Social media is a must in today’s business world. It adds a whole new dimension of marketing to your business and enables you to engage and interact with your customer base.

In the early days of the social media boom (or the dark ages, as I call them) businesses rushed to join the global community with these thoughts in mind. As with most things, the results varied. Facebook quickly took off and, while businesses have had an up and down go with it, some businesses found success on Twitter.

LinkedIn, however, does not get a lot of acclaim or attention but has carved out a very unique and successful niche for itself. For many businesses, LinkedIn is the top social media dog, edging out even mighty Facebook.

LinkedIn doesn’t get a lot of the glitz and glam of other social media sites, but it can be a powerful tool for a business. It can provide you with an additional dimension of reach, being able to hit different demographics and users that you wouldn’t usually access.

That isn’t to say, however, that every business needs it. Some businesses will get more out of LinkedIn than others. Not on LinkedIn or at least not very active? Here are a few advantages of LinkedIn that will help you decide if it is worth pursuing or dedicating time and resources to.

LinkedIn is ideal for B2B

Unlike Facebook – which is better geared towards person-to-person or B2C – B2B businesses can get a lot more out of LinkedIn. LinkedIn was designed to be a hub for businesses and professionals, so over time these are the kinds of people who have become the most active users and the majority of those on the site.

This gives you a better opportunity to reach the eyes and ears of other businesses if they are in fact your target audience.

You can not only directly hit other businesses with updates, information, downloads and links, you can allow your clients to learn more about you. LinkedIn allows you to set up company pages – as opposed to just a standard profile. This allows you to give visitors a better idea of your company’s size, culture, products and services than what is possible on Facebook or Twitter.

LinkedIn can help you find employees

Looking to add another member or two to your team and want a more direct method of finding and sorting candidates than job websites? A company looking to do so can utilize LinkedIn for that as well.

Any professional worth their salt has an account on LinkedIn, which in essence is an online resume. Whether you are actively searching for a new employee or someone on LinkedIn introduces themselves to you, you can do a little digging around on their profile to learn more about them. And if you are actively searching, LinkedIn has a very strong and refined search engine that can help you find exactly what kind of person you are looking for and weed others out.

You can network virtually on LinkedIn

You can use all the reasons that enable customers and clients to learn more about you to your advantage.

Growing and need more options or unhappy with your current contacts and suppliers? LinkedIn can serve your business as a hub for meeting and learning about new prospective vendors and suppliers.

Think of this platform as a virtual conference or virtual networking event. LinkedIn allows you to learn about and contact prospective businesses in your area that you don’t know about or don’t hit at your usual networking events and conferences. Look into their resumes and credentials or inspect their connections to help determine if they are worth pursuing.

If your company isn’t on LinkedIn we can help you get set up and active.