Archive for linkedin marketing
How to Network Using LinkedIn Groups
5 LinkedIn Marketing Tips to Grow Your Business
Are you looking for ways to expand your business with LinkedIn?
With a recent homepage redesign, profile and company page redesigns, new mobile apps and the introduction of notifications and endorsements, engagement on LinkedIn is growing.
Understanding a few simple strategies that can help you become a smarter and more effective marketer can really boost your results over time.
Here are 5 high-impact strategies to boost your marketing results on LinkedIn.
#1: Review and Reboot Your LinkedIn Profile… Frequently
Most recently, LinkedIn made some major changes both to personal profiles and company pages. For a comprehensive review of the most recent updates, visit this post to learn more about how to optimize your LinkedIn profile and company page.
In addition to making sure that you adjust to the changes in your profile layout and features, it’s a good idea to “reboot” your profile from time to time. I tend to reboot my profile every couple of months or so to keep it fresh, relevant and interesting.
Each time you update your profile, the update is shared to your network as long as you have this feature enabled in your settings.
Adjust your profile settings to show profile updates in your activity feed.
Is your LinkedIn profile picture outdated?
It may be time for a new one, especially if you’ve changed your look. Do you have a new hairstyle or color? Have you updated your wardrobe?
If it’s been a couple of years, your picture is most likely outdated. If you want to be recognizable in person at meetings, conferences and events with your LinkedIn connections, make sure your picture really does look like you today!
Keep your LinkedIn profile image current and update your headline with relevant keywords.
Refresh your LinkedIn headline
I’ve found that when I update my primary profile headline every few months, my profile views jump. Also, when you add new keyword phrases to your profile summary and new relevant skills it may help you show up in more LinkedIn searches due to the search value of these key areas on your profile.
You can review your LinkedIn profile stats provided in the sidebar of your homepage to keep an eye on the number of times your profile has been viewed, as well as how many times you appear in LinkedIn searches.
Remember you won’t be able to determine who’s viewed your profile without a premium account, but you can still access the number of views you are receiving.
Review your profile stats frequently from the sidebar of your homepage.
The more people who view your profile, the more likely a percentage of those visitors will click through to your website or blog and learn more about you!
Keeping your profiles fresh and active will not only enable you to grow your visibility within the network, it will also allow you to potentially drive relevant traffic to your blog or website.
Remember, your profiles are the foundation of your presence on LinkedIn. Don’t let them get outdated and rusty!
#2: Build a Deep and Wide Network
One of the best ways to get found on LinkedIn is to build up your network of connections. Certainly you will want to focus on having a quality network, but don’t be afraid to expand your connections.
LinkedIn does value both the depth and breadth of a member’s network, especially when showcasing search results. Every new connection you make is an opportunity to enhance your visibility.
Typically my rule of thumb is to review each invitation request received and make sure that the person has a completed LinkedIn profile with a picture.
Also make sure there is some relevant reason why it would make sense to connect.
- Do they live in my community?
- Do we belong to the same group(s)?
- Are they connected to someone I know?
- Do we or have we worked in the same industry?
- Do we share common hobbies, interests or causes?
- Have they read or spread my content?
- Have they included a personal note with the invitation?
I’m much more likely to connect with people if they provide a good reason why they would like to connect, rather than sending a generic invitation.
By the way, you should use these same suggestions when identifying and reaching out to others to connect with you! Personalize your invitations when possible and provide a compelling reason why someone should connect with you.
What you will find is that as you grow the quality and quantity of your LinkedIn connections, there will eventually be a tipping point. This means you won’t have to proactively seek out new connections all the time, because they will come to you. Doors will open and more opportunities will come your way if you are more open to growing your connections!
It’s also perfectly fine to remove a connection, especially if over time you find that there really isn’t a good reason to be connected with a particular individual. If you do so, the person whom you remove will not receive any kind of notification of this action.
Another simple and effective way to build your connections is to invite other group members to connect with you. Hopefully by now, you’ve joined some groups that are relevant to your industry, community, alma mater or even your targeted prospects. If so, LinkedIn allows you to send invitations to connect with other members within the group.
Connect with mutual LinkedIn group members who share common interests.
Be cautious not to send too many invitations to people whom you don’t know and may have never seen you before. For example, it makes sense to be consistently active within a group before reaching out to other members to connect.
To grow your network deep and wide, always be connecting! Connect with clients, prospects, partners, vendors, colleagues, community leaders, fellow alumni and anyone you meet face to face at networking events or conferences. Let those people you meet know that you’re going to be reaching out on LinkedIn to connect with them.
#3: Be Consistently Visible, Valuable and Timely
If you have a great LinkedIn profile and lots of connections, it’s not going to do you much good unless you become more active on the network. You can’t position yourself as a go-to resource unless you are visible, valuable and timely with your participation on LinkedIn.
Additionally, your most recent activity on LinkedIn now shows up toward the top of your profile. If you haven’t been sharing, commenting or interacting, nothing will show. Take advantage of this real estate and post a status update to your profile once or twice daily.
Your most recent status updates now show near the top of your LinkedIn profile.
The great news is, you don’t have to spend a significant amount of time to truly be visible and valuable on LinkedIn. By focusing on critical activities, you will be able to stay top of mind with your connections with ease.
What are critical activities on LinkedIn?
There are activities that have the potential to grab the most attention from your connections. These include media-rich status updates (links that showcase images) with compelling headlines; thought-provoking questions; comments on the status updates of your connections; and overall the sharing of reputable, relevant and interesting content with your network. You should engage in these critical activities on LinkedIn 2-3 times daily.
Need some ideas for what to share with your network? Tap into LinkedIn Today for popular and trending news topics, as well as the LinkedIn INfluencer program to share and comment on insights from well-known thought leaders!
Although it’s impossible to keep up with every single update from your network of connections (and beyond), LinkedIn now provides some nifty tools to make sure your interactions are more timely and relevant.
Check out your Notifications at the top of your profile. This is a new feature that LinkedIn recently added to make it easy for you to review the most recent interactions from your network.
Now you can easily scroll through these notifications and respond accordingly, in a timely fashion. This feature makes LinkedIn more of a true online networking destination.
Notifications can be found at the top of your LinkedIn profile.
Another timely networking option for being visible and valuable is to filter the updates on your LinkedIn homepage by Shares. There you will find what’s trending in your network and you can jump right in to contribute to the conversation!
Filter your homepage updates by Shares and participate in trending conversations.
LinkedIn status updates are by far the most powerful opportunity to be visible and valuable with your network. Many of the inbound inquiries I receive in my business are a direct result of being consistently visible, valuable and timely through my LinkedIn status updates.
#4: Leverage LinkedIn Endorsements
Whether you love or hate the new LinkedIn endorsements feature, it’s probably here to stay. LinkedIn recently reported that over 200 million endorsements had been given by members since the launch of this feature! Therefore, you should consider taking advantage of endorsements to boost your visibility and credibility.
LinkedIn endorsements can provide a powerful “thumbs-up” visual bulletin board from your network for the specialty skills that you list in your profile.
Anytime you give or receive an endorsement, it will show up in the LinkedIn news feed for your network, which means more visibility. Although endorsements aren’t currently weighted in LinkedIn search results, it is expected that they will be.
How can you receive more endorsements? Make sure to list all of the skills and experience that you have on your profile first, and then go out and endorse your connections based on your evaluation of the particular skills they are showcasing in their profiles.
In many cases, the people you endorse will come back and endorse you for at least one skill. Don’t be afraid to endorse colleagues or competitors as well!
As you grow your endorsements, you might consider moving that section of your LinkedIn profile up toward the top for enhanced social proof, and to showcase your top skills.
Give endorsements to your connections and showcase the endorsements you receive prominently on your profile.
#5: Participate Strategically in LinkedIn Groups
LinkedIn Groups still present a great opportunity to develop rapport with the members of your target markets and industry peers. There are over 1 million groups on LinkedIn and many of them are both active and well-managed.
Look for the quality groups to join and participate in those that have genuine discussions going on and have a visible group leader. Join up to the 50 groups that LinkedIn allows, but spend time focusing on 3-5 quality groups, rather than all 50, for the best results.
Recently LinkedIn reduced the automated weekly emails that highlight discussions from all of the groups you belong to but are not active in. In order to stay current with your groups, you are going to need to proactively visit them on LinkedIn to review and participate in LinkedIn discussions.
Post discussions that involve asking and answering questions in groups to position yourself as a resource. Point to reputable sources of information that are relevant to group members and to specific discussions in order to build relationships and credibility within the group.
Win favor with fellow group members by posting relevant, reputable and informative content.
If you can’t find the right groups for your target markets or your industry, you can always start your own LinkedIn Group. My LinkedIn group has been one of the most valuable business resources that I’ve ever invested my time in. It’s allowed me to cultivate an engaged niche following and build stronger relationships with members of my target market.
Ultimately people do business with people, so make sure that you always have a relationship-focused mindset on LinkedIn. LinkedIn members are there to develop and grow their professional network and gain valuable insights.
Don’t ever spam or make public sales pitches on LinkedIn. Always be professional and you will be very successful in marketing your business.
These 5 simple strategies should help you focus on the most critical LinkedIn marketing activities.
What do you think? What have you done to boost your LinkedIn marketing? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.
Preparing for the New LinkedIn Design: How to Optimize Your Page and Profile
Are you wondering how the new LinkedIn design will impact your personal profile and business page?
While you might be waiting for the launch of the new LinkedIn profile design, there are still many other areas of LinkedIn you can improve upon today.
In this article, you’ll learn more about both new and existing LinkedIn features for your professional profile and company page that can help you get more results from your LinkedIn experience.
LinkedIn Professional Profiles
Want to make sure your LinkedIn profile is prepared for the new profile design (which you can preview by enlarging this image)? Here are some things you should make sure to include in it now.
The Basics
The most important parts of your LinkedIn profile.
If you want to be found in LinkedIn search by potential employers, customers and partners, you need to make sure your profile is up to date in key areas such as the following.
- Your Headline – Your headline is probably the most important when it comes to how your profile appears in search results. Think of the main keywords you want to be discovered by and include them in your headline.
- Your Summary – Be sure to write a strong summary about yourself that summarizes your experience, your achievements and who you are as a professional.
- Your Contact Info – In the current and new profile design, you have to click on the Contact Info button (as seen in the image above) to get to your website, email, Twitter and Skype. While it’s not as obvious as it was before, be sure to include at least your Twitter and up to three website links. Select Other when setting up your website links to use custom text to describe them, versus letting LinkedIn label them as Company, Blog, Website, etc.
- Your Current and Previous Experience – If you’ve changed careers lately or taken on new responsibilities at your company, then you should update your LinkedIn profile to reflect these changes.
- Your Groups – In the new layout, the groups you belong to will be listed in a more visually appealing way. Make sure the groups you belong to describe your professional interests; photographers should be in photography groups, writers in writers’ groups, and so forth.
- Your News – LinkedIn Today, LinkedIn’s news that pulls from a variety of sources from around the web, allows you to follow specific topics that will be displayed on the new LinkedIn profile design. Be sure to select a few relevant topics to follow in your News Settings. Also be sure to scroll down to the bottom of the settings page to adjust your email settings so you don’t get too many emails.
- Your Companies – Another thing to be prominently displayed on the new profile design is the companies you follow. Use this area to follow companies you own, your customers, your partners or companies you may simply hope to work with in the future.
Skills and Expertise
View endorsement for your skills and expertise.
Chances are if you have a lot of connections on LinkedIn, you have seen many endorsements for your skills and expertise rolling in. If you feel like people are not endorsing you for the right things or you would like to get endorsements for other skills, make sure to add them.
Add New Sections
Add new sections to your LinkedIn profile.
Go beyond the basic profile information about your experience, skills and education by adding some sections to your profile; some of which allow you to link back to your website. This option can be found when you go to edit your profile above your summary. These sections include the following.
- Certifications – There are a lot of professional certifications that potential employers or customers may be impressed to know you have. Be sure to add yours in this section.
- Courses – If you’ve taken courses outside of college or at various educational institutions, you can highlight the ones that are relevant to your current professional goals in this section.
- Honors and Awards – Add any kind of public recognition that relates to your current professional goals in this section.
- Languages – If you speak additional languages, add them here to attract an international audience.
- Organizations – Publicize professional organizations as well as important local ones that you belong to in this section.
- Projects – If you have been or are currently working on major industry-related projects, you can showcase them here and even link to them.
- Patents – For certain industries and entrepreneurs, highlighting patents you’ve developed can be very helpful.
- Publications – If you’ve written any type of book, whether it is formally published an in print, Kindle or eBook only, you can share it under in this section and link to it on Amazon, your own website or elsewhere online.
- Test Scores – If you have impressive scores on tests relevant to your industry, you can share your scores here.
- Volunteer Experience and Causes – Let people know how much you care about your community by sharing the non-profits, organizations and causes you support.
Your Status Updates
Status updates on the new LinkedIn profile.
Status updates will be displayed much more prominently on the new LinkedIn profile design.
Get in the habit of updating your LinkedIn professional profile regularly or using social media management tools like HootSuite or Buffer to automatically update your status on LinkedIn.
How All of These Will Help You Get Results
Why are all of the sections on your professional profile so important? Think of it like keyword-optimizing your website for search engines – the more keywords you have on your professional profile that tell what you are about, the more likely you are to get discovered by those searching for people with your qualifications.
Once people have found your profile, seeing things like your latest updates will let them know you are active as well as the right fit for their business needs.
Once your professional profile is updated, be sure to use it by creating groups, participating in groups and branding yourself as an expert via LinkedIn Answers.
LinkedIn Company Pages
If your business hasn’t already created a new LinkedIn company page, it is definitely something worth doing soon. A few good reasons include:
- Employees will be marketing your company on their professional profiles when they list it as their current or previous place of employment.
- People who follow your company (customers, employees, partners, friends, etc.) will be marketing your company on their professional profiles when the new design adds companies followed to their layout.
- It’s another great social media property to own for your company and one that can show up on the first page of search results for your company name.
We have covered four tips to creating your LinkedIn company page as well as five tips for optimizing for the new company pages. But there is one area that does not receive enough attention – an area that can lead converting visitors (strong leads and potential customers) back to your website.
Basics About Products and Services
Dell's LinkedIn company page.
If you have a company page, you probably know that you can create an overview page for your products and services that includes the following.
- Up to Three Banner Images – Use up to three 646 x 222 pixel banner images to represent your top three products or services, each of which can link back to specific pages on your website.
- YouTube Video – Include your latest advertisement, demo or other video content about your products and services.
- An Ordered List of Products/Services – Prioritize your top products and services by arranging them in order of importance.
Variations of the Products and Services Page
Here is where you can get really creative with your products and services. Let’s say that you wanted to create different content for different visitors coming to your LinkedIn company page. Now you can with variations of your Products and Services page.
Start by going to your company’s page and navigating to the Products and Services page. If your business only offers products, it will just be called Products, and if your business only offers services, it will just be called Services. Then click the Edit button.
Editing your Products and Services page to create variations.
At the very top, you have the option to create multiple variations of your Products and/or Services page. The default page is the first one you create – this will be shown to anyone who doesn’t match any additional variations you have created. To create a new variation, click on the Create New Audience button.
Create variations by defining your target audience.
Here, you will have the option to define audience based on the following criteria on your Products and Services page.
- Company Size – Use words targeted toward small business, large corporations or businesses in between.
- Job Function – Use words targeted toward people working in specific positions within a company from accounting to support.
- Industry – Use words targeted toward businesses within specific industries. If you’re not sure what industries to target, see if you can find your best customer’s LinkedIn company page and see what industries they list themselves in. This will be listed in the About information on the company page.
- Seniority – Use words targeted toward business owners, managers, directors, VPs and other levels of authority.
- Geography – Use words targeted toward businesses in different locations around the world.
Once you have defined your audience, you will be given a duplicate of your default Products and Services page to tailor to your fit your newly defined audience’s needs. Remember that it’s not just the words on the page you can change; you can change your banner images, video and choose up to five products and services to highlight for each target audience.
If you want to attract more visitors to your company page, or directly to your website, keep these audience-targeting options in mind and try out LinkedIn Advertising. The better you target your ads, the less you’ll spend on more valuable clicks.
How Variations of the Products and Services Page Will Help You Get Results
Think of variations of your Products and Services page as individual landing pages. When you customize a landing page just right for advertising or search optimization, you are more likely to get conversions because you are talking directly to your target audience instead of generalizing your products and services to the masses.
To get your mind going in the right direction, take a moment to look at Shopify’s custom landing pages for people who want to sell jewelry, photography, crafts, books, music and magazines online. Instead of just having one generalized page about their shopping cart service, they have targeted specific industries most likely to use them for ecommerce, which likely translates to many more free trial signups.
What do you think? What other ways are you preparing your LinkedIn professional profile and company page for the new design in 2013? Please share in the comments section below!
Preparing for the New LinkedIn Design: How to Optimize Your Page and Profile
Are you wondering how the new LinkedIn design will impact your personal profile and business page?
While you might be waiting for the launch of the new LinkedIn profile design, there are still many other areas of LinkedIn you can improve upon today.
In this article, you’ll learn more about both new and existing LinkedIn features for your professional profile and company page that can help you get more results from your LinkedIn experience.
LinkedIn Professional Profiles
Want to make sure your LinkedIn profile is prepared for the new profile design (which you can preview by enlarging this image)? Here are some things you should make sure to include in it now.
The Basics
The most important parts of your LinkedIn profile.
If you want to be found in LinkedIn search by potential employers, customers and partners, you need to make sure your profile is up to date in key areas such as the following.
- Your Headline – Your headline is probably the most important when it comes to how your profile appears in search results. Think of the main keywords you want to be discovered by and include them in your headline.
- Your Summary – Be sure to write a strong summary about yourself that summarizes your experience, your achievements and who you are as a professional.
- Your Contact Info – In the current and new profile design, you have to click on the Contact Info button (as seen in the image above) to get to your website, email, Twitter and Skype. While it’s not as obvious as it was before, be sure to include at least your Twitter and up to three website links. Select Other when setting up your website links to use custom text to describe them, versus letting LinkedIn label them as Company, Blog, Website, etc.
- Your Current and Previous Experience – If you’ve changed careers lately or taken on new responsibilities at your company, then you should update your LinkedIn profile to reflect these changes.
- Your Groups – In the new layout, the groups you belong to will be listed in a more visually appealing way. Make sure the groups you belong to describe your professional interests; photographers should be in photography groups, writers in writers’ groups, and so forth.
- Your News – LinkedIn Today, LinkedIn’s news that pulls from a variety of sources from around the web, allows you to follow specific topics that will be displayed on the new LinkedIn profile design. Be sure to select a few relevant topics to follow in your News Settings. Also be sure to scroll down to the bottom of the settings page to adjust your email settings so you don’t get too many emails.
- Your Companies – Another thing to be prominently displayed on the new profile design is the companies you follow. Use this area to follow companies you own, your customers, your partners or companies you may simply hope to work with in the future.
Skills and Expertise
View endorsement for your skills and expertise.
Chances are if you have a lot of connections on LinkedIn, you have seen many endorsements for your skills and expertise rolling in. If you feel like people are not endorsing you for the right things or you would like to get endorsements for other skills, make sure to add them.
Add New Sections
Add new sections to your LinkedIn profile.
Go beyond the basic profile information about your experience, skills and education by adding some sections to your profile; some of which allow you to link back to your website. This option can be found when you go to edit your profile above your summary. These sections include the following.
- Certifications – There are a lot of professional certifications that potential employers or customers may be impressed to know you have. Be sure to add yours in this section.
- Courses – If you’ve taken courses outside of college or at various educational institutions, you can highlight the ones that are relevant to your current professional goals in this section.
- Honors and Awards – Add any kind of public recognition that relates to your current professional goals in this section.
- Languages – If you speak additional languages, add them here to attract an international audience.
- Organizations – Publicize professional organizations as well as important local ones that you belong to in this section.
- Projects – If you have been or are currently working on major industry-related projects, you can showcase them here and even link to them.
- Patents – For certain industries and entrepreneurs, highlighting patents you’ve developed can be very helpful.
- Publications – If you’ve written any type of book, whether it is formally published an in print, Kindle or eBook only, you can share it under in this section and link to it on Amazon, your own website or elsewhere online.
- Test Scores – If you have impressive scores on tests relevant to your industry, you can share your scores here.
- Volunteer Experience and Causes – Let people know how much you care about your community by sharing the non-profits, organizations and causes you support.
Your Status Updates
Status updates on the new LinkedIn profile.
Status updates will be displayed much more prominently on the new LinkedIn profile design.
Get in the habit of updating your LinkedIn professional profile regularly or using social media management tools like HootSuite or Buffer to automatically update your status on LinkedIn.
How All of These Will Help You Get Results
Why are all of the sections on your professional profile so important? Think of it like keyword-optimizing your website for search engines – the more keywords you have on your professional profile that tell what you are about, the more likely you are to get discovered by those searching for people with your qualifications.
Once people have found your profile, seeing things like your latest updates will let them know you are active as well as the right fit for their business needs.
Once your professional profile is updated, be sure to use it by creating groups, participating in groups and branding yourself as an expert via LinkedIn Answers.
LinkedIn Company Pages
If your business hasn’t already created a new LinkedIn company page, it is definitely something worth doing soon. A few good reasons include:
- Employees will be marketing your company on their professional profiles when they list it as their current or previous place of employment.
- People who follow your company (customers, employees, partners, friends, etc.) will be marketing your company on their professional profiles when the new design adds companies followed to their layout.
- It’s another great social media property to own for your company and one that can show up on the first page of search results for your company name.
We have covered four tips to creating your LinkedIn company page as well as five tips for optimizing for the new company pages. But there is one area that does not receive enough attention – an area that can lead converting visitors (strong leads and potential customers) back to your website.
Basics About Products and Services
Dell's LinkedIn company page.
If you have a company page, you probably know that you can create an overview page for your products and services that includes the following.
- Up to Three Banner Images – Use up to three 646 x 222 pixel banner images to represent your top three products or services, each of which can link back to specific pages on your website.
- YouTube Video – Include your latest advertisement, demo or other video content about your products and services.
- An Ordered List of Products/Services – Prioritize your top products and services by arranging them in order of importance.
Variations of the Products and Services Page
Here is where you can get really creative with your products and services. Let’s say that you wanted to create different content for different visitors coming to your LinkedIn company page. Now you can with variations of your Products and Services page.
Start by going to your company’s page and navigating to the Products and Services page. If your business only offers products, it will just be called Products, and if your business only offers services, it will just be called Services. Then click the Edit button.
Editing your Products and Services page to create variations.
At the very top, you have the option to create multiple variations of your Products and/or Services page. The default page is the first one you create – this will be shown to anyone who doesn’t match any additional variations you have created. To create a new variation, click on the Create New Audience button.
Create variations by defining your target audience.
Here, you will have the option to define audience based on the following criteria on your Products and Services page.
- Company Size – Use words targeted toward small business, large corporations or businesses in between.
- Job Function – Use words targeted toward people working in specific positions within a company from accounting to support.
- Industry – Use words targeted toward businesses within specific industries. If you’re not sure what industries to target, see if you can find your best customer’s LinkedIn company page and see what industries they list themselves in. This will be listed in the About information on the company page.
- Seniority – Use words targeted toward business owners, managers, directors, VPs and other levels of authority.
- Geography – Use words targeted toward businesses in different locations around the world.
Once you have defined your audience, you will be given a duplicate of your default Products and Services page to tailor to your fit your newly defined audience’s needs. Remember that it’s not just the words on the page you can change; you can change your banner images, video and choose up to five products and services to highlight for each target audience.
If you want to attract more visitors to your company page, or directly to your website, keep these audience-targeting options in mind and try out LinkedIn Advertising. The better you target your ads, the less you’ll spend on more valuable clicks.
How Variations of the Products and Services Page Will Help You Get Results
Think of variations of your Products and Services page as individual landing pages. When you customize a landing page just right for advertising or search optimization, you are more likely to get conversions because you are talking directly to your target audience instead of generalizing your products and services to the masses.
To get your mind going in the right direction, take a moment to look at Shopify’s custom landing pages for people who want to sell jewelry, photography, crafts, books, music and magazines online. Instead of just having one generalized page about their shopping cart service, they have targeted specific industries most likely to use them for ecommerce, which likely translates to many more free trial signups.
What do you think? What other ways are you preparing your LinkedIn professional profile and company page for the new design in 2013? Please share in the comments section below!
LinkedIn Marketing: New Features to Enhance Your LinkedIn Results
Do you use LinkedIn for your business?
Are you wondering how LinkedIn can help your online marketing?
To learn more about the new capabilities of LinkedIn and what they mean for marketers, I interview Viveka von Rosen for this episode of the Social Media Marketing podcast.
More About This Show
The Social Media Marketing podcast is a show from Social Media Examiner.
It’s designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover what works with social media marketing.
The show format is on-demand talk radio (also known as podcasting).
In this episode, I interview Viveka von Rosen, founder of Linked Into Business and author of the new book, LinkedIn Marketing: An Hour a Day.
Viveka shares insights into what’s new with LinkedIn and how marketers can cash in on all that LinkedIn is doing.
Share your feedback, read the show notes and get the links mentioned in this episode below!
Listen Now
You can also subscribe via iTunes, RSS, Stitcher or Blackberry.
Here are some of the things you’ll discover in this show:
LinkedIn Marketing
How LinkedIn Company Pages Are Evolving
Viveka shares how LinkedIn is becoming more autonomous with their Company Pages. Although functionality has not changed much on LinkedIn Company Pages and they still need to build a more dynamic social destination, the look and design have changed recently. Company Pages are more vibrant.
There’s a new banner photo across the top, which adds to the branding possibilities and the attractiveness of Company Pages. Want to create a banner? Make your photo 646 x 220 pixels in size.
This new design means that people will go beyond one-on-one connections and follow Company Pages.
The new banner photo adds to the branding of a Company Page.
Listen to the show to hear how the new Company Page allows you to build a business following that could lead to a personal following.
How Targeted Updates Work
Viveka explains how LinkedIn has focused more on Targeted Updates.
When sharing updates on your Company Page, you can now target the audience you want to reach. For example, you can choose to share specific updates with everyone who is following you or choose a specific industry or location.
And LinkedIn also provides companies with statistics on their results when sharing these updates.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NqapW7FE6I
Listen to the show to find out more about the statistics in your company updates.
How to Drive Followers With Your Company Page
You can put a Company Follow widget on your website to drive people directly to your company profile.
Put a Company Follow button on your website and when users click on it, they will automatically begin following your Company Page.
Of course, you can also put the link to your Company Page in your email signature.
Viveka recommends letting people know why they should follow your Company Page. You need to tell people what they are going to get out of it.
You’ll discover how content on an active LinkedIn Company Page has a greater propensity to show up in the LinkedIn Today section of the website.
Listen to the show to hear how LinkedIn Today can work for you.
What Is the Influencer Program?
At present on LinkedIn, there are about 152 influencers whom you can follow on LinkedIn. These thought leaders include President Barack Obama, Governor Mitt Romney, Jeff Weiner (CEO of LinkedIn), Guy Kawasaki and Arianna Huffington (Huffington Post). Viveka explains how you get a sense of interaction with these individuals, as the articles they are sharing are more than just updates.
One of the advantages of being an influencer is you are able to write longer blog-style articles that get shared. Viveka says that right now, LinkedIn is choosing who gets to be an influencer. It’s uncertain when this is going to be available to everyone else. It’s LinkedIn’s way of trying to create a more content-rich platform (people tend to think of LinkedIn as a ”Rolodex on steroids”). It’s a great opportunity to get some inside information from these influencers.
Listen to the show to find out how you can share this content across other social networks.
What Are Skills Endorsements?
As a LinkedIn user, you can list your skills in your profile. You can find the link under the More tab in your main menu bar and then add the skills you feel you have.
Endorsements allow other people to recommend you for those skills. The recommendation also includes a gravatar picture of the person giving the endorsement. You’ll discover why Viveka thinks this is important for LinkedIn users.
You might find that other people endorse you for skills you never thought you had. It’s a great measurement tool for what other people think your skills are, as opposed to what you think your skills are.
You endorse the skills suggested or type in other skills you find relevant.
Listen to the show to hear why testimonials and recommendations in the social media world are key.
LinkedIn and the Mobile User Base
Viveka explains why LinkedIn is focused on mobile apps right now. Only 40% of the LinkedIn network is American and the majority of people in Europe, India and China use mobile more than they use browser-based platforms.
Viveka also shares her favorite apps.
LinkedIn is really focused on mobile apps.
Listen to the show to find out why the iPad or iPhone app are easy to use.
The LinkedIn and Twitter “Breakup”
Viveka talks about how the LinkedIn culture and the Twitter culture are different. Viveka is thrilled that tweets are no longer flooding LinkedIn update streams, and thinks this is good news for LinkedIn.
You can still write an update on LinkedIn and share it to Twitter. You can still use sharing bookmarklets and share to both LinkedIn and Twitter at the same time. And in Open Groups, you can share the discussions with Twitter.
Listen to the show to learn more about using third-party scheduling apps.
Viveka’s Top Marketing Tips
Viveka shares the benefits of the new LinkedIn Notifications tab. This new feature shows you notifications of who has viewed your profile, discussions you have been active in and activity in your own groups. She has found that it helps with building relationships within your network and making new and valuable connections within the LinkedIn network. Viveka says, “For marketing, it has been priceless.”
The LinkedIn Notifications tab helps build relationships within your network.
The second marketing tip Viveka talks about is LinkedIn Signal, which is found under your News tab. There are only a few monitoring tools that are able to pick up on LinkedIn’s feed, so this tool, available within the LinkedIn platform, is very useful.
LinkedIn Signal helps you to track what people are saying on LinkedIn.
With LinkedIn Signal, you can search your own name, your Twitter handle, product, services and clients and see what people are saying on LinkedIn on those particular topics. Because it’s update-based, you’re not restricted to communicating with your first-degree connections. If a second- or third-degree connection mentions you, your product or your competition, you can respond and start a conversation.
Listen to the show to hear why you should check out these tools to nurture relationships on LinkedIn.
Discovery of the Week
1Password app is awesome if you struggle to come up with strong passwords that are easy to remember for your social accounts.
It synchronizes with Dropbox and works on both Mac and Windows systems.
The main 1Password application allows you to manage your saved Logins, Identities, Credit Cards, Secure Notes and more.
Listen to the show to learn more and let us know how this works for you.
Other Show Mentions
Social Media Marketing World is Social Media Examiner’s latest mega-conference—taking place at the waterfront San Diego Marriott Marquis & Marina in San Diego, California on April 7-9, 2013.
As you’d expect, Social Media Examiner recruited the biggest and best names in the world of social media marketing for this conference. Only the best for you! Be sure to check it out.
Key takeaways mentioned in this episode:
- Viveka’s website: Linked Into Business
- Connect with Viveka on Twitter: @LinkedInExpert
- Check out Viveka’s new book: LinkedIn Marketing: An Hour a Day
- Learn more about LinkedIn’s Company Pages and Endorsements
- Put a Company Follow Widget on your website
- Have a look at LinkedIn’s influencers
- If you’re a mobile user, take a look at LinkedIn Mobile
- Check out HootSuite and SocialOomph
- Look into LinkedIn Notifications tab and LinkedIn Signal
- Browse through LinkedIn Today for top news
- Try 1Password for generating strong passwords for your social accounts
- Give Dropbox a try
- Learn more about Social Media Marketing World
Help Us Spread the Word!
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What do you think? What are your thoughts on LinkedIn for business? Please leave your comments below.
6 Tips for Using LinkedIn the New Endorsements
A word of praise goes a long way in social media.
LinkedIn recently made the endorsement process super-easy with just a simple click.
LinkedIn Endorsements are now live across the United States, India, Australia and New Zealand, and rolling out to everyone else over the coming weeks.
How LinkedIn Endorsements Can Help You
Although it’s too early to tell how valuable these endorsements will be to your LinkedIn networking, they are now an option on your LinkedIn profile, whether you choose to show them on your public profile or not.
Add some skills which will show on your public profile.
In addition to providing some credibility, this new Endorsement feature can also be considered a networking tool for savvy online marketers, because a LinkedIn endorsement is an easy way to get on someone’s radar. It’s also a way to show you care about the people who work with you.
Above all, this LinkedIn Endorsement feature is an easy way to make a little gesture and show recognition to your business connections whom you value the most.
So how does it work?
#1: Add Some Skills
In order for others to endorse your skills, you first need to add those skills to your profile.
In Edit Profile mode, you’ll see the Skills area to click through. As you enter your skills into the box, it will give you a choice of those already listed for you to pick from, or you can add one that is not currently there.
Add your skills with the most important being listed first.
Make sure you add your skills in order of importance to you, as these will be the first ones listed on your profile and thus the easiest for your connections to see. As you get more endorsements for a particular skill, that skill will automatically rise to the top of the list, as your skills will then be listed by numerical order of endorsements.
#2: Endorse and Be Endorsed
When someone views your profile or you view the profile of one of your first-degree connections, you are offered the opportunity to endorse that person for the skills they have added to their own profile.
Endorse others easily by clicking the Endorse button.
With a simple click, the skills you choose to endorse are added to their profile with a thumbnail image of you, the person who endorsed them. If you don’t want to endorse your connection for a particular skill listed in this window, simply click the X on the skill you wish to remove and then click the Endorse button to accept the rest listed.
You can also scroll down to where their skills are listed, and simply click on the skill you wish to endorse by clicking on the + sign to add your endorsement to their profile.
It's easy to endorse a connection by clicking the + sign on the skill listed.
As each endorsement is added, the figure on the left increases, giving anyone looking at your profile a very clear and instant picture about your skills.
Watch those endorsement figures rise!
Also, as you endorse someone or someone endorses you, that activity will show in your LinkedIn newsfeed, creating even more brand exposure for you.
Whenever you have some sort of activity on LinkedIn, whether you have commented on a group discussion, made a change to your profile or endorsed a connection, that activity shows up in your own newsfeed and if you are endorsing others, it shows up in their newsfeeds too. This simply gives your personal brand a little more exposure to others and puts your name back on the radar of those you are connected to.
This endorsement message will appear in both Paul's and David's newsfeeds for their connections to see.
#3: Get More Endorsements
It’s important to get endorsements, as anyone looking at your profile and comparing you to your competition will see them. Endorsements create an instant overview that is easy to compare with your competition. Obviously, you want to look the best.
Your endorsements are a great visual way for others to instantly see your skills.
#4: Hide Endorsements
You also have the option to hide your endorsements from your public profile by clicking on the arrow of the particular skill on the far right, although I am not sure why you would want to do that. At this time, this cannot be reversed. After all, you have the opportunity of not accepting endorsements in the first place if you don’t want them (see the next point below).
Hide your endorsements easily by clicking on the arrow.
When you click through from the arrow in the screenshot above, you will be able to pick which person’s endorsement you wish to hide.
Choose whose endorsement you wish to hide.
#5: Get Notified
When someone or a group of people endorse your skills, you are sent an email each day that you receive another endorsement, and you will be notified who those people are up to a point.
See who has endorsed you today with an email directly from LinkedIn.
From an etiquette point of view, consider sending a message back with a quick thank-you to show that you appreciate the gesture. It’s easy to do from your skills area—just choose the person from their thumbnail photo and click Send Message.
Consider sending a thank you message for your endorsement.
#6: Add More Skills
You may also find that someone wants to endorse you for a skill that you don’t have listed on your profile. Again, you have the choice whether to accept that endorsement or not.
If you don’t want to accept it, simply click the X on the skill you don’t want to add.
Others may think you should have another skill added and wish to endorse you for it.
If you hover your mouse over a skill, a popup box with further information about that skill appears with a figure %, which refers to the popularity of that skill being added to other people’s profiles.
See how popular certain skills are and how often they're added to other people's profiles.
This new feature is a very easy way to endorse the skills of others and vice versa. When coupled with LinkedIn’s already robust Recommendations feature, it’s a very positive way to promote not only your personal brand, but also the brands of your connections.
What do you think? How are you finding this new feature so far and how do you think it compares to LinkedIn’s familiar Recommendations feature? Please leave your comments below.
7 Ways to Drive More Blog Traffic Using LinkedIn
Want more people to read your blog?
Are you fully leveraging LinkedIn?
Many business bloggers neglect one of the most powerful social networks for growing visibility and traffic. LinkedIn is THE professional web.
If you are a business owner or entrepreneur, or a working person who is blogging, you should consider LinkedIn as a valuable place for getting more exposure.
Keep reading to discover seven powerful tips to use LinkedIn to drive more traffic to your blog.
LinkedIn Profile Views Drive Blog Traffic
Your LinkedIn profile can serve as one of the most important referral sources for your blog.
If you consider that significant blog traffic from LinkedIn can come directly from LinkedIn profile views, it makes sense to work to increase your profile views.
Fortunately this is something you can measure.
LinkedIn will display the number of times your profile has been viewed. Keep track of this each week and as you implement the steps below, most likely you will see this number consistently rising.
If you are active and engaged on LinkedIn, members are going to click through to view your profile.
#1: Add Profile Links
Your LinkedIn profile is where members are going to land to learn more about who you are, what you do and whom you help.
From your profile, the most natural next step that members will take if they are intrigued or interested in what they see is to click through one of the links that you showcase on your profile under Websites.
Get creative with your LinkedIn profile website links.
Showcasing descriptive and interesting links on your LinkedIn profile will encourage visitors to click through!
You can link directly to your blog homepage, or you can link to specific landing pages on your blog where you provide a special offer to potential subscribers.
Regardless, make your link descriptions compelling and don’t be afraid to experiment!
Given that your LinkedIn profile serves as the “gateway” to your primary web presence, it is imperative that you have a powerful LinkedIn profile. Learn more about how to enhance and improve your LinkedIn profile.
#2: Build Connections to Boost Your LinkedIn Profile Views
I recently invited someone in my industry to connect. We had a few connections in common and we run similar, perhaps even complementary, businesses. When she received my invitation, she responded with “I limit my LinkedIn connections to people I know personally.”
This is certainly your decision, but I firmly believe that if you limit your connections, you limit opportunities to expand your visibility. Don’t be fooled into thinking that you should only keep a small number of first-degree connections on LinkedIn.
If you want to grow your visibility on LinkedIn, connect with anyone who presents a good reason for connecting!
As you grow your connections, your updates on LinkedIn will be visible to more people.
Remember that every time you update your status on LinkedIn or participate in any activity on the network, that update shows up on the homepage of each one of your connections. If your connections engage with the update, it will be visible to their connections.
This is how my status update appears on the homepage of one of my connections.
Furthermore, be consistently visible and valuable, and the members in your extended network will click through to view your profile in order to learn more about you.
By growing your LinkedIn connections, you have the ability to expand your visibility exponentially. You will also increase your LinkedIn profile views, which in turn can increase traffic to your blog.
Don’t limit your opportunities for visibility and traffic by limiting your connections. Instead, always be connecting. Consider these creative methods for growing your connections.
#3: Get Active and Engaged to Drive LinkedIn Profile Views and Blog Traffic
It doesn’t take much activity to stand out on LinkedIn. All you need to do is spend a little time on the network.
Every action you take on the network will show up as an update on the homepage of your connections. If you’re active, some of your updates may even show in the “Network Update” that LinkedIn sends to members via a weekly email.
Examples of LinkedIn activities that will get visibility:
- Update your profile
- Post a status update
- Participate in a group discussion
- Comment on someone else’s status update
- Post to your LinkedIn company page
- Answer questions in LinkedIn Answers
Answering LinkedIn questions can position you as an expert and grow your visibility.
Ideally, visiting LinkedIn a few times a week to post interesting and compelling status updates, join in a few group discussions and answer a question or two will keep your profile active. Do not forget to engage with connections as well.
Leaving comments or sharing what your connections have posted can also lead to profile views.
Commenting is a very effective way to start dialogue with first-degree connections and beyond. When you leave a comment on someone else’s update, the conversation will show up with your picture in the homepage of all of your connections. It will also show up on the homepage of that person for their connections to view.
Commenting is a great way to gain exposure to your second- and third-degree connections while engaging in conversation.
See the commenting example below.
Comment on the status updates of your network connections to increase profile views and visibility on LinkedIn.
I posted a comment on an update that one of my connections had shared. The screenshot above shows what another one of my connections was able to see with regard to the comment and conversation.
Notice that the person who originally posted this status update (Sarah) gets less visibility than I do as the commenter.
#4: Use LinkedIn on the Go
Mobile devices now account for 22% of LinkedIn traffic.
LinkedIn has developed robust mobile applications to make networking on the go easy and fun. When you participate on LinkedIn through your mobile devices you can stay engaged and visible with your connections anytime and anywhere.
LinkedIn's iPad application.
Spending time on the network and keeping your profile active is the best way to drive views to your profile and ultimately visits to your blog. A significant percentage of my LinkedIn referral traffic to my blog comes directly from my profile!
#5: Post Blog Articles as Status Updates and Link to Relevant Articles
It goes without saying that to drive traffic to your blog from any social network, your blog posts need to be shared with your network.
- Manually post a link to a particular blog post in order to pull an image and control the messaging.
- Don’t be afraid to repurpose your blog posts as status updates from time to time (see image below).
- Post during high-traffic periods (lunchtime and afternoons).
- Edit your comments to engage your connections.
An example of manually posting a link to your blog through a repurposed status update.
It’s also acceptable to post your articles in LinkedIn Groups, but make sure it’s information that will add value to the group, and always include a question or ask for feedback.
Additionally you can point to relevant articles on your blog when participating in group discussions, answering questions in LinkedIn Answers and posting comments on the updates of your connections.
#6: Leverage LinkedIn Tools and Applications
LinkedIn provides a few tools to help you showcase your blog and encourage the sharing of your blog posts to the network.
Install the LinkedIn blog application.
Choose the appropriate blog application to install to pull your blog posts into your LinkedIn profile. This will enhance your profile and showcase your latest insights from your blog.
Use one of these applications provided by LinkedIn to showcase your blog directly on your profile.
The blog application will pull in excerpts of your latest posts.
Excerpts of your latest blog posts are pulled into your LinkedIn profile using the WordPress blog application.
#7: Utilize the LinkedIn Share Button on Your Blog
I’m amazed at how many business-related blogs I see that do not incorporate the LinkedIn Share button as a part of their social sharing tools. Most of the social sharing plugins provide the LinkedIn Share button as an option.
Using the LinkedIn Share button will not only help you get your posts shared on LinkedIn by blog visitors, but that in turn will drive views to your profile and new traffic to your blog!
Use the LinkedIn Share button on your blog to drive shares of your blog posts into LinkedIn.
As you can see, there are a number of ways to integrate your blog more closely with LinkedIn and ultimately boost your traffic.
What do you think? Are you currently taking advantage of any of these ideas? If so, what has worked well for you? I’d love to hear additional creative ideas that I may have left off of the list! Leave your questions and comments in the box below.
10 LinkedIn Tips for Building Your Business
Are you using LinkedIn to grow your business?
With 161 million business members, LinkedIn provides a lot of opportunities.
The real value of LinkedIn for businesses is to connect one-to-one with other business professionals.
Why LinkedIn for Networking?
The Start-Up of You, a recent book co-authored by LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, notes that companies don’t give you business – people do.
Many of your LinkedIn connections can introduce you not only to business influencers and partners, but also refer your company to new customers.
In the book, Mr. Hoffman also states a key point about business networking:
“It’s better to be the best connected than the most connected.”
In addition to teaching you new skills, that’s what this article will help you accomplish.
A personal LinkedIn profile is commonly viewed as an online resume or digital business card, and using it for that is a good start.
However, you can take that further – going beyond LinkedIn’s basic capabilities – to build a more powerful means of attracting and managing your connections and professional online presence to encourage more business opportunities.
10 Tips for LinkedIn
The following 10 LinkedIn features and best practices will enable you to not just make connections on LinkedIn, but to leverage your network to become more visible, better engaged and armed with business intelligence that will accelerate the growth of your business.
These practices are organized into three distinct categories so you can realize the synergies of their combined benefits.
One point of clarity before we get started – all of these features are available with a standard, free LinkedIn account. More advanced features are available by upgrading to one of the premium accounts.
Optimize for Search Discovery and Ranking
A primary reason for having a complete and descriptive LinkedIn profile that speaks to your expertise and capabilities is to rank well in a general search. In fact, you may have discovered one of the easiest ways to look up business professionals online is to simply Google their name followed by the words “on LinkedIn.”
Taking that a step further, one particular advantage LinkedIn has over other networking sites is its internal search capabilities. You can improve your search discovery and ranking within LinkedIn in just a few short weeks when you optimize your personal profile with the following four tips.
#1: Use Appropriate Keywords and Phrases in Your Heading and Title
Many people consider their LinkedIn heading to be synonymous with their title, but there is a difference. Your title is indeed important for being findable for a LinkedIn search, but your heading is a valuable opportunity for extending it further by emphasizing and elaborating on your skills, areas of expertise and your ideal customers.
Descriptive key phrases in headings reinforce skills and capabilities in your current title.
#2: Mirror Your Online and Offline Business Networks within LinkedIn
To maximize your benefit from LinkedIn, you should consider importing all of your online and offline business contacts into it, while also being diligent about making frequent updates.
Every network is a web of connections, which are known as social graphs – digital maps that lead new connections to you. When you import all of your other business contacts into LinkedIn, you not only ensure its completeness and relevance to reality, you also maximize the aggregate value of your LinkedIn network.
The following video on LinkedIn Maps illustrates how this works.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PC99Nw2JX8w
#3: Tag Your Skills and Expertise
While tagging your skills and expertise does not presently seem to make a significant difference for LinkedIn search, this may well be the case in the future after this feature moves out of beta. For the time being, consider tags to be additional information that may prove useful for someone who happens upon your LinkedIn profile.
You can add up to 50 tags to identify your specific skills and expertise.
#4: Link to Your Websites with Keyword Anchor Text
LinkedIn provides the capability to link your personal profile to up to three websites or pages, including your company website, personal website or blog.
If this is done properly, you can have those links attached to your chosen keywords and phrases, thereby further enhancing your search engine optimization (SEO) both within LinkedIn and on the open web. The secret is using the “other” category to enable this option.
This video will demonstrate how to maximize the value of the outbound links from your personal LinkedIn Profile.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p01Joae2jcE
Personalize for Engagement and Interaction
You can maximize your results from LinkedIn from the moment you make a new connection. This starts with having a profile that encourages others to engage with you – one that presents you as interesting and approachable.
You already know that using conversational language and having an engaging profile picture make you more personal and attractive. If you are willing to invest a little more effort, the following three tips will prove to be invaluable for opening doors to new opportunities.
#5: Personally Welcome and Acknowledge Your New Connections
My experience is that few people acknowledge new connections with a personal reply, something that takes just a few seconds.
This is why this strategy is so valuable for developing relationships and standing apart from others who are just collecting connections.
#6: Add Video to Your Profile to Make it Come Alive
There are two applications for adding video to your LinkedIn profile – the Google Presentations app and the SlideShare app. Having worked with both, my experience is that the SlideShare app is more reliable.
If you know how to embed a video in a PowerPoint presentation, then you can easily put a video in your LinkedIn profile with the SlideShare app. You can embed the video in the first slide and set it to launch when your profile is accessed, or use the first slide to introduce the video.
This video will demonstrate how to add video to your personal LinkedIn Profile.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rE5ILVmltI
#7: Note Important Details and Opportunities for Next Actions
In the days before digital when we exchanged business cards at a networking event, it was a common practice to make a note on the card about such things as a particular opportunity to follow up on.
That’s the purpose of this feature. If you scroll down any profile you will find a field for inserting notes. Given that many of us have hundreds of LinkedIn connections, additional information can prove very helpful for personalizing your follow-up communications.
Organize for Business Intelligence and Networking
In many ways, LinkedIn is a database, customer relationship manager (CRM) and social business network all rolled into one. If you take the steps to refresh your personal profile on an ongoing basis, while also keeping all of your contacts current, you will get more out of LinkedIn than the average user.
As you know, your CRM is only as good as the information entered into it – and the next actions you take to use it. These final 3 tips will help you realize the full capabilities of LinkedIn now, and especially as new features are added.
#8: Tag and Filter Connections to Organize and Build Relationships
Asking for a favor when you first meet someone is not smart networking. Thus, tagging your connections so that you can share useful information and build value over time is a great way to build mutually beneficial relationships that will serve you well.
By classifying your connections as you add them, you will create a framework that allows for filtering them in ways that are advantageous to your networking strategy.
Use tags to filter connections for higher-value interactions.
#9: Use Context to Acquire Business Intelligence
One way to use LinkedIn to acquire business intelligence is to study the interrelationships of your contacts. For example, if one of your competitors is connected to your new contact, then you can use that contextual intelligence to minimize risk – just as you also can discern potential opportunities from their second- and third-degree connections.
Another way to use the context of your network is for finding better LinkedIn groups. There are thousands of groups on LinkedIn, but your trusted connections can lead you to those that may be best-suited to you as a result of your contextual relationship.
New connections that you share groups with can introduce you to new ones.
#10: Periodically Update Your CRM with Data from LinkedIn
One of the challenges of CRMs is that you have to consistently enter fresh data to derive maximum value from them. Take advantage of the fact that most of your LinkedIn connections are keeping their contact information current by periodically importing that data into your CRM.
LinkedIn has a feature for downloading your connections into a CSV file (like an Excel file) that can then be imported into your CRM. If you do this at least a couple of times a year, you will always have the most current contact information at your fingertips for staying connected.
LinkedIn is a network designed for professionals, one in which the individual is the center of the ecosystem. This is why taking steps to fully enhance your personal profile is the surest strategy for making the most of LinkedIn for your business.
How about you?
What do you think? Which of these 10 best practices will help you get more business from your personal LinkedIn profile? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.
5 Tips to Build and Grow Your LinkedIn Network
Do you want to tap into LinkedIn’s 150 million–member worldwide network?
It’s important to focus on the right kinds of activities that will yield the best results.
In this article, I’ll reveal five key strategies and activities you can focus on to build and grow your network.
#1: Update Your Status Frequently and Consistently
Only one-third of LinkedIn members visit the site every day, and another one-third of members visit the network several times a week, according to a survey conducted by Lab42. You can check out the complete infographic from Lab42 on LinkedIn Members.
When you log into LinkedIn, notice each time who shows up in your home feed. Most likely you will see the same few people frequently.
Active LinkedIn users will show up more frequently in your home feed.
These individuals are getting more visibility because they are more active, and you can do the same if you commit to staying active on the network. This is a subtle but powerful way to build influence with your network connections.
If you make the commitment to become more active in the network, you have a real opportunity to shine! It takes time, effort and dedication, but the payoff from staying top of mind can be significant in developing new introductions, relationships and business opportunities.
Here are a few ideas on how to be an active LinkedIn member:
- Update your status at least three times a day on the actual site itself, versus using third-party tools so that you have full control over your message and increase engagement (see image below).
- Share and comment on the updates of your first-, second- and third-degree connections at least once a day.
- Send an invitation to connect to at least one new person per day.
- Start and/or participate in LinkedIn Group Discussions three times a week.
- Answer questions on “LinkedIn Answers” three times a week.
- Comment on profile updates from the companies you follow on LinkedIn once a day.
By updating your status manually in LinkedIn, you can control your message and increase engagement.
Important note: Be careful about sharing your tweets directly on LinkedIn. When you do this, you don’t give your LinkedIn network connections any opportunity to engage with you within LinkedIn. Be selective about the tweets you choose to send automatically into LinkedIn from your Twitter account. There may be some value in saving time and increasing visibility by doing this, but realize no further engagement will take place within LinkedIn.
Sending all of your tweets into LinkedIn can get very annoying for your connections!
When you send a tweet to LinkedIn, your network connections are unable to engage with your update within LinkedIn. Instead, if they click "Reply" or "Retweet," they'll be taken to Twitter.
#2: Build Connections Constantly
One of the best things you can focus on in growing and engaging your LinkedIn network is to always look for connection opportunities. LinkedIn recently enhanced its People You May Know feature.
Take advantage of this opportunity to review whom you may know and send them a personalized invitation to connect right there from the People You May Know tab.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmvumZbpaNI
The new People You May Know feature makes it easy to discover potential connections in your target markets.
The “Alumni” search feature on LinkedIn is also quite powerful, as you can narrow your search by geographical location.
In the example below, I’ve selected the high school I attended and my current geographical location, which uncovered 74 new connection opportunities for me! Make sure to plug in the high school(s) and college(s) you attended to expand your results.
A search for new potential connections who attended my high school and live in my area.
#3: Be Strategic about When You are Active on LinkedIn
Studies have shown that LinkedIn members are more active in the afternoons and are more likely to use the mobile site in the evenings. With this in mind, focus your participation activities during the times when you have the best chance to be seen.
I would also recommend experimenting with this depending on where you live and what industry you work in. Mix up your strategy and record the results over a week’s time, such as how many new connections you gained and how many engagement opportunities you created during each week based upon when you participated.
For example, I have found that engagement within my industry and target market is quite high on weekday mornings AND on Saturday mornings. Therefore, I make LinkedIn one of my first stops of the day as much as possible.
#4: Join and Actively Participate in LinkedIn Groups
You’ve probably heard this recommendation before, but LinkedIn Groups are one of the most active areas of the network and the participation stats are quite compelling.
A survey and infographic from Lab42 reveals powerful LinkedIn Group participation stats.
Simply joining a group on LinkedIn won’t get you anywhere. You must jump into the new and popular conversations and add value as a member!
One of the best successes I’ve ever had in a group within my targeted niche was to ask for advice. I needed to find a resource to complete a certification and that simple question generated over 30 responses.
Be careful not to over commit to too many LinkedIn Groups. Pick three to five groups that make sense for you to be actively involved. Here are five ways to use LinkedIn Groups to build influential connections.
LinkedIn has just made it much easier to find groups within the network that might be valuable for you to join through the new LinkedIn Group Search feature.
Now, group conversations are being indexed within LinkedIn search. Additionally, you can filter your searches and see which of your connections are also members of a particular group.
Find the right LinkedIn Groups to join and get actively involved through the new LinkedIn Group Search feature.
#5: What You Share Matters
What you share on LinkedIn does matter. This is what will define you as a trusted authority within your industry and with your target markets. The key is to share news, articles and insights that are relevant to your connections if you want to attract and grow the right audience.
If you’re plowing your blog posts into LinkedIn as status updates or into LinkedIn Groups without asking a question or trying to achieve engagement, you won’t get very far. Believe me, I’ve done this and so have many other marketing experts. It is perfectly okay to share your content, but it’s important to be considerate when you do so and position it in such a way that can potentially get your connections to engage with you.
I’m a big believer in the idea that creating and sharing your own content is extremely important for establishing yourself as a thought leader and becoming the trusted authority in your niche. Just avoid phrases such as “check out my videos” or “check out my latest blog post” because honestly, no one cares about you until you care about them. Be a resource and be helpful to your connections in addition to finding ways to create dialogue with them.
Keep in mind that when you share something that is “share-worthy” and members of your extended network see it and share it, you increase your visibility significantly because you gain exposure to their connections.
To easily find and share content that is interesting and relevant to your target markets, consider using the LinkedIn Today site. This is a great tool for finding popular, trending and relevant content to share with your network.
Now it’s Your Turn
I hope you find these recommendations for growing and engaging your LinkedIn network helpful. As the network itself continues to develop and add new features, it’s important to refresh your LinkedIn engagement strategy and make sure you are leveraging all of the great features!
What do you think? What other tips do you have for building and engaging your network on LinkedIn? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.
