(This guest post is written by Curt Anderson, founder of B2Btail, author, and noted LinkedIn influencer.)

It’s not a question anymore whether you should be on LinkedIn, it’s now how you should be on LinkedIn.

Although you may feel comfortable with your current profile, are you truly maximizing your business opportunities on LinkedIn?

There's a common misconception that hiring an agency to do your marketing is much more expensive than handling it internally.

The trick about marketing is that it's not one single job that you're paying someone to do. There are many tasks and responsibilities that require a variety of skill sets. The salary of an individual who can do all of those things effectively is much higher than a monthly agency retainer fee. Hands down.

"Marketing" is one word that encompasses a lot of components and gears and creative production. You may decide to outsource some of those pieces, while taking care of others in-house. So, the real question you want to ask yourself is: What parts of my inbound marketing strategy do I need to outsource, and which can I do internally?

For some of our clients, they can't do anything internally. Whether it's a matter of time, resources, or ability, they're simply unable to take care of their marketing strategies on their own.

Other clients have some experience with different aspects of marketing, plus a little extra time to churn those bits out. They take care of those pieces, and we handle the unfamiliar territory.

So, what are the different pieces that need work? How do you know if you can handle them yourself, or if you should hire an expert? Let's take a look.

As we welcome 2021 into our home while 2020 sneaks out the back door, we can’t help but notice the mess the previous year left behind with it. Of course, by “mess” we mean the “temporary” changes that are slowly turning into a new permanent way of being.

Large investments typically cause sticker shock. We get it. We hate sticker shock too. But if you make a smart investment, it really ends up paying for itself. 

Buyers’ journeys have been around, and understood, for quite some time. However, every time a new market emerges or a new company forms, relearning the potential customer’s buyer journey is imperative. 

For many businesses, getting noticed on social media and in Google search results can be a challenge. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and LinkedIn all have at least one thing in common -- they help extend your company’s reach (regardless of your industry). It helps to have a large following, but if you don’t there’s a great way to reach a large group of people.

Understanding how to properly use paid advertising, in combination with effective social media practices, will put your business on track to being noticed. 

As we finally have the opportunity to throw our 2020 calendars directly into the trash, it’s time to begin putting a focus on what’s next. And if you’re a B2B company preparing for another year of unpredictability, it’s important to put an emphasis on marketing.

Whether you find hashtags to be annoying or not, they’re an integral part of digital and social media marketing. With roughly 80% of the U.S population using social media, using hashtags in posts can get you and your business the attention it needs. 

By including hashtags in social media posts, users are able to search specific, topical terms and find your post if the hashtag correlates to their search term. Yes, this applies to B2B social media marketing too -- especially on LinkedIn.

Hashtags allow you to stand out amongst competitors, as well as filter through the thousands of posts we see each day from friends, family, colleagues, and random social media accounts. To develop a rock-solid SaaS social media marketing strategy, learn why healthcare hashtags are so important -- and see our real-life examples!

As technology changes, so does the way customers conduct their research. Just look at the healthcare and healthcare tech industries.

It’s extremely common for potential patients to search the internet for information, products, or services relating to their medical needs. And the B2Bs who serve medical facilities are trying to get in front of the right person who’s typically researching software and devices via Google.

As a result, businesses within the medical industry -- both B2C and B2B -- must have fully functioning and user-friendly websites. How else will patients find you in today’s world without a little SEO to even the playing field?

Having a website is only a piece of the puzzle. A website alone will not get you ranked high in Google search results -- but medical SEO will.

Ray Tomlinson sent the first networked email in 1971. Back then, an email was a way to copy a file to another user’s file directory.

Email has evolved a lot since 1971, and email marketing has evolved right along with it. Because of smartphones and tablets, we have access to emails 24/7. And with more than 293.6 billion emails sent daily, you don’t want yours to get lost in the shuffle.