Create new contacts and increase your opportunities with LinkedIn

Do you want to build more business-to-business business? A solid strategy is to develop a Company Page on LinkedIn. This is often one of the first pages where LinkedIn members – all potential corporate customers – can find relevant content about your floral design services. Here’s how to get started:

• First, log into your LinkedIn account and click the
  “Work” icon in the top right corner of the LinkedIn
  Homepage.
• At the bottom of this menu, click the “Create a Company Page.”
• Enter your company name – LinkedIn will also start creating a Company Page URL such as linked.com/company/floriologyinstitute. You’ll be able to share this URL with others and this is the URL that will appear as the result in searches.
• Check the verification box to confirm you have the right to claim this company and create the page by clicking the “Create page” button.
• Click “Get Started” to begin editing your Company page. Start by uploading the company logo, writing a description of 250-2000 characters, and adding your company URL.
• Next, add your specialties – examples for a typical event florist would be “event floral design,” “wedding flowers,” and “corporate event flowers.”
• Fill out the rest of the information such as company size, industry, year founded, company type, and add a location (local address is always good for search).

You also have the option to add three featured groups. Consider adding these three: Event Planners and Coordinators (94,000+ members), Wedding Planners and Coordinators (8,600+ members), and Event Planning & Event Management – the 1st Group for Event Professionals (375,400+ members). The purpose of featuring these groups is to allow you to cross-promote your content and start building followers.

Now that you have a published Company Page, you are ready to post your first Company Update – this is similar to a post you would do on Facebook. A solid Update should include text of 150 characters or less, an eye-catching photo (ideal image size is 1200 x 627 pixels) and a clear call to action. Ask yourself, would you click on this post? Will those who click be provided a good takeaway? Would the photo you included stand out in someone’s feed?

LinkedIn is a great tool to share and tout your experience as an event florist as well as offer insightful nuggets of advice. What’s more, it’s a good idea to ask questions of the community such as: “what digital marketing media have you found effective to attract clients?” Also, you can showcase spectacular photos of events you worked on and talk about the trends, designs, flower varieties and other details that went into the production. The objective is to increase your shop’s brand awareness, and you as an expert in your field.

Once you feel you’ve established a solid presence as a thought leader on LinkedIn, your name should be familiar and people will be clicking on your posts to gain useful information. Be sure to track metrics such as Page followers, post clicks, engagement (shares and Likes of your post) and of course, the comments.

In time, you will build a solid reputation that will foster leads within the LinkedIn community. Consider too that your LinkedIn presence will also validate your business with any referrals from leads who conduct searches on Google or Bing. Keep in mind also that LinkedIn Company Pages rank extremely high, second only to your website, in search results – which will build the confidence of potential clients after they take a good look at your thoughtful posts of your event designs, talents and breadth of services.