Are you looking to expand your sphere of influence and begin generating leads for your business on LinkedIn? About 135 million users have registered on LinkedIn, the internet’s largest business-to-business networking platform, but how do you communicate effectively to these business professionals? Here are 10 steps to get more visibility and leverage its platform for your business goals best over the counter weight loss pills.
1. Join LinkedIn and Complete Your Profile
LinkedIn is a powerful business and social networking tool that relies on the content generated by its users. After all, other users on LinkedIn will be searching for your services, products, and your name. Make sure you give LinkedIn’s search tool enough information to properly index.
2. Keep Your Profile Public
Utilizing LinkedIn without maintaining a public profile is like trying to advertise a new business location but refusing to put up any signs that tell people you’re there. If you want to maximize LinkedIn’s potential, you’ll need to go to your account settings and enable public searching for your name and business.
3. Utilize a Vanity URL to Boost Search Results
LinkedIn has a number of benefits outside of its own website including having searched engines index public profiles for search results. For example, if you’re searching for Acme Company and they have a public profile on LinkedIn, chances are you’ll have your business LinkedIn profile show up on page one in Google or Bing.
4. Utilize LinkedIn’s Applications and Third Party Tools
LinkedIn has a number of applications that can help give you more exposure and connect your content from other websites for other users to see. One easy example is linking your Twitter account to LinkedIn, which will automatically update and keep your page fresh. At Ai we utilize BeHance’s Creative Portfolio Display tool, it’s a great way for us to showcase our branding and design work and lighten up an otherwise boring page.
5. Write Recommendations for Others
One of LinkedIn’s most powerful features is the ability to publicly recommend another user based on your relationship or work experience. This peer-to-peer recommendation is especially important for companies seeking credibility and authority on LinkedIn. After all, if so and so gave XYZ a recommendation, then they must be good, That’s exactly how it works in practicality. In addition, you’ll be impressed by how many individuals reciprocate your recommendation with one of their own. LinkedIn also allows you to easily and politely solicit recommendations from other users.
6. Engage Users with Personality, Not Just Your Brand
Your updates on LinkedIn compete with Facebook, walking the dog, and getting that report done by 5 pm. Success for any brand on social media requires the voice of that organization to have a personality that personifies who they represent. Simply, saying you’re with Apple doesn’t drive engagement or conversations. Be active, respond to questions, post updates, and do it with your voice, not some corporate water-downed background noise. It’s ok to have a little bit of humor as long as you stay positive and understand your competing with individuals who may be doing work one moment, but reading a friend’s update on Facebook the next.
7. Import Your Connections to LinkedIn
Stop wasting time by searching for colleagues online when you can instead link them all with email. LinkedIn gives you the tools to import your already existing business connections from a variety of online email programs like Yahoo or Hotmail and upload excel or .cvs files with email addresses. You can easily connect with colleagues and send out invitations that will arrive branded within a LinkedIn email.
8. Use Likened Groups to Grow Your Business
LinkedIn Groups offer businesses an easy way to communicate about a specific topic. You can browse and join millions of LinkedIn Groups or start one of your own. If you start your own LinkedIn Group, it gives you the ability to invite existing connections to that group, giving you an immediate audience. For example, you can start one for a local business group, on a particular marketing topic, or get a group of Alumni back together. Make sure to keep your group membership only as it gives you more control who joins and adds a cache of exclusivity.
9. Make Your LinkedIn Profile SEO Friendly
Search Engine Optimization or SEO is a term that refers to using the right content and keywords to get noticed by someone performing a search. LinkedIn utilizes its own proprietary search algorithm that returns results based on the keywords listed in your profiles. For example, if you list yourself as an aeronautical consultant a dozen times, including in the title of your profile, there’s a good chance that someone searching for the aeronautical consultant will find you on the first page of results on LinkedIn.
10. Engage Other LinkedIn Members with Great Content
Your business on LinkedIn can gain additional exposure by sharing and linking great content for others to read. If you post a news story on your news feed, your connections will automatically see that you’ve posted an update. Business decision makers and influencers are paying attention to LinkedIn, so share content that is relevant to your organization. An easy example is showing off a quick presentation or information that may be useful for others to read, but also relevant to your industry. Taking just a few minutes each week will position you as a thought leader and increase the number of individuals looking at your profile.
In future articles, we’ll share more behind-the-scene details on optimizing your profile on LinkedIn and how you can use LinkedIn within your existing marketing campaigns