LinkedIn marketing for small businesses in Nigeria

Growing your small business in Nigeria can be difficult with many tasks because you can be up against some big and well-known organizations and companies in your niche. That’s why marketing is the best and only way to grow your small business, and I will love to clarify something.

Marketing is traditionally how an organization or company communicates to, connects with, and engages its target audience to convey the value of their product and services and ultimately make sales.

However, since the introduction of social and digital media technology innovations, it has increasingly become more about companies building deeper, more meaningful, and lasting relationships with the people they want to buy their products and services. (audience).

The ever-increasingly fragmented world of media complicates marketers’ ability to connect and also presents an incredible opportunity to forge new territory that they haven’t been to, which means your business can even be seen and heard in places you haven’t been.

Also, there have been so many controversies on the similarities between marketing and advertisement. Before I go to our topic, LinkedIn marketing for small businesses in Nigeria, I would love to explain those two terms.

Marketing, as stated above, is traditionally how an organization or company communicates to, connects with, and engages its target audience to convey the value of its product and services and ultimately make sales. It’s more like communication to convince people of the importance of your product and services.

While on the other hand

Advertisement is the act of promoting a particular brand, product, or service to attract interest and sales.

From the explanation, we can deduce that marketing is so complex than an advertisement, and it also produces many results because advertisement is also a section in marketing. However, marketing isn’t included in the advertisement.

 

Moving to our topic, LinkedIn marketing for small businesses in Nigeria, firstly, let us discuss LinkedIn.

What is LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is considered the world’s largest professional network on the internet. They make use of mobile apps and websites, and since this website has been created, it has helped so many people in their businesses and career.

LinkedIn can be used to find the right job or internship, can connect and strengthen professional relationships, and can also learn the skills you need to succeed in your career. You can access LinkedIn from a desktop, LinkedIn mobile app, mobile web experience, or the LinkedIn Lite Android mobile app.

However, it was recently discovered that LinkedIn does way more than the above task but can also be used to market your goods and services. Since the website is full of people with purpose, which means your potential customers can be there also.

Though LinkedIn is operated just like any other social media platform and app, there is a bit different than most social networks. Most social media and networks that we use, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and many others, focus on the ” fun” things you do in your spare time. In contrast, LinkedIn is focused on building business relations and engagement.

Because of this, whenever you want to use LinkedIn for marketing purposes, you should think more along the lines of making connections with (potential) clients, generating leads, improving your brand awareness, foster business relationships and partnerships, sharing content to develop thought leadership and lastly drive traffic to your website{if you have any}.

Though recently, some changes have been made to the platform, and it is becoming more and more of a fun place. The focus is still on companies and growing your business, which is achieved every day.

With this, you should know that LinkedIn should be an important part of your business marketing strategy if you want to become more successful.

How to use LinkedIn marketing for small businesses in Nigeria

In this part, I will explain the step-to-step procedures on Using LinkedIn marketing for small businesses in Nigeria because there are some important steps to take if you want to achieve your desired goal.

• Create healthy and engaging content.

This seems to be the fundamental prerequisite for fruitful business marketing not online on LinkedIn but on every other marketing platform. The reason why some business does not have the result they desire is that their contents lack some major qualities that they should include. The qualities include

           i. Your content must be interesting.

One of the ways to get noticed on LinkedIn is by posting interesting content. Yes, we know that the platform is mainly used for business and career development purposes, but that doesn’t mean your content should be boring.

You might be included to start sharing your white papers as the primary driver of your LinkedIn Content Marketing strategy. Even with that, there is so much more to offer; you can start a conversation around a news event or a business conference you’re attending. Maybe you can share some of the latest insights provided by an industry influencer, create some funny graphics about work-life, or share funny graphics by others and add your remarks to them. This will make you popular and get people attached to your page.

         ii. Your content must the helpful and informative.

Great business people believe the zeal to create solutions to people’s problems should be more than the zeal to profit. If you want to be recognized, it all starts by being helpful, producing content that presents new knowledge and information that will improve readers (to make your reader appear smarter), or assisting in professional decision making. When creating any content, you should consider the following advantages, and if they aren’t met, you should try and make sure they do.

a. Help your reader build their professional network.

Your readers, known as Content professionals on LinkedIn, are always looking for content that can benefit their professional network. Make sure you’re considering the shareability of everything you distribute on LinkedIn. This means you should consider them whenever you create your content. If your content can’t benefit their readers if they share your content, then don’t share it.

b. Help your readers build their brand

know that When someone shares your compelling content, it makes the sharer seem smart, well-informed, talented, etc. this doesn’t mean they aren’t smart enough to create their content, but they believe yours is better and in one way or the other, this is also building your brands. People on LinkedIn are always looking to enhance their brand, so make it as easy as possible for them by creating content that is well structured and informative.

c. Help your readers’ careers.

It would help if you remembered that the readers of your content on LinkedIn are consuming and sharing content to further their careers. With this in your mind, you should try as much as possible to give them the best. Feed their desire for professional accomplishment with your content, and they will find one way or the other to feed your pulse.

• Connect with people in your niche

Connecting with people in your niche provides you with some advantages, such as monitoring the types of things they post that give them the engagement they receive. This is more like doing a competitor’s research to know your competitor’s keywords and the best way to approach the market.

Also, connecting with them will let you know their biggest leads and customers; with this, you can easily find out how to convince those customers that your products and services are better.

 

•  Engage your followers

LinkedIn is a platform that supports people following you; however, before anyone will follow your page on LinkedIn, you should have nice and engaging content that will make them decide not to miss any of your posts.

Let’s say you successfully make some people your followers in getting their undiluted attention; you can tag them in most of your posts, asking for their opinions and contribution. This will encourage them to get more involved in your course and services.

 

•  Join and engage LinkedIn groups

LinkedIn groups are general groups where we can have so many people discussing a particular thing. You can join any group in line with your niche post nice and informative content that will attract people’s attention. With this, you will have people trooping into your page, which will increase your followers, thereby promising you many customers.

 

•  Host Q&A session

Hosting question and answer sessions on your LinkedIn page is something you should do monthly. It’s a time when your followers will be able to pour out their minds, and this will give you a chance to know your flaws and things you should improve on. You can have this on a group also but try as much as possible to give accurate answers if you will be using a group because your answer will go a long way in building or crumbling your page.

 

Frequently asked question

1. Can I employ people to run LinkedIn marketing for your business?

Yes, you can. I would say you do the marketing yourself, but before running LinkedIn marketing, there are some things you will put into consideration.

•  Who are your competitors?
•  What are your keywords?
• How known or popular is your niche on LinkedIn
• How good is your content creation skill?

These are part of the Questions you should ask, but the last seems important. If you can create good content, you can learn the other required skills.

But if you can’t create nice, informative content, it will be better you employ a very competent content creator.

 

2. How effective is LinkedIn marketing

This answer depends on how serious you take it, but if you follow the right step, the results are always worth the hard work.

 

3. What business or services can you market on LinkedIn?

As far as I know, you can market any business on LinkedIn in as much you know who your targeted audiences are.

 

Watch How To Use LinkedIn for Business And Marketing

Conclusion

As explained in the introduction, LinkedIn is a platform that deals with business development which makes it a very good place to start your marketing strategies.

Also, LinkedIn is a platform that is easy to operate, making it possible for everybody to use.

Why don’t you try it out today and see how fast your business will grow in your little time but in everything, commitment is needed if you are truly zealous about developing your business.

 

Originally posted 2022-03-06 02:41:09.