LinkedIn for Small Businesses: An Interview with Mekhala Vasthare, LinkedIn’s Director of Product Marketing #smb #smallbiz #socialmedia

While there are many social media venues that capture more attention, there are few – if any – that seem to connect people, businesses, products and services quite as thoroughly as LinkedIn. Although it may have been originally used as an online repository for resumes from around the world, today’s LinkedIn is much more. To learn more about the current size and scope of the network, the many ways SMBs can leverage its power and a few of the new features of interest, I sat down recently for a conversation with Mekhala Vasthare, LinkedIn’s director of product marketing.

Melissa Zieger: How many small businesses and small business owners are currently members of LinkedIn?

Mekhala Vasthare: We define SMBs as companies with fewer than one thousand employees, and we have an estimated 8 million small business professionals on LinkedIn. In addition, an estimated 1.3 million small businesses have built out their presence on LinkedIn with Company Pages.

MZ: For a small business owner, what are a few of the main benefits of having a profile on LinkedIn?

MV: First and foremost, it’s a way to create and share your professional identity and reputation with others online. There’s nowhere else where you can so easily display trusted, accurate information about you or your brand. Recommendations are an especially compelling factor. The people you are connected with wouldn’t recommend you if your online profile wasn’t honest, so those recommendations encourage trust in you and your brand, because they come from real people that any viewer online can see, and some may even know.

MZ: I know LinkedIn is a great resource for staying connected with people you already know. What about connecting with people or companies you don’t already know?

MV: In addition to being your online professional identity, LinkedIn can be a great resource for small business owners looking to make new connections and find new customers of their services. We offer a number of free and paid services that help members leverage their network and recommendations to get in front of the most relevant audiences for their services. Examples of this include Company Pages, InMails, LinkedIn Ads, etc.

You can also tap into your existing network to meet new prospects, network with other small business owners, etc. While our free service allows you to see your second degree connections (people who know people you know), LinkedIn Premium – a monthly subscription that starts at $24.95 per month – allows you to see profiles of members beyond your second degree network. Small business owners cans use inMails (which come with LinkedIn Premium) to reach out to any member on LinkedIn, or ask their current connections to make introductions and expand their professional networks.

MZ: What’s the difference between a Company Page and a member profile? How are both relevant to SMBs?

MV: We encourage small business owners to have member profiles as well as company profiles via Company Pages. While a member profile showcases who you are, your Company Page can help you manage other aspects of your business brand such as your employment brand or your product or services brand. Perhaps you are looking to hire a new employee this year or maybe you are looking to showcase recommendations that your company has received. Your Company Page can help you bring your company to life. For many individual service providers, their member profile and their Company Page may blend. This is not only ok, it provides additional context for a member viewing either profile. Ensure consistency and alignment between your Company Page and your profile to provide a more complete picture to prospective clients.

MZ: For a small business owner who is unfamiliar with LinkedIn, what are some best practices for setting up their profile?

MV: First, don’t be too limited in the way you define yourself. For example, let’s say Amy is a “digital graphics specialist.” She may want to position herself in a broader category, like “graphic design,” while still providing appropriate details around her area of specialization, so that her business shows up in response to relevant search queries. Many people look for professionals to hire via LinkedIn - through their connections or just locally - and this ensures you come up in those searches, making it easier to get that dialogue started. Do keep in mind that your clients may view you as offering a certain set of services. Ensure alignment between your positioning and your perception in the marketplace.

MZ: Do you have any advice about soliciting recommendations?

MV: Yes – do not be shy about it. Recommendations are the most powerful form of advertising – as many as 9 out of 10 internet users trust recommendations from people they know. So ask your colleagues and customers to recommend you individually and, where appropriate, your products and services on your Company Page so that others will see them. Remember that when your products or services get recommended, it creates viral word-of-mouth opportunities for you. It increases the likelihood of your company being discovered as the recommendation propagates through the recommender’s network.

MZ: Many forms of social media have an ongoing dialogue at their core. Does LinkedIn?

MV: Yes. LinkedIn is a powerful way to establish a dialogue with your followers and potential customers. Once you set up a Company Page (which is free, by the way), people can follow your company, which enables them to see company updates in their network updates stream. You could use offers to engage your followers further. People love deals, so this is a great way to grow business and increase loyalty.

MZ: In terms of LinkedIn communities, are there any basic guidelines they should follow when considering which ones to join or avoid?

MV: Groups are really an extension of your business. Many small business owners work in small offices and don’t have the benefit of the office network. They look to Groups as a resource board, with problems, questions, issues - ranging from the tactical to the strategic – and many have successfully found answers this way. Many small business owners also use Groups to establish their professional profile of record, creating thought leadership by answering questions and being generally helpful to those who do have questions. This is another great way to expand your network.

MZ: How selective should SMBs be about joining LinkedIn Groups?

MV: As far as which to join and which to avoid, it depends on your business needs. There are more than 900,000 Groups on LinkedIn - surely there’s one just right for your business. You can search based on topic, keywords, industry and more. Check it out to see if a Group is right for you – look at the frequency of posts, quality of posts, etc. Some are invitation only. You can treat Groups differently depending on your objectives: for thought leadership, you may want to check in periodically. For idea generation regarding an immediate business problem that you’re faced with, you can check back more frequently. And you can manage the volume of communications by setting your preferences.

MZ: Are there features within LinkedIn that are particularly useful and relevant to small business owners?

MV: LinkedIn Ads can be great for small business owners. They can help with lead generation and allow businesses to promote themselves to target segments. For example, a tax accountant in Tennessee may have mostly individuals as clients but let’s say she wants to expand to offer accounting services to small business clients. She can use LinkedIn Ads to target small business owners in her local area with her ads. LinkedIn Ads are pay as you go – you can pay by the click or impression, and the targeting makes them very effective.

A couple of recently launched features can be used by small business owners to gather business intelligence and insight. LinkedIn Today helps you stay on top of industry news – think of it as a social newspaper that highlights the most interesting news in your industry curated from a broad range of news sources. And LinkedIn Signal can help you keep track of topics of interest to those in your network.

And finally, LinkedIn Premium helps you grow your network and customer based by giving you access to more connections. There are a number of great tools on LinkedIn for small businesses. Key to making the most of them is just diving in and getting started!

Thanks for reading,

Melissa Zieger

Melissa Zieger (@HP_SmallBiz) is the editor-in-chief of HP's SMB blog, 367 Addison Avenue and a worldwide public relations manager for HP's Personal Systems Group.