As a small business owner you are probably too busy to spend time online and using social media platforms. However, if you can learn to leverage them and your time they can increase your businesses ROI. Many small business owners I know have heard of LinkedIn, or been invited to join LinkedIn but don’t know what it is or see its value. As you read on hopefully you’ll get a better understanding of the value and if it’s a good platform for your business.
Important LinkedIn Stats:
- LinkedIn has over 2,000,000 users, these users are largely professionals.
- Many of the users are decision makers, or have direct access to the decision makers.
- Over 200 countries are represented
- 49% of its users have an average household income over 100K – The average income for Twitter and Facebook are $58,060 and $61,000.
- Journalist use LinkedIn for research.
What these stats mean for the small business owner?
Before I answer that question I’d like to explain a little about the environment on LinkedIn. It’s not your typical social media with people sharing about where they are going, what they ate or posting funny cat pictures. It’s a place where professionals and job seekers connect with one another and share information pertinent to their industry or to businesses in general. Now back to the stats, with over 2,000,000 users think of the networking/ connecting potentials. When used properly, you could spend a few minutes each day connecting with others and putting out information to keep your name visible in front of others. You could do this in addition to or in lieu of a physical networking event that would take you a couple of hours. Because of the access to decision makers, is likely you’re talking to the person who can make the decision and they don’t have to go check with someone else. Powerful, yes? If what you have to offer is global rather than or in addition to local you have access to people in over 200 countries, something difficult to do just 20 years ago. If you have a high end product users on LinkedIn are more likely to have the funds to buy it. Since journalists use it for their research, there’s the possibility you’ll be found and get some free press. Hopefully this helps you to see the benefits of LinkedIn for the small business owner.
Is LinkedIn Right for Your Small Business?
Some of the businesses that I think can benefit from LinkedIn are those that provide B2B products & services, high end products, insurance, real estate and legal to name a few. To use LinkedIn you first need to set up your profile. There are strategies to this which I can help you with or you could use a program that I recommend by Louis Howes called LinkedInfluence. Like any social media platform it requires maintenance and participation, see my article Social Media Content and Frequency. Part of using LinkedIn is making connections, feel free to connect with me there BUT change up the automated response request and let me know that you read the Linkedin post on my blog and would like me to join your connections. In case you missed it that was another tip on how to use LinkedIn, personalize/change the default sentence that LinkedIn provides. If you found this helpful, let me know below.
