If you’re a seasoned home inspector, you may wonder why you should use LinkedIn. It’s not like you have a huge business-to-business (B2B) company whose customers regularly hang out on professional sites like LinkedIn.
No, you’re running a small business that caters to consumers. They’re probably not looking for inspectors on LinkedIn, right? They’re more likely to do a Google search or find you through Facebook.
So why should you invest time in a robust LinkedIn profile?
You might be partially right—LinkedIn was started as a professional networking site, and big B2B companies can see many great benefits from marketing there.
But you’d also be wrong: No matter your business size, LinkedIn can be an endlessly useful tool.
Read on to learn why—and how—you can employ this professional networking site to gain valuable insights, market your business, and promote your home inspection company.
How is LinkedIn helpful for small businesses?
LinkedIn is one of the top social networks in the world, with 756 million users in more than 200 countries and territories around the globe. You’d be excused for assuming LinkedIn is merely a place to store your online resume—but it has many more uses than that.
When used properly, this popular social media platform can help drive traffic to your business website and find potential customers. It can also help you forge relationships with other professionals within your industry, be they:
- Fellow inspectors
- Realtors
- Building inspectors
- Contractors
- Home appraisers
- And more
And if you want to expand your inspection team, LinkedIn is a great way to announce job openings and find new talent for your successful inspection business.
How to set up a small business page on LinkedIn
You may already have a personal LinkedIn profile, but do you have a business page?
If you’re serious about building and promoting your home inspection business on LinkedIn, creating a free business page is a great way to help potential customers, professional peers, and job candidates find and learn more about your company. Creating a personal profile and a company page helps ensure that your business is discoverable by all the right people, not to mention more likely to appear in search engine results.
To set up your business page, you’ll need a computer. First, click the Work icon in the top right corner of your homepage. Select Create a Company Page.
You’ll have several options for what kind of page to set up, including a small business, a medium-to-large business, a showcase page, and an educational institution. Unless your inspection company has more than 200 employees, it’s likely you’ll want to select Small business.
On the next page, choose a name for your company page (we recommend using the name of your home inspection company) and customize your public URL. Your URL should be something easy to remember (and type), like “linkedin.com/company/smith-inspections.”
On this screen, you’ll also enter information about your company, like its name, website, industry, size, and type. You can also upload a logo and tagline, which we recommend so that searchers can get a feel for your business as soon as they land on your LinkedIn page.
After you’ve entered all your information the way you want it, check the verification box to confirm you are authorized to act on behalf of your company in creating the page. Click Create page.
If a red error message appears, you might have left a required field blank, or you may have already met the maximum number of LinkedIn Pages allowed for your profile.
Congrats, you’re the proud owner of a new LinkedIn business page! From there, you can follow the guide to fill out all the extra components of your page, such as:
- Writing a description of your company
- Uploading a background photo (LinkedIn recommends that your photo have a resolution of 1584×396 pixels)
- Adding contact information
- Making any custom buttons (such as “contact us”)
- Adding links to any other social profiles you own, such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok
- Creating your first post
How is LinkedIn used for marketing?
LinkedIn is an effective marketing tool if you use it right. Make the most of the professional networking platform to share content, build a network, promote your brand, and find and recruit top talent.
Networking
When LinkedIn launched in 2002, its primary purpose was to enable business professionals to meet, connect, and share with each other. Employers, employees, business partners, competitors, and customers could all meet on LinkedIn and share relevant content.
Even though LinkedIn has expanded the number of its available tools, networking is still at the forefront of its useful elements. Take advantage of the benefits of networking on LinkedIn by following and connecting with other industry professionals (especially those in your area).
And don’t underestimate the power of connecting with those people you know in real life, too—family, friends, and acquaintances who may not be in the inspection industry but who can attest to your skills and work ethic. LinkedIn’s Endorsements work like easy testimonials for your skills.
Analytics
LinkedIn is a useful tool for gaining a better idea of the types of people who are seeing and interacting with your brand. You can use the “Who viewed my profile?” feature to gain insights on… well, who’s viewing your profile.
Who makes up your audience? Are there any potential leads or, more likely, potential connections you can make with other professionals in your area?
For instance, perhaps a local real estate agent is looking for well-established home inspectors nearby to refer her clients to. Or a building company is looking for a seasoned inspector to use for their slate of new homes.
Whoever they are, they search LinkedIn for home inspectors in their city. Your inspection business profile appears under “People.”
If you appear in their search results, you’ll get a notification that you appeared in a LinkedIn Search. If they click on your name to learn more, it will notify them that someone viewed your profile.
You won’t be notified of the user whose search resulted in your name, but you can find out what search phrase they used if you have a Premium subscription. Either way, LinkedIn is a great way to learn useful information about better marketing yourself to your community by learning who is interested in your services.
Building your brand and promoting your home inspection business
Once you’ve started building a network, expand upon it by posting content on your news feed. Try the following tips to post regularly and remain active on LinkedIn:
- Share a connection’s LinkedIn post (don’t forget to include a key takeaway or two of your own)
- Reply to others’ posts with encouraging comments or useful information based on your experience on the job
- Run a poll to gain industry insights
- Write a post or create a video of your own demonstrating something about your work (some common content inspectors post include home repair tips and advice for new home inspectors)
Whatever you post, don’t forget to include relevant hashtags so that others will see your posts besides your direct connections.
Unlike Facebook business pages, LinkedIn business promotion involves letting visitors see the real people involved at the company. Visitors to your company page should get an immediate sense of who you are, what you do, and how to get in touch with you.
Make sure all employees of your business (if any) are linked to your Company Page, and encourage them to update their own profiles to reflect their skills and current job at your organization. It’s also not a bad idea for them to make sure their personal bios line up with your company’s values.
Recruiting top talent
If you’re ready to hire new home inspectors for your growing business, LinkedIn can help you. You can easily post new job openings as status updates or in direct messages to your network, or you can create an official job posting on LinkedIn Jobs for a fee.
And of course, while you’re screening potential candidates, you can use LinkedIn to research potential employees’ job history, connections, and credentials.
LinkedIn is also a great tool for searching out top talent on your own. Save searches and create search alerts in LinkedIn Recruiter if you’re looking for an employee with a specific background or skill set.
FAQ about LinkedIn for Home Inspectors
- Can I create a company page on LinkedIn without a personal profile? No. You must have a personal profile in order to create a company page—but this is good news since you’ll have more success if visitors can see that there’s a real person behind the company title.
- Can you have 2 profiles on LinkedIn? No, the LinkedIn user agreement does not permit more than one personal profile. However, you can create more than one company page using the same profile. If you have multiple businesses or professions, you can create a page for each one.
- How do I describe my small inspection business on LinkedIn? You don’t have to be a top-tier writer to create an attractive Company Overview section. Keep things short, sweet, and authentic; what service(s) do you offer? What sets you apart from the competition? Try to capture your mission and values in one or two snappy sentences.
Takeaway
When using LinkedIn for your home inspection business, it’s not enough to create a business page. You’ll need to make an extra effort to polish your page to its professional, discoverable best. After creating and optimizing your LinkedIn business page, stay active by networking, promoting your brand, and recruiting additional employees as needed.
Building professional relationships and a professional brand is more difficult than ever in an increasingly online world. As such, platforms like LinkedIn are invaluable for establishing your authority in your industry and ensuring your inspection company appears as a legitimate, respectable place to do business.