5 ways linkedin can help your online businessWhen it comes to marketing your online business and promoting growth, most organizations think of Facebook. It’s one of the more populated and lucrative forms of marketing, but it’s not the only medium that can be used. Ignoring some of the other social networks is a sure way to ignore traffic and leads that can grow your business. LinkedIn is one platform that can do a lot for your business growth.

For many businesses, particularly those in the B2B category, LinkedIn is their go-to platform for growth. According to statistics from the social network, 91 percent of B2B marketers use LinkedIn to distribute content. What’s more, 90 percent of social traffic for B2B blogs is driven by Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts for more than half of that traffic. Finally, B2B marketers consider LinkedIn their most effective social network for lead generation with 93 percent of marketers rating it effective.

As you can see, the effectiveness of LinkedIn for businesses is varied and can have some incredible benefits for your organization. These benefits only come when you know the proper way to use the platform, however. Here are some of the top ways businesses can use LinkedIn for growth and prosperity.

1. Find Highly Targeted Customers

LinkedIn has mastered the targeting aspect of finding customers. It gives companies the ability to discover consumers interested in their industry based on things like company size, job role, product searches, and more relevant information that draws customers directly to them.

Both B2B and B2C companies can make real connections and discover names of those who actually want to be customers. The connections and relationships built from this network tend to be more valuable than those from other networks because the customers are targeted as those who want to buy.

2. Hire Top Quality Employees

A big reason companies use LinkedIn is to recruit top talent in the industry. It can connect companies with both passive and active job seekers, which gives you the opportunity to find experienced talent, even from those who may not be looking.

Park West Gallery, one of the largest art galleries, uses their LinkedIn page primarily to market towards top talent. They prefer to employ the finest, and they’ve found that top talent is often best found through this platform.

3. Grow Email Marketing

You can pull from your highly targeted connections to build your email-marketing list. Write a crafted letter that thanks connections for connecting with a company, and then ask if they would like to be part of your email marketing list. You can message as much as 50 people in this way.

You can reciprocate the request if need be in order to get more people in your corner. You might offer to look at a deliverable of theirs or try a product from another company to gain a bigger connection.

4. Network as a Business

Most people think of LinkedIn as a platform in which they can make connections with companies for job prospects and educational purposes. However, it can also be used to network with other organizations. As a business owner, you have the potential to build a community that can help you find new customers, encourage conversions, and learn tactics that can boost your business.

Connections can also be made directly with potential clients or customers. This is a great way for you to build real relationships with your leads. When you’re able to nurture specific connections and grow your relations with customers, it creates long-term customers, which is the fastest way to both grow and maintain your business profits.

5. Get Recommended

LinkedIn is the best platform there is for getting people to recommend your products or services. They have an endorsement section that focuses on proving your skill set and encouraging others to use your business, something that’s invaluable in marketing. It might be bragging and hard to prove if you say something impressive about your business, but if others say it, people will actually believe you.

Use your network of customers and clients to get reviews. They can talk about your strengths and gloss over your weaknesses so that others will feel more comfortable doing business with you. This is vital since word of mouth marketing is the most effective form of marketing and 74 percent of consumers identify word of mouth as a major influence on their purchases, according to Adweek.

LinkedIn is one of the most useful, but underestimated methods for growing your business. With some emphasis on the right tactics and an understanding of your many opportunities through the LinkedIn platform, you can see significant growth.