We’ve all heard about the importance of using Facebook for our businesses, and many people are seeing the social media platform pay off for them.  But the typical business that comes from a Facebook page is consumer-driven.  For instance, if you announce that you’re having a sale on Facebook, your loyal fans and customers will likely show up for the event.  But what about those businesses that sell business to business—can social media help increase their business as well?

What if you wanted to do more on social media platforms than just announce sales and hold contests?  What if you wanted to expand your brand, become an active participant in the field or use it to scour for leads?  Facebook isn’t exactly set up for that, but one platform is: LinkedIn.  Here’s how you can use it to grow your business.

Become an Expert

People want to buy from experts, and that’s especially true in business to business sales.  And LinkedIn is the perfect medium to establish yourself as an expert in your field.  The best way to do that is to join LinkedIn groups, and then become an active participant.  That doesn’t mean using sales pitches as comments—that will only make the other members mad—but contributing thoughtful comments and advice to those seeking it.  If you do this on a regular basis, you’ll soon have people coming to you for advice as the expert.

Find Leads

Unlike Facebook, LinkedIn gives its users the opportunity to determine who is looking at your profile.  Once you have this information, you can use it to contact the person and tell them more about your company.  It’s kind of like getting the jump on those potential customers who are considering you, but haven’t made that known yet.

Keep Up With the Competition

Every business guru will tell you that it’s vital to keep up with your competition so that you’ll be able to make the best decisions when it comes to your pricing, products and overall business plans, but that’s not always an easy thing to do.  But LinkedIn has made it easier—not only because you can overtly watch the outward announcements of your competitors, but because you can gather information from not so obvious ways as well.  Is your competitor suddenly connected with key members of a large company that you’ve been courting for business?  That information might make you step up your efforts, or change tactics.  Is your lead salesperson connecting with a hiring member of another company?  There are many ways you can keep track of your industry and the people in it by simply paying attention to who is doing what on LinkedIn.

Just a year ago, 41 percent of people said that LinkedIn was their most important social media site, but now a full 59 percent of people say that it is, according to Performics and ROI Research.  The site currently boasts 100 million members, and with numbers like that, it’s hard to argue that business owners are reaping some sort of benefits.