Don’t Be The Weakest Link: 5 Reasons To Be Active On LinkedIn

5 Reasons To Be Active On LinkedIn

By now, we’ve all become familiarized with the general social media giants such as Facebook and Twitter. These platforms are great for businesses when utilized properly. However, there has always been a need for a social media platform strictly for professionals – and LinkedIn is the answer. The site was launched in 2003 and as of 2013 has over 200 million users. Below, we’ll outline the top 5 reasons LinkedIn is necessary for you and your business:

[success]1. Company Page[/success]

Forget about having a private group on Facebook so that you can communicate with your employees – get a LinkedIn Company Page! It’s a professional place where your employees can proudly state that they are a part of the company and interact with one another. Think of it as a sort of online company picnic. Furthermore, a company page is an effective way of showing off your company culture to the rest of the world wide web.

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[success]2. Individual Profiles[/success]

If you don’t already have an active LinkedIn profile, you need to get to it immediately. It’s basically an online resume of your work experience, education, and you can even list what your strong suits and skills are. Even better is that co-workers or people that you’ve worked alongside before can endorse your skills and talents so that your claims are backed up by peers – forget about references, tell people to check out your LinkedIn profile!

[success]3. Sharing[/success]

As a social media platform for professionals, LinkedIn offers a great space for sharing information that is relevant to your company and industry. Whatever you share, your LinkedIn contacts see – and vice versa. Similarly to Facebook, you can join groups on LinkedIn that are specific to you and share information with members of that group. This is where discussions, information sharing, and polls take place. Which brings us to our next point…

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[success]4. Groups[/success]

Becoming a member of various groups on LinkedIn provides so many opportunities. Not just for information sharing, but for discussions, and making connections. Say you’re the owner of a boutique – you can join the following groups: Small Business Owners groups, Retail and Sales groups, Fashion groups, and even Business Owners groups in your specific city. Just imagine LinkedIn as the world’s biggest networking party and you have an unlimited number of business cards.

[success]5. Connections[/success]

By going through all these steps, don’t be surprised if you start making some business connections through the site. The average number of connections on the site is 60, by being active on the site, within 6 months you should be able to double that number. LinkedIn even gives it’s members the option of advertising to a targeted industry, country, or company. There are so many ways to connect that it would be foolish not to be a part of this social media platform, so what are you waiting for?

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[error]Are you active on LinkedIn? What are your favorite features? How many connections have you made? We’d love to hear about your experiences in the comments section below![/error]

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