For a lot of small businesses LinkedIn is a profile they set up years ago and never touch. Whether that is a mistake depends entirely on who you sell to. If your customers are other businesses, or you sell expertise, LinkedIn can be the most valuable channel you have. If you sell to local consumers, you can mostly leave it alone.

The short answer

• Worth the effort if you sell to other businesses, sell professional services, or your reputation and expertise win the work

• Not worth much if you are a purely local consumer business: a takeaway, a salon, a shop, a domestic trade

When LinkedIn is worth it

• You sell to other businesses. Accountancy, IT support, commercial cleaning, consultants, agencies, trades that fit out offices and shops

• You sell high value services where people research who they hire

• You are the product. Coaches, advisers, solicitors, architects, anyone whose personal credibility closes the sale

• You want to hire. LinkedIn is still where a lot of recruitment happens

• You want to reach local business owners and decision makers, for example a networking group or a B2B event

When it is not

If your customers are members of the public choosing on price, convenience or a personal recommendation, they are not making that decision on LinkedIn. Your effort is better spent on Facebook, Instagram or your Google Business Profile.

Company page or personal profile?

Post from your personal profile, not just the company page. Personal profiles consistently get far more reach on LinkedIn. Keep the company page tidy and current, but the activity that brings in work comes from a real person posting as themselves.

What actually works on LinkedIn

• The owner posting regularly in their own voice

• Useful insight from your day to day: something you learned, a mistake you see clients make, a change in your industry

• Behind the business: a project you are proud of, how you approach the work, your team

• Client stories, with permission, focused on the problem and the outcome

• Commenting thoughtfully on other people's posts, which is often where the connections start

What does not work

• Auto posting the exact content you put on Instagram

• Pure promotion with no substance

• Buying connections or blasting templated sales messages into people's inboxes

• Treating the company page as the main effort

A light touch routine

You do not need to live on it. A realistic weekly routine:

• Two or three posts from your personal profile

• Fifteen minutes a day commenting on posts from clients, prospects and peers

• Reply to every comment on your own posts

• Accept and send a few relevant connection requests

Thirty minutes a day, done consistently, is enough to make LinkedIn work if your business fits.

The takeaway

LinkedIn is worth the effort for business to business, professional services and expertise led businesses, and not worth much for purely local consumer ones. If it fits, post from your personal profile, share genuinely useful things from your work, comment on others, and keep it to about half an hour a day.

Koprio helps small businesses across East Sussex work out which channels are worth their time and runs the ones that are. See the social media management service or get in touch.