LinkedIn offers many features that can help people in business achieve their goals of growing their sales. It’s one of the largest marketing tools that everyone in any niche should be using.
Not using it is turning your back on access to millions of people. Where else can you get that kind of advertising for your business? Once you’re signed up with LinkedIn, you want to join groups as soon as possible.
Target Your Groups
Now you don’t want to join groups randomly – that would be a waste of your time. You want to join groups that are specifically rich with members of your target audience. Join ones that pertain to your industry. This is the way you build networking opportunities.
Once you’re involved in the group (and you can narrow the industry groups down further by niche groups) build a presence there. Make sure that you’re active. No one likes a lurker that takes and never gives back.
Share Your Knowledge
Get involved in group discussions and share your knowledge, paying close attention to the question, “What’s in it for me?” and give back each time you post. People appreciate those who give and they’ll learn to look to you as the nice guy or gal, the expert, the go-to person who has the answer for their questions.
You can use groups to get feedback, which can help streamline a marketing campaign. You’ll get insight (by participating in the discussions) into what the target audience thinks and what they’re looking for to help them in their own journey.
This information will help you understand the best way to market your product. It’s a great (and free) way to get your market research done before launching a product, too. Make sure that you have a business blog that links back to the websites selling your products.
When you’re a member of a group on LinkedIn, you can put a link in your group so that every time you add to your blog, it will show up in the group. For example, if you write a blog about the latest Internet marketing product and how you think it will make their job easier (or not), that blog will post the link to the group. But the key here is that your blog link is getting viewed by thousands of potential customers.
Start Your Own Group
When you’re not the group owner, you don’t have the same freedom and it’s not all about your business. You can change that by starting a group of your own. The number one reason for this is because it moves targeted traffic your way – letting people get to know you, learn about your product, visit your site, and more.
When the group is set up, it’s a free advertising tool for you and introduces thousands of others to your circle of potential leads where you can build relationships. Building relationships builds trust, which works to sway decisions when it comes to who to buy from – the guy they know in their LinkedIn group or the guy they’ve never heard about but stumbled across.
Groups are almost never stale – they’re always growing and always adding new members because LinkedIn continues to grow. LinkedIn hit the mark for over 100 million users. That’s quite a potential field where you can sow the seeds of your business and you don’t want to miss out!
