Are You Getting the Most (Business) Out of LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is the social media platform for professionals, but it’s become so much more than just a place to share professional accomplishments, search for jobs, and connect with other industry professionals — it is a powerful tool to grow your business, especially when you apply some grassroots business development efforts. 

Why LinkedIn is Networking 2.0

Small businesses looking to grow their market share know they need to be on LinkedIn. What they don’t always know is the best way to leverage the social media platform to grow their business. 

Sure, optimizing your business profile is key, as is sharing valuable content and engaging with other people’s posts to improve your visibility and strengthen relationships, but there’s another networking strategy that may not have crossed your mind: grassroots relationship building – starting at the lowest levels of an organization. 

Here’s an example to demonstrate what we mean.

A client of ours wanted to grow their network and secure new business with a previously out-of-reach industry connection. Leaders of the two companies had never met and shared very few, if any, mutual connections. Our mission was to leverage LinkedIn in a way that would allow our client to break into this new relationship by establishing a pool of shared connections. 

Our first step was to connect our client with lower-level employees within the target organization. On behalf of our client, we reached out to numerous employees within the company, asked them to connect and, one by one, began building a network of shared connections. Slowly we worked our way up the organization chart by adding more and more employees from this company to our client’s LinkedIn network.

By the time our client reached out to the other business leader asking to connect, we had already built up a large pool of mutual relationships. Before the other business leader connected with our client, they saw the dozens (or more) shared connections and referrals, which led them to readily accept our client’s invitation to meet. 

These baby steps were instrumental in securing the new connection – and ultimately led to a new business deal between the two organizations. 

Need a Networking Nudge? Call us at The Found Gen for Help

Networking has always been the bread and butter of building a business. The same rules apply when leveraging a social media platform like LinkedIn. With patience and the right strategy, you can grow your network – and your business.

To learn more about social media marketing and getting the most out of LinkedIn, contact our team at The Found Gen today.