LinkedIn is one social media site many businesses overlook because it does not reach their customer base directly, but rather fellow entrepreneurs within their industry. LinkedIn is where many business professionals, no matter their field of work, meet up privately online to post questions, suggestions and ideas on what is or is not working for them in their respective stores.
Many of your customers are more than likely already on LinkedIn, especially if you cater to a more business-minded crowd. Even though they are on LinkedIn it doesn’t mean you will be interacting with them or targeting them – in fact, avoid them if possible. You are coming to LinkedIn to discover new ways to sell to customers and share your ideas with fellow fishing tackle retailers.
Getting Started Getting started on LinkedIn is as easy as any other social media site. Go to the site, enter your information, and signup. You need to ensure that your profile reflects who you are and what your business is. Signing up under an obscure profile won’t get you very far on LinkedIn; you need to be honest as to whom you are and what your business is.
Pay to Play or is Free for Me? LinkedIn has two memberships, free or paid – which one is right for you? That’s a decision you will have to make for yourself. Statistics are showing though that almost ninety-one percent of all LinkedIn users belong to LinkedIn with the free membership option. If you want to pay for LinkedIn Premium you will have some added benefits, such as using their messaging feature, InMail, to see who has been viewing your profile, and see expanded profile of other LinkedIn users.
LinkedIn Groups Most retailers will join LinkedIn to take part in their groups and to enjoy the conversation of fellow retailers with less fear of consumer or customers seeing what is discussed. Every retailer can use the opportunity to ask fellow retailers for suggestions to industry problems, or to showcase a successful plan they created to sell more products. LinkedIn will also suggest other groups to you based on your profile and other groups you belong to already. Most LinkedIn members belong to ten or more groups. The more groups you belong to, the more information that will be available to you. What you do with that information or advice is up to you.
Additional benefits of the groups are you will be able to ask other retailers across the country about suppliers and hopefully find additional suppliers to fill your shelves. You can openly discuss discounts and terms that in the past could only be accomplished in person at tradeshows.
You Get What You Put In LinkedIn is not a magic wand that once you join will instantly solve all of your business problems or provide you with all of the answers. You will need to do your part and invest some time and effort back into it, but not as much as you fear. Almost half of all LinkedIn members spend two hours or less a week on LinkedIn. Most of that time is reading answers to former posts and posting their opinions on questions posed.
Many businesses use LinkedIn to find people to hire employees as well. This may not be a need for you at this time, but you can also use LinkedIn to research companies you plan to do business with. You can also reconnect with a marketing representative or sales representative that you enjoyed working with in the past. It is a known fact that within the industry many people leave, they just change the company name on their business card. Why not reconnect with them and see if you can work together again?
Final Verdict LinkedIn isn’t for everyone, but it is a social network tool more successful businesses use to keep ahead of the trends and to find what is working in different areas. If you’re looking for ideas on how to move product, add new lines of merchandise or even looking for ideas on how to attract different customers, this is a great tool. LinkedIn is older than Facebook, though many do not realize that because it is more business-based than consumer-based.
Fishing Tackle Retailer has a LinkedIn group and you are all welcome to join us and post your questions or concerns about our industry. We will do our best to allow only industry members into our groups and allow you all to keep the conversations going. We will interject when needed, but this is for you all to create a community of retailers who help each other. If you are part of LinkedIn already come join our group, if not sign up today and then come join the fun.
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