Pros and Cons of Linkedin – Can it Help You Build Your Brand?

Chanel Alexander
April 10, 2022

LinkedIn users have been using the platform to promote their brand for a long time now.

While it can definitely be a great business tool to boost your brand, increase its reach and gather customers, many people feel the effort isn’t really worth it.

That’s why today, we’ll be looking at the pros and cons of LinkedIn to determine whether it can be instrumental in boosting your sales or not.

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Advantages of LinkedIn

First, let’s talk a bit about the things LinkedIn does right and how you can use them to promote your online course business.

It’s Fairly Easy to Go Viral

LinkedIn’s algorithm for virality is fairly simple and it does not take much to go viral on the platform.

There’s a huge focus on content so it’s a good idea to provide some sort of value for free in order to promote your online course.

This can be a simple solution to a problem that people in your niche may be commonly facing. Solutions such as these have a high chance of being shared among members of your specific niche on LinkedIn.

Once it’s being shared among individuals within your niche’s LinkedIn community, it will start being promoted by LinkedIn itself among individuals outside your first-level connections.

This will introduce a wider audience to your brand and consequently, to your online course(s).

Your LinkedIn Page Can Help Your Brand Rank Better On Search Engines

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LinkedIn is high up on the priority list when it comes to search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

Thus, when you create a profile for your brand on LinkedIn and make efforts to populate it and build connections, there’s a high chance you’ll show up on the first page of a Google search.

Having your LinkedIn page popup whenever somebody searches either for your brand or for the niche you specialize in can be instrumental in directing new customers to your website.

A personal brand statement can be described as a maximum of one or two sentences that aptly describe what your brand does and what you hope to achieve with it.

Take a look at some amazing personal brand examples to help you make your own an exceptional one.

It Provides a Professional Environment with Great Networking Opportunities

Once you create a LinkedIn profile, it allows you to connect with other LinkedIn members within your course niche’s community.

Not only does it help you connect with professionals and experts within your industry but the feed also keeps you in touch with industry news and the latest trends within your community.

Keeping up with the latest trends is essential to keep your online course updated. As you notice the latest innovations and upcoming trends within your industry, you will use this information to update your course to keep it relevant.

As you grow your network on LinkedIn, you will become a prominent member of the online community of your niche. This will help you build authority and people will be less apprehensive about buying your online course as a result of this.

It’s Free

Setting up a basic account on LinkedIn will cost you nothing.

In most cases, this basic account will be enough for you to build your brand and make yourself prominent online among your niche’s community.

You can also leverage the platform to monitor your competitors and see how they’re using the platform to their advantage.

The basic free account is the perfect option for course creators that are just starting out with promoting their online course and building their personal brand.

Once you’re done with course creation and are selling your course, you can consider opting for a LinkedIn Premium account.

It Provides Many Ways to Promote Your Online Course

LinkedIn provides many different ways for you to build brand awareness, generate leads and promote your online course.

The great thing about it is that it has many different approaches for this depending on what stage your online course is at development-wise.

For example, You can use LinkedIn to provide sneak-peeks into different lessons in your online course in order to entice potential customers.

This can be a great way to bring visitors to your page and website.

Other than that, you can also market your brand through testimonials and referrals from people that have already gone through your online course.

Having testimonials and referrals from individuals that have already tried your product is very effective in terms of giving that last push to people who are on the fence about buying your online course.

It’s a Social Networking Site for Business Professionals

What we mean to say by this is that unlike other social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, there’s an air of professionalism when it comes to LinkedIn.

It’s specifically designed for business professionals to connect with each other and thus, people are typically on their best behavior.

Furthermore, many outrageous comments or behavior that may be acceptable on other social media websites are not acceptable on LinkedIn.

Thus, it’s a good social platform to have if you want to stay away from people posting negative personal data or other forms of detrimental behavior.

Disadvantages of LinkedIn

As with most social platforms, LinkedIn isn’t devoid of shortcomings.

Some of the major cons of LinkedIn are:

Prevalence of Spam Accounts

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While it’s true that LinkedIn’s algorithm does a good job of weeding out spam accounts and deleting them, it’s still not enough.

One of the main gripes that most LinkedIn users have with the platform is their inbox as well as newsfeed getting filled to the brim with useless spam messages and posts.

In recent years, they’ve gotten much more sophisticated due to which detecting them has become increasingly difficult.

You may receive an inbox from a person looking to “network” and they may praise you initially only to start talking about their product or service in their next message to you.

Time-Intensive

While LinkedIn can definitely play a pivotal role in your brand gaining traction and you reaching out to new audiences, you’ll have to invest a lot of time to make this happen.

Unlike other social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, LinkedIn requires much more effort and time if you want to grow your network.

Furthermore, it can take some time for you to get used to and fully understand the posting rules on LinkedIn.

As mentioned earlier, there’s a heightened sense of professionalism on LinkedIn which means that adopting too casual of a tone may cause your post(s) to get deleted.

Hence, if you’re looking to increase brand awareness using LinkedIn, be ready to put in a lot of time and effort.

Security Concerns

Prominent social media platforms such as LinkedIn are always prime targets for cyber attacks by malicious groups.

Furthermore, unlike other social media platforms, you are required to provide much more sensitive information to sign up to the platform such as your employment history.

Thus, it can be very concerning if this information were to fall into the wrong hands.

While LinkedIn has definitely taken stern measures to ensure something like this does not happen, this risk is always there.

Pros and Cons of a LinkedIn Business Premium Account

As mentioned earlier, free accounts can get you quite far in terms of networking and promoting your brand.

However, if you want to truly utilize the full potential of LinkedIn, you should opt for one of their premium plans.

Let’s talk a bit about the benefits and setbacks of opting for a LinkedIn premium account:

Pros

InMail Messaging and Access to Recent Profile Visits

People with premium accounts on LinkedIn can message people to whom they’re not connected through InMail Messaging.

It also lets you see who visited your profile recently.

LinkedIn Learning

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LinkedIn Learning consists of a set of detailed courses on how you can take full advantage of the website and its many advanced features.

It has full tutorials for LinkedIn for Business that you can learn from in order to increase brand awareness and boost sales of your online course(s).

Detailed Analytics

Premium LinkedIn for Business accounts also provides you with detailed metrics and analytics both for yourself as well as for competitors.

You can use this data to adjust your posts and audience targeting to ensure you convert the maximum number of people possible.

Cons

Pricing

As an online course creator or a business professional that’s just starting out, the price of a premium LinkedIn account may be too much for you.

Premium LinkedIn for Business accounts can range from anywhere between $29.95 per month to $99.95 per month.

Lack of Integration

While LinkedIn does provide you with more analytics and metrics than any other social media site, the problem is it can’t be exported or integrated with other tools to be analyzed further.

Thus, you’re going to have to do all of your analysis within LinkedIn which is, in most cases, less than ideal.

We have created a VERY detailed guide for you in which we talk about every single thing you need to know about making money by creating, selling, and managing online courses.

Wrapping Things Up…

While LinkedIn is definitely a very powerful tool for increasing brand awareness and reaching new audiences, it comes with a steep learning curve.

If you want to use LinkedIn to its fullest potential, be prepared to invest a lot of time, effort as well as money into it.

Do you use LinkedIn to find potential clients and foster business relationships? Let us know in the comments below.