While other social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram command a lot of time and attention from small business owners, there’s another platform that often flies under the radar.

LinkedIn is a powerful platform for service-based and product-based B2B business that can offer a direct line of communication to your ideal customers, with an algorithm that will work in your favour if you use it correctly.

In this article, we’re going to explore how you can use your professional (personal) LinkedIn profile to build a network of potential customers and raving fans for your business. 

Step #1: Refresh Your LinkedIn Profile

If you’d like to turn your LinkedIn profile into an enquiry-generating, website traffic driving machine you’ve got to first take a good hard look at your profile and ask yourself the following questions:

  • If someone landed on my profile, would they trust me?
  • If someone landed on my profile, would my level of expertise be clear?
  • If someone landed on my profile, would they know what value I could offer them?
  • If someone landed on my profile, would they know how and where to contact me?

Review your LinkedIn profile and carefully tweak different areas including your LinkedIn headline, LinkedIn banner, experience listings and contact details. 

Make sure that everything is up to date and works in tandem to encourage the viewer of your profile to connect with you and learn more about who you are and what you do.

Step #2: Write a Compelling Personal Summary

Your LinkedIn personal summary is one of the greatest opportunities you have to share who you are and what you have to offer. 

This is the place for you to share your career highlights, information on your business and the value you provide to customers and clients, and it can even be the place where you offer the reader something. A link to an opt-in, a free discovery call, a discount code and a link to where they could purchase your products.

Step #3: Create Content Consistently

To build up your LinkedIn network and become known as a trusted expert in your niche or industry, you’ve got to create content.

On LinkedIn there are a heap of ways you can create and share content including:

  • LinkedIn articles
  • LinkedIn documents
  • LinkedIn polls
  • LinkedIn video posts
  • LinkedIn text posts
  • LinkedIn image posts

You can also use a tool like Buffer to schedule your LinkedIn profile posts in advance so that you stay consistent and on message.

When sharing content to LinkedIn be sure to include 2-3 hashtags in your posts that relate to your niche or industry.

As comments start rolling in be sure to respond and keep the conversation going. The more you can engage with your audience, the more likely it is that they’ll come back and engage with future posts.

Step #4: Connect With Your Ideal Customers

As a business owner you’ll likely have an idea of the kind of person who would be most likely to purchase your products and services. With LinkedIn you can search for people to connect with who work in specific industries, have specific roles and even work for specific companies.

When connecting with others on LinkedIn it’s important to avoid going straight to the direct sale – no-one likes being sold to straight off the bat. Instead, work to connect with the right people (with personalised invites) and over time build a relationship by engaging with their content when you see it in your newsfeed.

Ideally you’ll want to spend at least 30 minutes a week seeking out new people to connect with on LinkedIn so that you can grow your personal brand awareness and industry reputation.

Step #5: Get Your Team Involved

To maximise your LinkedIn marketing results as a business it’s worthwhile involving your team. 

When employees and team members build their LinkedIn presence and use it to amplify branded content like blog posts it can lead to an increase in warm leads for your business. 

This is a particularly useful approach if you have a sales team who need to get in touch with decision makers but are struggling with cold calls and other traditional sales approaches. LinkedIn network building will help your sales team to build their own network of potential customers while also improving brand awareness for your business. It’s a win-win.

Sales teams can also make use of LinkedIn features like InMail and LinkedIn Sales Navigator to get in front of the right people.