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Using LinkedIn Productively
If you are looking to do B2B marketing then LinkedIn is probably the social media platform for you. According to Quora, 80% of B2B leads come from LinkedIn, and 79% of B2B marketers say that LinkedIn has been an effective avenue for lead generation. With this in mind, you need to make sure your profile is solid so that you can promote your products and services, and have a clear LinkedIn marketing plan.
Who to Connect with
LinkedIn is for business so think carefully when adding connections. Family and friends can catch up with you on Facebook.
Company Pages
It is important to have a company page if you employ more than 1 staff member. However LinkedIn is all about connections and people are 10 times more likely to interact with employee profiles over company pages. Considering this find 5 of your most engaged employees and ask them to share content from the Company page adding their own comments. You could also ask them to create their own original content to share.
Showcase Pages
These are extensions of your Company Page and allow you to showcase different aspects of your business with their own messages and for their own target audiences. For example Adobe has various products (Acrobat reader, Photoshop etc) so they have split their offerings over 5 Showcase Pages. There are some other good examples in this Demodia article.
You can share company updates and sponsored content with LinkedIn members who follow your relevant Showcase Pages.
Quintly
Quintly is a LinkedIn analytics tool which can be used to analyse your followers and benchmark them with your competitor’s followers. It can also be used to measure engagement data from your LinkedIn updates so you can tweak your content strategy.
Sharing Content
Don’t just share your latest blog just because you have written it. Make sure you have clear and engaging reasons why someone may want to read it. Videos work well on LinkedIn too.
Other useful tips
- Use your expertise to help others. If you are recognised as a person who helps others then you will get a Career Advice Hub option on your profile
- If you are doing mailshots, you can check that contacts are still working in the same business and cross-check their business title
- If you are posting articles to LinkedIn and are struggling with images, check the size of the image as it would need to be a maximum of 8MB
- Ensure your business profile (and personal profile) has key words in it
- Join industry specific groups (or create your own) and share your expertise
- Ask for recommendations and verification of skills and endorsements
However you go about improving your LinkedIn profile, do take a look at this Business2Community article for some suggestions of LinkedIn marketing tools to help you build your brand presence.
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How a VA (Virtual Assistant) can help small businesses
Sometimes work can get a little overwhelming. That’s when a VA can help. We are used to taking on short-term projects to help ease the burden of local small businesses. Here are some examples of how we could help you.
Recruitment
You’ve done the hard work. You’ve pulled together a job description, posted it online and now you are inundated with applications. It’s a bit of a catch-22 situation as you need to go through all these applications to get the new staff member but you don’t have the time. Luckily we are at the end of the telephone and can help you out.
We’ve recently assisted with candidate screening to see which applicants would be suitable for interview stage. We rang a selected number of applicants, asking a number of screening questions, noting down the answers and our impressions of their telephone manner. We then sent out invitations for interviews to the short-listed few.
We have just launched our HR service so if you need assistance with any aspect of HR then do get in touch with us.
Appointment bookings
One client had a number of customers that he needed to arrange visits to see. This ate into his working day so he outsourced this task to Red Desk. We rang all his customers, kept detailed notes of our calls in a spreadsheet and informed him when a customer wanted a visit.
We then arranged appointments by email so that he had documented evidence of these appointment bookings. This has resulted in extra business for our client and we will be repeating this exercise in a number of months.
Event Marketing
We have a few clients who use Red Desk for adhoc event marketing. These are clients who need a little extra help spreading the word about their events.
Last month we posted details of a workshop on a client’s blog and then shared this information on a number of Facebook groups and websites that we use. We also helped draft and send an e-newsletter about another client’s craft workshops.
This month we shall be helping another client with getting the message out about an open day.
Concierge
On occasion we are asked by clients to run errands for them. In the past couple of weeks we have taken parcels to the post office for one client, and scanned documents which were then sent onto her accountant.
So, no matter how big or small the job is, Red Desk are here to help you!
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Social Media Training
We recently undertook some Social Media training for the Islington Youth Council. The Youth Council are a millennial savvy bunch when it comes to social media but it’s important to remember that using social media on a personal level is different to using it to...
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How Red Desk Can Help With GDPR
We recently published our article "Are you GDPR ready?" which was our research into the world of the new data protection laws. Since then we have been sharing our findings with our clients so they have a better understanding of what is required of them: 1.Your...
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Market Research
We’ve recently launched our market research services. Our new VA Emma has been researching a variety of topics for clients including entertainment for the corporate events industry, producers and manufacturing processes for a baby food company and sourcing data on...
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How are the latest changes to Facebook Algorithm affecting Business Pages?
It’s nothing new for Facebook to alter its algorithms. They have been making subtle changes for many years. Gone are the days when you could directly reach your followers and build your page organically. The statistics show your posts to your Business Page are only...
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Are you GDPR ready?
There have been a number of articles in the business press about GDPR in recent months but, you may like us have been feeling confused as to what it is exactly and how it will effect your business. We have therefore put together this basic guide to help make you...
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How to Utilise your Google Local Entry
How your Google Local entry is ranked in a search is not all about distance. Google algorithms may decide that a business further away is more likely to have what the searcher is looking for and therefore rank it higher. Google will also consider the relevance of...
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