare it to Pinterest or Instagram. While you always need to use good images, they can be a little less stellar than on those other platforms.

So get going on LinkedIn and get hacking! You’ve got prospects, future employees, and maybe future buyers or partners waiting!