Building a Powerful LinkedIn Presence: A Guide for SME Business Owners

LinkedIn has around 34 million users in the UK, and of these, about 16.2%, or 6.8 million users, use the platform daily. These users include most of the country’s business owners, entrepreneurs, high-level executives and professionals – history’s most extensive and engaged business network.

But only a fraction of these people use LinkedIn to its full potential, and many long-term business owners struggle to make their presence known and generate leads on LinkedIn. Despite the tantalising promise of LinkedIn, many users walk away disappointed.

In this article, we’ll look at practical ways to help you build a more powerful LinkedIn presence that benefits your business, whether you are a LinkedIn veteran or just opened your account today.

Play To Your Audience

The most successful LinkedIn profiles all have one thing in common: they are audience-facing, not self-facing. The truth in this is that your LinkedIn profile isn’t really about you, it’s about a target audience or customer group. The first step to strengthening your LinkedIn presence is, therefore, to understand your audience. What do your target professionals and decision makers do on LinkedIn, why do they use the platform, what groups to they hang out in, what pain points to they use LinkedIn to research? Addressing these questions empowers you to create content that resonates with your market and develop your position as an authority in your sector.

Optimise Your Profile

Most LinkedIn profiles develop organically, often over many years, like a piecemeal CV. This makes them messy and disorganised, hard to skim for information. Strengthening your LinkedIn presence involves repurposing and optimising your profile contact. Approach this as a ‘day zero’ exercise, addressing every aspect of your profile and being prepared to make widescale changes as required.

To Start With:

• Update your profile with a professional -looking headshot. Profiles with a high-quality photo receive significantly more views and connection requests.
• Write an attention-grabbing headline. This is the first thing that potential contacts will see when they come across your profile. Make your headline concise and clear, highlighting what makes you unique and the value you provide.
• Complete all sections of your profile. Many users leave sections empty or underutilised – a complete profile will give a strong impression of credibility and professionalism, showing that you care about your LinkedIn presence.
• Optimise for keywords. Integrate keywords relevant to your industry, professional history, or skills into your profile to improve visibility in searches.

Engage With Other Users

LinkedIn is a social network, not a business register, and so the way to make the best use of the platform is to actively engage with other users. Start by sharing valuable content in the form of articles, short status updates, and videos – a few times a week – giving your audience useful tips and tricks, insights, or asking thought-provoking questions. Engage with the content of others, too, commenting on posts, sharing content, and engaging with like-minded professionals in LinkedIn Groups to provide advice and showcase your expertise.

Find out more

For more information about LinkedIn and how to develop your presence on the platform, please get in touch with one of our LinkedIn marketing experts today by clicking here.

Image Source: Canva