LinkedIn: Really Simple Steps to Get Started

Taking your 1st baby steps with LinkedIn.

When it comes to talking to decision makers online, nothing—and I mean nothing—compares to the power you command when you fully understand what LinkedIn can really mean for your business.

Facebook vs. LinkedIn

In a study of over 3,000 HubSpot B2B customers, LinkedIn generated the highest visitor-to-lead conversion rate at 2.60%, four times higher than Twitter (.67%), and seven times better than Facebook (.39%).

While dear old Facebook gets all the press, Facebook does not deliver sales the way LinkedIn can if you are trying to go business to business. There are more than 175 million business people who are active on this site and they want to know what you know and who you know to make more money.

LinkedIn is for Business

When it comes down to it, people are on LinkedIn to grow more business. Being active on LinkedIn is like fishing in a barrel, especially if you fish with the right shotgun!

Executives from all the Fortune 500 companies are on LinkedIn. 66% of users are decision makers. The household income is the highest among the social media sites at $109,000 per year. Seventy percent of the people on LinkedIn are between the ages of 24–54, and the user base skews male.

It bears repeating here, perhaps more than with regard to any other of the other social sites: you have to be willing to give, ask questions, offer and request recommendations, and spread your cool content to make LinkedIn work best.

Facebook and Twitter are surely a softer approach that may draw people in to content differently, but when you are on LinkedIn, you need to bring your “A+” business game and you need to bring it weekly, if not daily.

Now that is not to say that you should focus on LinkedIn only. You should not. I say this simply to emphasize that each and every social marketing outlet does and accomplishes things differently.