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READINGS

LinkedIn for Connecting

• LinkedIn is often billed as the largest network of business professionals. It has a much more focused business participation than many social networks and is a great place to network and do research on specific organizations and opportunities.
• Probably the biggest difference between Facebook and LinkedIn is the focus on introductions. Ingrained in the LinkedIn culture is the ability to see who knows whom and who can make an introduction.
• It’s important that you take a little time and get to know the culture and the accepted norms of LinkedIn. This is often done by lurking a bit. Use the time to build your profile and your network of current friends so you can see firsthand some examples of how people connect and reach out on your chosen network. From there you can begin to contribute and seek out connections with demonstrated leaders within the network.

For the business professional there are some pretty good reasons to make LinkedIn a part of your overall social media outreach:

Find clients, help, and deals. For some industries LinkedIn is a great place to locate prospects and network partners. Many individuals openly promote relationships and deals that they are in the market for.

Build up buzz. Once you’ve established a following within LinkedIn you can begin to promote specific happenings around your organization.

Hire professionals. Often people think of social networking only in terms of making marketing connections. LinkedIn has become a great place to network and find great associates, partners, and vendors.

Get feedback and research. One of the most effective ways to tap your newly built social networks is to use them as a resource for research and feedback. Simply putting questions out to your group is a great way to get a feel for areas where you want input.

5 tips for getting more from LinkedIn

A pretty common question these days is: “Which social network is the best?”. “The one that helps you meet your marketing objectives.” And in that regard, many are great, but for different reasons.
LinkedIn: It has always tended toward the service – oriented professional, but it has plenty to like in the brand asset optimization world that all businesses live in as well. My advice for most business owners is to find a social network or platform that seems most suited to your business objectives and dive in pretty deep, focusing more casual attention on the others, at least initially. Going hard and deep into one network, like LinkedIn, is the only way to gain the momentum delivered by consistent work and engagement.

So, when it comes to LinkedIn, here are five tips to get more:
your profile

This is a great brand asset so don’t waste it. Make it informative and optimized for search.

• Add a photo: Nothing says nobody’s home faster than the default icon.
• Get the branded uRL: Something like this is what you want http://www.linkedin.com/ in/ducttapemarketing—it’s something you pick during editing.
• use links with Anchor text: Link to your blog, products, workshops, etc., through the “other” tab and you can add anchor text for the link.
• Be descriptive: Use the “Summary” to tell your story in a compelling way and add lots of keywords in the “specialty” section.
• Keep it active: LinkedIn has a status update feature, much like Facebook and Twitter, that you should update routinely.
• Link to it: Put links to your profile in your email signature and other online pages. Optimization is a two-way street.

Give to get

When people view profiles one of the top features is something called recommendations. While these may feel a little fluffy when you read them, lack of them can be a competitive issue. You should acquire some recommendations and I find the best way to get them is to give them. Choose people in your network that you’ve worked with and write an honest statement of recommendation. Don’t be surprised if you receive some in return.

Show what you’ve got

• An overlooked feature on LinkedIn, is the Question and Answer function. By jumping in and answering questions thoughtfully you can demonstrate a given expertise while potentially engaging contacts that are drawn to your knowledge. The key phrase is thoughtfully answering. LinkedIn even has a rating system to reward people who give the best answers with some added exposure.

The flip side of this tip is to ask thoughtful questions. This can be a great way to get useful information, but it’s equally powerful as a tool to create conversations, discussion, and engagement with like-minded connections.

Lead a group

• Anyone can launch a group on LinkedIn and lead discussions and networking on a specific topic of interest. If you take this tip to heart and put some effort into a niche group you can gain added influence with your network, but groups are also open to the LinkedIn universe as a whole and some folks find that this is one of the strongest ways to build their network. Building a group around an established brand is also a great way to bring users or customers together.

Repurpose content

• Since members of your network, and those of the larger LinkedIn community, may only experience your brand on the LinkedIn platform, it’s a great idea to enhance your profile with educational information. This is best done using some of the third-party applications that LinkedIn has collected for this purpose.

Blog Link:

• Displays your latest blog posts on your profile Box.net: allows you to create links to files such as resumes and marketing kits SlideShare: embeds slideshow presentations and demos Company Buzz: scrapes Twitter for mentions of your brand or other topics you assign

Premium Feature

• When prospecting on LinkedIn in the past you could type in a keyword or specific company search and locate people you might want to reach out to. For many folks this is the greatest benefit of LinkedIn participation. The tough thing was you had to look at the details of each profile you might find and make a decision about contacting them right then as there wasn’t a convenient way to save or group your chosen profiles for future use.

LinkedIn added a tool in the paid version that allows you to create searches and then save the profiles that look interesting to folders in what it’s calling your Profile Organizer. So, let’s say you are scouting out journalists at a certain publication. You can do a search, set up a folder, and save all the profiles you like in that folder for later contact. LinkedIn also added a “note” feature so you can jot something of interest to yourself or even something that was said when you contacted them last. This feature makes the paid version worth a look.
Search on the term marketing—hover over a profile and save it to your marketing folder (click image to enlarge).
In profile organizer you can make notes on any saved profile (click image to enlarge).
The Profile Organizer shows up as a workspace under the contact tab and once active you’ll see “save profile” as an option any time you are looking at an individual or group of profiles.

Author/Adapted by: Webinar Outline and Resources by John Zeus for Digital Skills/Digital Engagement Webinars.