How To Use LinkedIn For Your Business - 3 Tips For Getting Started

LinkedIn. It might not be as sexy as Instagram or Pinterest or even Facebook, but your business might be missing out on some huge money by not using it in your business strategy. In today's video, I've got a LinkedIn expert here to share with you three ways you can up your LinkedIn game to start raking in some more sales. Hey guys, my name is Trena. If you are new here and welcome to another episode of Just the Tips on on this channel, I help online entrepreneurs by providing them tips and tutorials on how they can use video content to grow their business and make YouTube and video seem more possible for even the novice video creator. Let me know in the comments below if you're currently using LinkedIn. Have you tried it out? Do you think it's too buttoned up? Let me know down in the comments your idea of LinkedIn and let me pass it on over to Becky, who's going to tell us all about the importance of having a LinkedIn account for our business.

Hi, I'm Becky Mollenkamp. I'm a business mentor who works with female entrepreneurs who are ready to level up and crush their goals. Today I'm going to talk to you about LinkedIn and how you can use it to grow your small business. I'll share three strategies that you can implement today to start leveraging the network. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you so much, Trina, for having me. Let's get started. So you might be thinking, I've been using LinkedIn for years, Becky, and it does not work. It's never gotten me any business. I hear you and I hear that a lot. But usually when I go and do some checking, I find out the people that are saying that aren't actually using the site, they threw up their credentials a few years ago and then they've never really checked it again. Does that sound familiar? Here's the truth. LinkedIn works if you know how to work it. It's the largest professional network online and it can be an amazing lead generation tool. Are you tired of chasing after the same small business owners as all of your competitors? The ones with small budgets and who are counting every penny? The ones who don't always pay on time. I get it because I'm one of those people and I think working with small business owners is great. But sometimes it's nice to expand your network and work with other clients as well. People with bigger budgets who pay on time and are more likely to give you repeat work and work on retainers for some stability, LinkedIn's directly responsible for about half of my income or more. And every year. Last year, two of my biggest clients found me through LinkedIn, not the other way around, and those two alone accounted for about $40,000 of my income. Last month, I signed on another big client who's on a retainer for about $2,000 every month. And just this week I've had two new inquiries of people who found me through LinkedIn. It can work. So why do I have so much success with LinkedIn when other people don't? It's because I actually use the site. It's not just an online resume for me. I really engage with the network. Ready to learn more? Great. Let's get started. I'm going to share with you three of my best tips for making LinkedIn work for your business. Now, if you're like most people, you don't have a strategy for LinkedIn, and that's a mistake. When you're doing things haphazardly without intention, you're usually not going to get great results. That's true of any networking or marketing effort you take easy to blame the platform, but really it's lack of planning that's at fault. To make the most of LinkedIn, have a plan. Think about the kinds of people that are on LinkedIn that might need your services. And remember, this can be different than the type of people that might find you through Facebook or another social network. So think about what are the questions they are asking themselves or the problems that they're having that they're looking for someone like you? What are the keywords they're going to be using to search for someone who does what you do on LinkedIn? Write down all of these words and phrases and then come up with a list of about 10. This is going to be what you use to inform everything that you write on LinkedIn, from your profile to any content you share. One of the best ways to make your presence on LinkedIn dynamic and interactive is to share content, whether that's through status updates or as original articles, or best of all, both. This is a step that most solopreneurs skip entirely, and then those who are doing it aren't really targeting their messages. Well, both are mistakes. Your LinkedIn content should start with your strategy and you should know why you're using content on LinkedIn, who are you trying to reach, and what message do you want to send. If you don't know that, then you're going to be tempted to just cut and paste your content from other Social sites. But that's not always the best plan. I know people think of LinkedIn as being really stuffy, buttoned up and boring, and maybe it is, but it's actually the magic of the site. There's no cat photos or funny memes. It is about work. Everyone there is in a professional mode with their professional hats on. And when they're there looking for you, they're looking for you as a potential partner or someone to hire. And that's a good thing. But you need to make sure your content is addressing them correctly. If you're not sharing the kind of content they're looking for when they're in business mode, then you're not giving them what they need and they're not going to respond. So start sharing content on LinkedIn, but do it with a plan. Think about the language you're using and the types of topics you're covering. You want to show off that you know your stuff, you're the expert in your field, and that people can go to you when they need help. Start with maybe one status update a day, which you can easily schedule in something like hootsuite, and then one original article a month. That's an easy place to start and plan out for. And then you can add on when you have more time or when you start to better understand the platform. And I promise you, just making this change will make a difference in your level of engagement and the number of people that are checking out your profile. LinkedIn is built on a foundation of connections. The more people in your network, the better. That's because the more connections you have, the more visible you will be. Your name will only show up in searches when you are directly or indirectly connected to the person doing that search. Also, your content is only going to be appearing in the feeds of people you're connected with, but if they like and share it, then it shows up in their connections feeds. The more people you're connected with, the more you get seen. So if you want to be found, you need to be constantly adding new connections. The people who have the Most success with LinkedIn are the ones for whom adding new connections is a knee jerk reaction. They meet someone professionally and they immediately go and add them on LinkedIn. And one more note, failing to personalize that message that goes out to someone when you connect with them is a big mistake. It's easy to just use the auto generated message that LinkedIn will send, but then that just shows someone you don't really care. Also, it's missing an opportunity to start a conversation and show off your expertise. So take a little time, look at their profile, mention something that they do or that you guys have in common and then give them a very short one line about what you do and ask if you can help them. So there you have it. Three ways that you can improve your LinkedIn profile and start using it to generate business I hope these tips have been helpful. I can't really cover everything there is to know about LinkedIn in a video like this, but if you're really interested in doing that deep dive and learning how you can truly, truly use LinkedIn to boost your business, then visit this link and learn more about my course. And Trina, thanks again so much for giving me this opportunity.

If you are Running over to LinkedIn to update your profile, give this video a thumbs up. Thanks Becky for those great tips. As I run over to LinkedIn, I will leave all of Becky's information down in the description box below. Thank you guys so much for watching and I will see you in the next video. Bye.