Local Marketing can be tough. With loads of competition, setting yourself apart from others can be a bit difficult and long road.
The good news is there are a ton of resources that you can use for free or at a reduced cost to help make your local marketing efforts a bit easier. Social media has been increasingly popular with marketing methods over the past several years and the use increases daily.
LinkedIn is known for its focus on business and it is a perfect resource for a small business owner or an individual, independent contractor, such as a realtor, to do some local marketing and networking.
Joining LinkedIn is not difficult. With more than 400 million members, it is one of the top social networks. Here's why you should use it for your professional local business and marketing.
With each member receiving their own personal page, there is a vast opportunity to showcase who you are and connect with others that may need your services or to collaborate with like-minded businesses.
The first thing to do is to fill out your profile completely. It's broken into sections that you can fill out with a summary, images, work experience, skills and endorsements, certificates, education, even recommendations from others. Once that is complete, then you want to connect with those that you know.
Start building your connections with local people you know. From there you can start branching out into friends of friends. Have conversations, follow discussions, and interact with them. You never know who you're going to find on LinkedIn and you may even be surprised at the type of skills someone possesses.
Within LinkedIn there are areas that you can share updates, write articles, and become involved with your followers. Take some time to write status updates about your business. Share an article that you wrote on your website. Maybe even craft an article specifically for LinkedIn. Take the time to chat with others too.
One of the best tools available to you are the different groups that you can join. There are millions of people involved in these groups that encompass interest from business to personal. These groups are a great tool for meeting and interacting with others within your interests.
Another addition that's worth checking out are the courses that will help you build your skills. This is a new area for premium members but there is loads of training and knowledge in there that can only help to improve your skill set.
LinkedIn is a favorite of business professionals because of all of the tools available. You can look for jobs, learn, join groups, and even sign up as a professional freelancer for independent business professionals to be added in their ProFinder section. This is an area where LinkedIn will help you hire (or become) a top local freelancer to complete a service you need for your business. Services include such areas as design, writing, editing, accounting, marketing, legal, and many more.
If you're not on LinkedIn, you are missing a good opportunity to interact with other local professionals and get your skill set and business out there. Local marketing starts at home and LinkedIn is a great choice to help create an online resume and professional profile, plus interact with other local professionals too.