With over 350 million members, LinkedIn is the most powerful place to create and build a presence for your B2B (Business to Business) company.

What can you do on LinkedIn? Why use LinkedIn versus other social platforms like Facebook

Why Your Business Social Media Efforts Should Focus on LinkedIn

Top platform for B2B

B2B businesses and marketers love LinkedIn. Not only can you create an individual profile, but you can also create a Company page.

Plus, LinkedIn users are business professionals – it is the 3rd most used social platform by business owners. Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest have a more varied user base and are used for more social purposes.

Worldwide Reach for Your Next Product Launch

LinkedIn makes it easy to connect with individuals around the globe. In fact LinkedIn features users from over 200 countries and territories and is available in 20 languages.

There are stats that suggest LinkedIn is now the premiere platform to use for product launches among B2B businesses.

Access to Influential Individuals

Want to catch the attention of a VIP? Try LinkedIn. Mention something flattering about their book, program, or latest article and they will notice.

LinkedIn also makes it easy to connect with high profile individuals through InMail, a service available for Premium Account holders.

If your ideal target market is the affluent, 41% of millionaires use LinkedIn. Plus LinkedIn users are active with over 40% of users checking it daily.

Generate Leads

LinkedIn is a goldmine for generating leads; it drives 80% of B2B social media leads.

Studies show that LinkedIn is 277% more effective for lead generation than Facebook and Twitter.

Virtual Networking Made Easy

LinkedIn makes it so easy to connect with the people in your network regularly. It’s fast and easy to grab a cup of coffee and check in with colleagues, prospects, and centers of influence.

This is your opportunity to congratulate people on promotions, send a message to connections, flatter someone by endorsing them for a skill, like someone’s status updates, or write a recommendation.

And since it’s virtual, it saves time, gas, and calories from those Mocha Lattés at coffee shops!

Continue with the networking effort by sending your new connections a quick message to say hello and ask more about what they do.

Grow Your Network Fast

It’s very easy to add new and meaningful connections to your network. Go to the page of someone you know and click ‘Connect.’ Avoid using LinkedIn’s generic introduction blurb and write something specific for that person and your reason for connecting.

You can also go into the “Connections” section and look on your existing connection’s profile to see their connections and ask them to introduce you.

Showcase Your Thought Leadership

Show your brilliance with quotes, articles, and original articles by adding them as a Pulse post. Pulse is very similar to a blog and this feature and its benefits are not offered on the other common platforms like Facebook or Twitter.

You can write about industry changes, trends, or lessons you’ve learned in business. Participate in discussion forums by being friendly and answering people’s questions.

LinkedIn Groups also provide you with an opportunity to showcase your expertise by posting informative posts and responding to others’ with insightful comments.

Credibility

Social proof is powerful to build trust with your ideal target market. LinkedIn Recommendations earn confidence with recruiters, customers, and joint venture partners. Giving and receiving recommendations also helps members strengthen their profiles.

The Skills and Endorsements section can also help build credibility through others endorsing your key skills.

Employment Recruiting Opportunities

LinkedIn is widely known for its job hunting capabilities. In the past four years, there has been an extensive increase in job postings, which means qualified candidates are also turning to LinkedIn to find their next dream job.

Step Up Your LinkedIn Results
One step in leveraging your LinkedIn results is to optimize your LinkedIn profile. If you’d like to learn how to do this and how to drive traffic, sales and leads without spending hours a day on LinkedIn, join our Social Blast group.

It’s our online social media and marketing membership program that teachers you what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. We’re doing a 4-part series on LinkedIn starting October 20, 2015 that you won’t want to miss.

I’ll be covering how to fully optimize your LinkedIn profile, how to get the most out of LinkedIn Groups, how to get qualified leads and how to expand your brand reach and influence. I promise you’ll learn a lot in this series!

Check out SOCIAL BLAST here: www.socialblastcoaching.com

Author's Bio: 

Susan Friesen is the founder of eVision Media, a boutique web development and Digital Marketing firm of over 15 years that specializes in designing, building and marketing professional, unique websites for entrepreneurs, businesses and organizations.