4 Ideas on Howto do Business Marketing on LinkedIn

LinkedIn has more than 134 million members. It has changed how we connect, even though most users are not as active as on Facebook and Twitter, there are some great opportunities worth exploring.

I have compiled ideas on how to do your business marketing on LinkedIn through starting a groups,posting events, engage in Q&A and straight up advertising.

Groups
This is the favorite activity on LinkedIn, by creating a group you will be on your way to generate leads and promote your business to other professionals. When starting s group, keep the following in mind:

• Find a niche topic in your industry that creates pain which correlates with what your business offer
• Name the group in a way that describe the topic, not the name of your business
• Promote the group in your other marketing channels and invite your brand champions in to comment and promote discussions
• Have a content and activity plan, what messages, how often and how will you moderate group discussions
• And as a bonus, use the best discussions and questions in blog post or to develop new products and services to you customers.

Events
Post your events with a short description and link to a registration page. Here is a few tips:

• Link the event to your company LinkedIn page
• Direct potential attendees to click on “I’m attending” this will make you show up on their timeline and for their friends to find out about your event
• Set up the event early in the planning process to give everyone (sponsors, speakers, volunteers…) an opportunity to “attend”

Questions and Answers
This is the largest professional Q&A site there is. Here you have an opportunity to connect, position yourself as an expert within your field and build credibility. A few tips though:

• Interact regularly, daily or weekly
• Pick the subjects and be a heavy hitter on these specific topics Be helpful and point to resources
• Be careful not to push your products constantly
• Look for opportunities to reuse your answers in blog posts

Advertising
You are addressing a specific audience of professionals and similar to Google Adwords you bid as to how often your text ad will appear at the top, right under LinkedIn navigation menu or the sidebar with your logo next to it. Here is a few tips on how to manage your advertising in LinkedIn:

• The headline is 25 caracters and the body 75, so be short, compelling and direct
• Test – use A/B testing to test performance of different messages. Your minimum spent per day is $10.00 so it is affordable to test
• Pay attention to fatigue, you may have to change content weekly to keep up performance

According to LinkedIn their audience is more affluent than the leading business magazines, there is a huge value in this network. Leverage these techniques and test it out for yourself.