Social media is a powerful tool to start your outreach campaigns. Its inexpensive compared to traditional media and allows you to connect directly with your potential customers.

Social media is a huge investment of time and money, so you should be strategic about which platform you start on. So which one should you choose? This month, we’ll explore your options and why to invest in each.

LinkedIn, the largest dedicated business social network in the world, is an obvious choice. With 467 million users, that’s a lot of potential prospects for you to reach out to.

Connect with Prospects

If you know who is responsible for buying decisions when it comes to your product, you can reach out to them directly, or at least get their names.

With LinkedIn advanced search features, even with the free version, you can search for people according to industry and title. You don’t have to buy names of people to reach out to, and you may be able to passively connect with them if you’re in the same group.

Groups

Many people claim LinkedIn groups aren’t what they used to be. While interaction may be down, they’re still a valuable resource. You can connect with prospects on LinkedIn directly if you’re in the same group, expanding your network.

Another overlooked feature of groups is the ability to message someone directly about a conversation they started. For example, say you work for an SaaS company that serves hotels. You might want to join a hotelier’s group that talks about technology. When someone in the group posts about a tech question, you can reach out to them directly to talk about their discussion topic.

This gives you an opportunity to provide value to a prospect on LinkedIn, raise awareness of your company and/or product, and demonstrate your expertise, all without cold calling or sending advertising.

Advertise Direct to Prospects on LinkedIn

LinkedIn has highly targeted advertising options, but it comes with a hefty price tag. Unlike other online advertising options, where you serve ads based on keywords or search, with LinkedIn you can serve ads to specific people.

For example, if you want to reach people who need a new technology for a hotel, usually you’d choose a keyword like hotel technology.

Your target audience may not know the term for the technology you make. They want a solution to their challenge.  You have to target for a generic term, hotel technology, which has a lot of competition. There is plenty of other traffic that will go to your ad, such as CRM, POS, booking suites, etc.

If you sell bulk computers, the ads will be served and you have low conversions because those aren’t people looking for what you have. With LinkedIn’s platform, not only do you have the ability to target your industry, but specific job titles.

If your marketing piece isn’t targeted to the IT person, but the executive, then you can choose to only serve ads to executives. This highly targeted option comes with a high PPC, but provides more valuable leads that are likely to convert your prospects on LinkedIn.

Publishing

One of the big advantages of LinkedIn as a social network is its built-in publishing platform. It’s served to millions of people interested in business content. They are interested in discovering information related to business, not the latest tabloid scandal you might find on other social networks.

Publishing gives you authority with your prospects on LinkedIn. According to recent statistics, 7 out of 10 professionals describe LinkedIn as a trustworthy source of professional content. With such high approval, publishing content on the network can only help your company.

Demonstrate knowledge and expertise in well-thought out articles, instead of in bite-sized content like with other social media updates. The platform can improve the SEO for your own company as well. Publish part of the article on LinkedIn and then link back to your site, you’ll create a powerful backlink to your website.

Time Management

There are a lot of great reasons to choose LinkedIn as the first platform for you to start your social media on. However, many of the people you’re targeting won’t be on the platform daily. You also need to dedicate a lot of time to LinkedIn. You need to spend time in groups and creating content to publish, while also providing value when you interact with others on the platform.

Are you ready to start planning your LinkedIn launch or to discuss your social media strategy? Let me help you come up with a solid strategy during a free consultation call.