Today, social media is important to your contracting marketing scheme. There are many options and platforms; the one we will talk about today is how LinkedIn to expand your reach. Maybe you feel that LinkedIn is no longer a viable social media platform.
Nothing could be further from the truth. LinkedIn is still growing, and it’s not going away any time soon. LinkedIn has refined its platform over the years and will continue to do so to keep it relevant and useful to business professionals.
What Is LinkedIn?
LinkedIn is a platform for professional networking. It’s a space for business professionals to connect and recruit with other professionals. LinkedIn was developed strictly for professional use, setting it apart from other social media marketing platforms such as: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Founded in May of 2003, LinkedIn is one of the oldest social media platforms still in use. Has the company’s age made it stagnant? Certainly not; since its creation, LinkedIn has grown by leaps and bounds. Currently, LinkedIn has 500 million users, 40% of whom use the platform daily. Two new members join LinkedIn every second. (LinkedIn statistics)
So, the question is, how can LinkedIn benefit you as a contractor? First, we’ll look at the benefits of LinkedIn, and then we’ll look at some best practices for using LinkedIn.
Three Benefits Of LinkedIn For Contractors:
1. More Exposure
The purpose of social media is to gain exposure for yourself, your company, and your brand. You may think that LinkedIn, a platform exclusively targeting business professionals, isn’t the best place to find exposure because it’s “just” other business people.
Think this through; when you are active on a professional platform, all other professional eyes are on you. If those eyes belong to someone of influence within your community, they may like or comment on your LinkedIn content. That action then spreads your profile to the people and users in their community, increasing your exposure. As a contractor, any improved exposure is a win-win for your company.
2. Get Found By Industry Partners.
Brad Levitt from A Finer Touch Construction told me that LinkedIn has been huge for their company. Many of the people that follow Brad on LinkedIn are his own clients or potential clients, but many professionals who aren’t on other social media platforms love the content that Brad posts on LinkedIn and connect with him. His company has signed a lot of vendors from LinkedIn and expanded their subcontractor base from salespeople who follow him and want to be associated with their company’s brand.
Getting found by industry partners in your community is a must. That’s where exponential power can come into play. When you connect with other subcontractors, other designers, other realtors, other architects—the professional people on LinkedIn who are in your community serving homeowners just like you do, the amount of reach and collaboration that follows is endless.
3. Search Engine Friendly
When you publish a good article on LinkedIn while staying consistently active, the search engines pick up and provide your company as a search result to homeowners searching for your information.
How To Use LinkedIn As A Contractor
Now we’re going to talk about how to effectively use LinkedIn as a contractor.
- Take A Professional Profile Picture
The most important thing to do on your LinkedIn profile is to take a highly professional profile picture. This is the first thing people will see on your profile. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve seen on LinkedIn with no profile picture at all; it’s unprofessional. Ensure that your profile picture is up-to-date and looks good.
- Develop Your Profile
Then go through the steps; fill out everything that LinkedIn asks you to fill out about yourself—your company, your history, your location, and your area of expertise.
- Find Recommendations
After you finish your profile, reach out to a few friends and previous clients and ask them to endorse you for the skills at which you excel. Have them leave a recommendation; because they’ve worked directly with you, they can recommend your expertise to others.
Once your profile is rock-solid, LinkedIn will let you know that you have reached All Star Status. That’s an awesome place to be.
- Create Consistent Content
From this point on, your goal should be to publish something regularly and consistently on LinkedIn. Because you’re speaking to other professionals, you need to think a bit differently than you would on Facebook or Instagram. You want to attract potential collaborations, partners, and just people who will help spread the word about your company’s incredible services. As you create each post, think about its purpose.
Post a high-quality image of your latest project. Explain what went into that project; make your business look attractive to collaborators.
Publish an article on LinkedIn. Your article will be put on the blogging platform LinkedIn contains. This will help you get into the field more often, as well as increase your ranking in LinkedIn and Google’s search engines. Your articles should be of the highest quality in order to build a solid foundation for your other activity on the platform.
- Interact With Others
LinkedIn’s algorithm is unique in that if you’re connected to someone on LinkedIn, their likes will show up in your feed. The notification might even say, “your friend liked this post.” If an architect, realtor, or interior designer likes one of your posts, your post will show up to the people who are following them. Your exposure will grow. You need to be doing that for others, so that they begin to want to do that for you.
Like other people’s posts; leave comments; be social on LinkedIn, because after all it is a social platform. You can also join groups on LinkedIn; there are groups for your specific industry and communities where you can interact and help each other out.
Summary
A strong profile, consistent content creation, and regular engagement are key factors in your company’s success on this social media platform. Each of these things work together to help you build your LinkedIn following. This will in turn raise awareness about your company, increasing and growing your business.
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Thank you for joining me today. You may check out my LinkedIn profile here. And, If you have any further questions or comments, please join the conversation in the comments below.
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