It’s proved very popular – with over 28% of the Irish online population being regular users.

It is the perfect place to access decision makers in the world of business.  With access to such a willing target market there are certainly opportunities available to market your product.

Profiles

The first think you must get right is your own profile.  You are representing your brand so the profile photo should be professional and your profile should give a clear description of what you do.  You should look to encourage your team to also create their own LinkedIn profiles which will show them as part of your brand.

Company Pages

Once you have promoted yourself you need to showcase your company.  By creating a company page you can explain what you do and tell a little about the personality behind the brand.  Optimise the profile with a logo, a great cover photo, contact details and a link to your website.

Get everybody that works in the team to link to the company page so they can share company news with their connections.  A good online company presence on LinkedIn will help when trying to recruit the best new talent to your company.

Updates

Keep your company page active by sharing blogs from your website.  By sharing news worthy, helpful information that is interesting you will engage with people on this valuable social channel.  You can share other industry blogs but don’t forget to comment on them and add your opinion to make it more personal.   Other things to share are presentations or industry white papers, don’t hide them away, become an industry thought leader.

Groups

Another way to meet and engage with people that may become clients is to join an industry group on the platform, or even start one yourself.  This is a great way for people to notice you and you can network within the group to generate leads and connections for business.

Advertising

This channel gives you access to decision makers and could be an ideal place for you to advertise.  You can have quite specific targeting by industry and job title which is ideal for industry specific products.  Use the analytics function to see how well your updates are doing and consider sponsoring one to drive brand awareness.

Consumers

Remember behind that suit and that job title all these people are human and they are potential consumers.  So if your product is something you sell directly to consumers (B2C) don’t automatically dismiss LinkedIn as being a platform not suitable for you.

It is also worth noting that LinkedIn results can appear in google search.  This added SEO benefit alone will make it something worth considering.

However, a word of warning 

Be careful, LinkedIn is not a sales channel but a networking platform.  The tone here is one of sharing useful information in a business setting and not a hard sell.  By all means brag about your wonderful brand, team and product but don’t do the sales pitch until you meet in person.

Hopefully you will now consider LinkedIn as one of your social media channels for your business.  Go head, create a professional online shopfront for your company on LinkedIn.  Be proud of who you are and tell the world.