How To Use LinkedIn Marketing To Grow a Powerful Business Network

Why Are More Businesses Now Using LinkedIn?

Digital marketing is already a top trend in the world of businesses. Rizgar says that platforms like LinkedIn were also present a decade ago, but there have been sharp trend changes in recent times. Particularly since the rise of COVID-19, everybody was sitting home at some point in time, and the businesses wanted to reach their potential clients and customers. The pandemic significantly accelerated the shift towards online and digital marketing.

And the reason for the increasing usage of LinkedIn by businesses, apart from the pandemic and the need towards building an online presence, was the nature of the platform itself. LinkedIn sets itself apart from other social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram in some unique ways. It is more professional, more business-oriented, and offers job and employment opportunities. Companies can use it to build a compelling branding profile, interact with other businesses

professionally, and use it for hiring purposes. LinkedIn is an effective platform for business-to-business marketing and even personal advertising.

How to Use LinkedIn for Networking of Your Business?

Rizgar gives an example of how did we network before LinkedIn or other platforms. It was physical, such as going on events or seminars. When people found out someone who had similar interests, they discussed things together and built business relationships. What happens now as well. But just that doesn’t work, a company’s digital presence is more important than ever before. It is the combination that works. And online networking is equally, if not more important.

1. Connect with Personalized Messages:

The first step is obviously building an excellent profile on LinkedIn. Then you have to connect with people. Rizgar says that including a personalized note when connecting with someone makes a fantastic impression on your networking strength. You may also get connections by just hitting the connect button, but you know what, everybody does that. Write a personalized message, telling them why they would want to connect with them. Tell them that you liked something they posted, their profile reflects common interests with you, or something that makes them see you as a unique connection.

2. Use the Engagement Strategy:

To build a community around you, you need to engage with other people and businesses. Connect with people in your industry and interact with their posts. Liking or reacting to a post is the least you should do. There are more effective ways of fruitful engagements. Give your ideas, opinions, and insights regarding their posts. Or maybe write some words of appreciation. Help people around you. You can write your own posts and share others too. Make your presence valuable to your community. Connecting with people on a deeper level will make them turn back to you.

3, Overcome the Fear:

If you’re one of those who are shy from interacting or probably fear being wrong or vulnerable to insults, you have to overcome it. Your business or even personal growth isn’t achievable without networking. In the pharma industry especially, people may avoid posting their ideas much as it is a sensitive field. However, Rizgar recommends that you start interacting with the people you feel most comfortable with. Have LinkedIn on your phone and whenever you get five minutes, open it and interact with those people. Congratulate them on their successful milestones, ask questions, test things out. Take 10 minutes per day and begin to expand your engagement. React, comment, and share your ideas. Doing this for a month will make you much more open, and you can carry on actively.

4. Quality over Quantity of Connections:

Having ten meaningful connections instead of hundreds of unknown ones is much better. LinkedIn encourages you to connect only with the people you know. And there is a limit of the number of connections you can make in a specific time limit. Now, what is knowing? Well, you can’t personally know everyone. Rizgar says that it means knowing what their vision, goals, and interests are. People and companies in the same industry as you or who work in the same organization would want to connect with them. Knowing can be through virtual relationships.

How to Use LinkedIn for Personal Branding?

Personal branding is one step forward from solid networking. When you’re setting up a profile on LinkedIn, you’re basically setting up your personal brand. With your name, your avatar, and all the details about you, showcase your brand. Rizgar shares some essential tips on how to build a noticeable personal brand on LinkedIn, and here they are:

Who Should Start Personal Branding on LinkedIn?

If you want more career opportunities or want your business to gain exponential growth:

1. Start branding.

Set up your profile, write descriptions and your previous experiences, what you learned from them, and what keeps you inspired and motivated in your field.

Talk about your achievements and stories. If you have an entrepreneurial mindset, personal branding is a must for you.

For pharma service providers, suppliers, companies, B2B platforms, and individuals, branding is as essential as in other fields.

2. Establish Thought Leadership:

Preach your views regarding a specific topic and increase your following. For example, you can make comments under posts and present your thoughts and analysis on a topic. When people scroll through their feeds, they will see what you write. Eventually, you may reach a climax. When you establish yourself as an authority on something, people will know that this guy has knowledge or expertise regarding this. Now, whenever there will be a need for someone with that expertise, people will definitely look up to you.

3. Telling Stories and Trust Building:

Telling a story out of everything makes a lasting impression. Tell your audience stories about your projects, events, or even your work. Rizgar recommends posting 2 to 4 times a week on LinkedIn. Make those posts interesting. Intrigue the readers to react and retain your words in their memories. Share your small milestone moments with your community. These tips greatly help in trust-building. The more trust you gain, the more you rise above your other competitors.

4. Personal Branding for Employees:

For a company or a business, the personal branding effect can amplify into the branding of the whole company. For example, employees of the same company may share the same banner on their LinkedIn profiles. That has a positive impact on the company’s image building. Similarly, if one person in a business does robust branding of his own, then obviously that will ultimately show up in the growth of his business. However, companies should not force their employees to do their branding.

How to Use LinkedIn Marketing for Growing Your Business?

There is an overlap between marketing and branding, but they are different. Marketing is promoting and selling your product or services with different innovative, conventional, and practical strategies. LinkedIn is a potent tool for digital marketing.

1. Build a LinkedIn Company Page:

Apart from your personal profile, make a LinkedIn page exclusively for your business or company. Use this profile to upsell your products or services. Your personal profile is for trust-building, networking, and branding, while you can direct businesses and individuals from there onto your company page. Post about your products and services, their benefits and features, and tell stories about them.

2. Sell Without Irritating:

Selling is an art. People usually get frustrated when they see typical ads. Take a different route that is more intriguing to your potential customer. And the solution to that is providing value. The free content you provide to your viewers is your marketing asset, and it will pay you back directly or indirectly. People tend to develop trust from where they get value. This way, without irritating your customer, you can funnel them into sales by occasionally showing them your products or telling them about the solutions you provide and how you do it.

3. Start Advertising on LinkedIn:

Rizgar says that advertising is one of the most important things a new small company or a business should start doing. Google and LinkedIn are good platforms for placing ads, but the latter is better. Even though it is a little more costly than Google, LinkedIn can offer much more for you. There is an active presence of many businesses and professionals worldwide, and you can target precisely whom you want to see your advertisements. If one of your posts is performing outstandingly, you can boost it as an ad so that it can reach several more potential clients. It would help if you had clients at the beginning for your business and advertising exactly does that.

Conclusion:

Pharmaceutical companies, businesses, and individuals have a great opportunity in the form of LinkedIn. Using the three-pronged strategy of networking, branding, and marketing, you can boost up the growth of your business. The ease and effectiveness that LinkedIn brings make it stand out among other similar platforms. Digital marketing and networking are not going to die anytime soon. In fact, it is on the steepest rise in history, and it seems that the trend is going to continue.

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