The most professional of all social media platforms. If LinkedIn had personality, it would be the one walking around in a suit handing out business cards and personal networking 24/7. Whether your company sells consumer goods or markets to other businesses, LinkedIn’s user base might be a perfect place for you to target your audience.

Here’s why:

With over 400 million users, LinkedIn is swimming with business professionals, opinion leaders, and decision makers. This is probably why LinkedIn has been ranked the best social networking site for generating leads. The best part about those potential leads is that 75% of LinkedIn users make over $50K per year! Those are some good odds, especially for business to business firms. Although, if your business sells to consumers, don’t turn your back on this platform because your audience could potentially still be there.

As a business owner, you probably already know how important it is to grow your network. Networking provides you with more chances for professional opportunities of a lifetime, and who can turn those down? Today face-to-face networking can only get you so far. Why not utilize the community that LinkedIn has to offer and grow your professional network beyond your personal reach?

Convincing enough? Let’s break down the basics and what it really takes to be successful on this platform.

The Basics:

Instead of creating a personal profile to share your life with friends and family, users on LinkedIn create a profile as an online resume. Users list their education, work experience, and professional skills, along with certifications or volunteer experience.

Users can search for job openings, connect with others, join professional groups, and endorse others skills. On the other hand, businesses can create company profiles to share their brand history, mission, vision, and values. Business profiles can also list open job positions and use LinkedIn to recruit and hire employees.

As always, content is an important part of LinkedIn success, and most users share professional resources, motivational tips, and of course promotional materials.

What does is really take:

If you’re using LinkedIn for lead generation, it will take some dedication. The goal is to scope out potential connections, and when inviting them to connect, include a personal message and contact information. It will be a lot of reaching out to strangers, and convincing them why they should add you to their network. If you are a pro at selling yourself, this is your playing field. Be prepared to hear some nos, but when you get those yesses your efforts will be worthwhile.  Make sure that your profile is polished and includes all of the information that your prospects might go looking for. When it comes to sharing content, consistency is key over frequency on LinkedIn. Since the majority of people on LinkedIn use it in a professional setting, it is best to share content during business hours. As with Facebook, it is important to utilize LinkedIn’s data about your own network and audience to craft your most efficient strategy.

If you have no idea where to start when crafting a lead generation strategy on LinkedIn, you may want to get some professional help… from the marketing experts that is. Hiring a business coach or marketing firm can help you craft a strategy that is crafted specifically for your businesses goals and needs.