The LinkedIn Goes Retro with Timeless Guide to Small Business Success Video Series part 1 took us on a journey with three small businesses and their introduction to the offerings of LinkedIn to grow their business with a profile, to advertise the company, promote on the social networking sites and lastly to expand the company with hiring new employees. The next and final 3 videos in the series tackles your reputation, finances and your partners. The three areas we do not generally associate with LinkedIn. These areas seem so far away when we are just starting out however building a community starts immediately so we can have the resources we need when we are ready.
Episode 4: You and Your Reputation
We are greeted once again by John who now has to manage his reputation and spread the word about his design company. The video shows John the power of LinkedIn groups through searching for keywords and answering questions in LinkedIn Answers. As a small business LinkedIn has a lot of different offerings contained within one platform. Gaining awareness, interacting and engaging on any platform takes time however LinkedIn has multiple opportunities to connect, interact and engage. Have you taken advantage of them at all?
Episode 5: You and Your Funding
Your business has grown in episode 5 like Alice and it is time for some capital. This episode shows how to find angel investors through a geographic search to see who is connected in your network to an investor. LinkedIn also promotes Pro Accounts that allow invitations to be sent to any user. The pro account is a paid service that should be considered if you are unable to find anyone in your network that is connected to a prospect and you are unable to connect via any groups. This is not to say that a pro account is a last resort however you should consider your usage vs the benefits of a pro account.
LinkedIn’s Timeless Guide to Small Business Success – LinkedIn Episode 5
Episode 6: You and Your Partners
The last episode in the series brings us full circle and focuses on Company Pages and exploring the connections you have to employees of companies you want to connect with. The company pages indicating the employees (provided they have updated their LinkedIn to being employed there) is a very useful tool as we know that we lose touch with people and where they are working. A simple search for a company will provide the information and we can reach out to the connection congratulating them on the new job. Talk about a foot in the door.
LinkedIn’s Timeless Guide to Small Business Success – LinkedIn
The LinkedIn series is a neat way of showcasing their services in a subtle way. It is easy to get wrapped up on other platforms and our every day tasks and forget about how robust LinkedIn really is. It is a wonderful resource to find new contacts that can help grow our business and free us up from some tasks so we can continue to expand.
Thoughts? Is this LinkedIn series just a cheesy sales pitch or did you look past the sales pitch and find the series useful?
