Using LinkedIn for Business

As we mentioned in our previous article, Tips to Understanding Social Media Marketing, your primary purpose in using SMM tools like Twitter, FaceBook and LinkedIn must be to connect with and offer value to your audience on a personal level, build relationships with the community and listen to what is being said about your company/industry. This month’s article focuses on how to make the most of your LinkedIn account.

What is LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is an online network of more than 80 million experienced professionals from around the world, representing more than 170 industries. LinkedIn enables you to leverage your existing professional network, help the people you trust in return, and find potential customers online.
 

Fifty percent of LinkedIn’s members are in decision-making positions. It is probably the most obvious way to identify influential individuals at specific organizations. A search for your target business will identify people you may already be connected with, either directly or through your connections.

Tips to Increase the Value of LinkedIn:

1. Complete a Personal Profile and a Company Profile. Your profile should be 100% complete. People searching for contacts will make a decision to connect or not based on the information you provide in your profiles. Remember to include all important information such as your website and blog URLs. Take the time to make the descriptions for you and your business interesting to read and an accurate reflection of your experience, knowledge and passion. Don’t forget to upload a photo—people are more likely to connect with you if they recognize our face and they feel like they are connecting with a real person.

2. Improve Your Connectability. Most new users put only their current company in their profile. By doing so, they severely limit their ability to connect with people. You should fill out your profile like it’s an executive bio, so include past companies, education, affiliations and activities.

3. Increase Your Visibility. By adding meaningful connections, you increase the likelihood that people will see your profile first when they’re searching for someone to hire or do business with. Connect with people with whom you have worked or done business, or generally people with similar interests or work in your industry. Invite thought leaders in your industry to connect to that you might establish a relationship with them and, eventually, gain access to their network. Ask your first-level contacts for introductions to their first-level contacts.

4. Improve your Google PageRank. LinkedIn allows you to make your profile information available for search engines to index. Since LinkedIn profiles receive a fairly high PageRank in Google, this is a good way to influence what people see when they search for you. To do this, create a public profile and select “Full View.”

Also, instead of using the default URL, customize your public profile’s URL to be your (or your company’s) actual name. With your name in the URL, it is more likely for your profile to rank for searches for your name because search engines look for relevant keywords in the URL.

Additionally, this is a much easier URL to remember and share with others as you meet them. To edit your URL, visit your profile, click on “edit” next to your public profile URL, and then “Edit” once again on your public profile settings page. Your LinkedIn profile URL should look like http://www/LinkedInnkedin.com/in/yourname.

To strengthen the visibility of this page in search engines, use this link in various places on the web. For example, when you comment in a blog, include a link to your profile in your signature.

5. Get Recommended. Ask for recommendations from friends, colleagues, partners and clients. This will speak to your experience and add to your credibility in your industry. In turn, write honest and valuable recommendations for your contacts.

6. Use the Q&A function. The Q&A function of LinkedIn is a powerful revenue-generating tool. Try using the advanced answers search to find questions specific to your company’s expertise. Don’t pitch your company’s products or services here, just give the best—or most altruistic—answer you can. Ask questions to get a feel for what customers and prospects want or think. The Q&A is definitely a give-to-get medium: Give freely and you’ll get back in spades.

7. Become an Expert. Show expertise without a hint of self-promotion. When a question is asked on LinkedIn, it remains open for answers for seven days. After the question closes, the asker can rate the best answer to that question. The best answerers for a given question are awarded expert status on LinkedIn. From that point on, whenever an expert answers a question, that expert gets an expert badge and that expert status follows them around wherever they go on the site.

8. Grow Your Network. Join industry and alumni groups related to your business.

9. Join Groups and Get Involved in the Discussion. The Groups feature allows LinkedIn users to create and participate in discussions around a topic. Groups can be a great way to make potential business connections, and are also a great place to share relevant blog content. When you join, introduce yourself and your services. There are still a lot of industries or groups of professional not yet represented in linked groups. If no one has created a group for your industry, go create one.

10. Update Your Status Often. Make sure you keep your connections updated with your latest goings on by updating your status. You can now link status updates to Twitter (and vice versa). This feature allows you to post a LinkedIn status message to Twitter and to pull a tweet into your LinkedIn status. Enabling this feature will help you leverage both of these networks to build connections on both sites.

Keep an eye out for Trulium’s future newletters featuring articles to benefit your business. Sign up for our newsletter by clicking here and filling out the contact form with “sign me up for your newsletter” in the comments section.