5 Ways LinkedIn Can Help You Build Your Brand and Increase Sales

LinkedIn is probably the most underrated social networking platform when it comes to marketing a business. However, several thousand businesses report that, in at least one case, LinkedIn is more important than any other social media network. In fact, a recent survey indicated that the most important networking site for business marketers is LinkedIn. Here are five ways you can utilize LinkedIn to help you build your brand and increase sales for your business.

Turn Profile Views into New Leads
Most people on LinkedIn are familiar with the ÒSomeone has viewed your profileÓ emails that get sent to your inbox. However, a majority of people donÕt pay attention to the notification. However, by not investigating the notification further, you could be missing out on opportunities to generate more leads. If you think about it, the people who have viewed your profile are there because they want to find out more about you. So, why not reach out to them to figure out why. It could be that they are interested in what you are selling. 

Take Advantage of Plugins
When you take advantage of the integrated complementary add-ons offered by LinkedIn, the platform can become a powerful lead generation tool for your business. With a number of these add-ons, you gain the ability to send personalized messages to people who have viewed your profile and even tag them as a way to sort your new connections into a list of prospects.

Ask Employees to Post Your CompanyÕs Content
Your employees are the most powerful brand advocates that can share your companyÕs content and case studies. Data shows that half of all employees already post about their employers on social media, so why not take advantage of this and ask them to share updates about your company. 

Make Your Company Discoverable
Search engine optimization isnÕt just something you can do to rank higher on Google. It can also be used on LinkedIn to make your company profile more discoverable and to tout your experience. This provides you with the potential to boost the number of opportunities you have to sell your products. 

Sponsor Your Most Valuable Content
Utilizing LinkedIn's sponsored updates feature allows you to infiltrate the feeds of members who are most likely to find value in your content. HubSpot, a popular developer, and marketer of inbound marketing software products leveraged the power of LinkedIn's Sponsored Updates to generate 400 percent more leads for their company.

These are just a handful of the many great ways to utilize LinkedIn to generate more leads and increase sales for your business. 
