In the third installment of our social media for ecommerce series, we’re going to look at the business benefits of reaching out to potential customers through LinkedIn.
While you might have a personal account on LinkedIn, it’s important not to ignore the potential of your business as a whole via the social network. Setting up a company page is a great way to raise your profile, as well as include information and updates that may not be appropriate for your own profile page.
Once your company page is set up, the next task is to fill it with relevant, interesting content – and not just to launch it initially. Every time you have a new product, special offer or blog post on your main ecommerce site, make sure you post an update on LinkedIn so your connections know what’s going on. It’s a great way to drive traffic through to your site.
Imagery is really important when creating LinkedIn posts, particularly if you’re advertising products or services. Try to incorporate photographs into as many posts as possible. Videos also work well.
With all the content you post, it’s important to bear in mind the end user. The biggest trap that ecommerce companies fall into when promoting themselves on LinkedIn is thinking about what THEY want to push, rather than considering what will be of interest to their followers. The more relevant and exclusive the content, the more likely you are to attract new followers and increase your brand influence through social media.
In addition to sharing interesting content, LinkedIn is a fantastic digital networking platform. The paid, premium service offers networking features as standard, but even within the free of charge profile there is opportunity to increase the profile of your business.
For example, promote content from your company page to your personal contacts, by messaging them directly. One effective business-building technique is to pick 10 contacts to message each day. Make sure you spend the time crafting bespoke correspondence, and contact them with an update that they will find genuinely useful – not just a generic sales plug. The more effort you put into individual lead nurturing, the more you’ll get out.
Of course, no outreach can take place without measurement, which is why it’s important to analyze all your activities on LinkedIn. The website’s ‘page statistics’ section contains some very useful tools, such as monthly page views and visitors segmented by demographic. The more information you learn about who’s visiting your page, and which content they’re engaging with, the easier it becomes to effectively tailor your communications strategy.
And finally, it’s important to remember that there are no true short cuts when building your presence on a social network like LinkedIn. Rather than looking for ‘quick fix’ results, you should be focusing your efforts on a long-term content strategy – one that looks to keep your contacts engaged, rather than grabbing their attention for a few minutes before losing it again.