For many people LinkedIn is just another social network. For businesspeople it is the only social network. Although it had only 4,500 users when it started on 2003, today LinkedIn has grown to more than 175 million members in over 200 countries and territories. LinkedIn has become an absolute necessity for every professional. Professionals from all over the world are using it to find new job opportunities, connect with friends and coworkers, follow companies, and discuss with other members.
That
does not mean that LinkedIn is good only for professionals. Companies,
especially small ones, have great benefits
from using this social network. They can connect with their customers, build
their brand image, share some news about their products or services, grow their
network, and find new highly-skilled employees (Brett 2012).
But,
in order to be successful on LinkedIn, companies have to do more than just
create a LinkedIn page and connect with their customers. They have to make sure
that they are ’always on’
which means that they have to find ways to make their customers/audience to
participate more often in the company’s group page. The series of steps that
companies have to follow in order to achieve more engagement from their
customers are:
- Build a presence and populate it with information
- Attract followers
- Engage followers
- Amplify via the network
- Analyze and review
(Brett
2012)
By following
all the above steps, small businesses can have more “followers” (customers).
This will give them the opportunity to advertise and promote their products and
services to more customers, quicker, and with very low cost. Also, since
LinkedIn can be accessed by cell phones, companies can reach more customers to
promote their product.
Thus,
it becomes clear that managers should focus on building and maintaining a
LinkedIn profile for their companies and try to use it as much as they can,
because this social network can provide too many benefits to their company.
Sources
·
LinkedIn.com
(2012), “About us”, [available at http://press.linkedin.com/about]
·
Brett,
Lorna (2012), “Why you should be
‘always on’ on LinkedIn”, [available at http://www.dynamicbusiness.com.au/small-business-resources/hot-tips/why-you-should-be-always-on-on-linkedin-210912.html]
·
Brett,
Lorna (2012), “Seven easy ways to
leverage LinkedIn”, http://www.dynamicbusiness.com.au/small-business-resources/hot-tips/seven-easy-ways-to-leverage-linkedin-16012012.html
·
Dr.
Woody (2011), “Why You Should Have a LinkedIn Profile”, [available at http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2011/10/31/why-should-have-linkedin-profile ]
I agree with the findings of the blogger. I also believe that Linedin is a very good method of promoting yourself in the market and attracting customers but this doesn't mean that business should stop using other mediums in order to reach out their customers. These days companies are heavily relying on these social networking websites to promote and connect with their customers and I believe that this can be used as a secondary medium and traditional methods of attracting customers cannot be neglected.
ReplyDeleteCompanies should try to keep up with the evolving social media marketing. However, I agree with you that they have to continue using the traditional methods as well. In my opinion, companies have to use different methods of promotion to attract different types of customers. As a result, they have to assess each situation separately and use the most appropriate method.
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