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9 Tips to Writing Posts That Get Read on the LinkedIn Publishing Platfo

03 Tuesday Mar 2015

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in Best Practices, Content Marketing, LInkedIn

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Best Practices, Engagement, LINKEDIN FOR BUSINESS, LinkedIn Insights, Online Marketing

Shared via LinkedIn Neal Schaffer

Founder, Maximize Your Social | Maximize Social Business | Social Media Center of Excellence | Social Media Tools Summit

One week ago I gave you advice on why you should use the LinkedIn publishing platform once you get access to it, and you will get access to it in the not so distant future if you don’t have access to it today. Whether you’re a content creator, a business, or a professional, the LinkedIn publishing platform provides a compelling way for you to get found in, engage with, and derive business value from LinkedIn. So, now that you’re ready to start blogging on LinkedIn, here’s my recommendation for writing posts that will get read in the news feeds of your followers. Note that this platform was only recently launched, so my advice might change in the future, but based on what I see and understand now, these are my recommendations:

1. Blog for the LinkedIn Demographic

I wrote about this in How to Use the New LinkedIn Publishing Platform, but this will be the most challenging concept for businesses to understand. I believe that your content should be unique to LinkedIn and geared towards the LinkedIn demographic. If you just want to copy and paste your blog post, I don’t think you’re going to be as effective on LinkedIn as you could be – and I think at some point you might get hurt by Google’s and/or LinkedIn’s algorithm(s). Companies that excel at social media marketing target their content and voice towards each unique community in social media. You should as well. Look at it another way: For most professionals who don’t have a personal website, LinkedIn IS their website and the new publishing platform WILL become their blog. You will have to compete with them for readership in the not-too-distant future.

2. Watch Your Frequency

Every social network plays around with their news feed or timeline and thus have an algorithm similar to Facebook Edgerank. LinkedIn is no different. LinkedIn has to decide what posts to display on who’s network updates, and I would tend to believe that if you publish too frequently, that might be hurting your chances for maximum impressions for each post. Just look at the LinkedIn Influencers: They’re not publishing on a daily basis, are they? With that in mind, I myself only plan to start publishing on a weekly basis, and I would recommend that you keep that to your approximate maximum as well. As I said

3. Don’t Underestimate the Power of the Visual

Visuals show up prominently in the LinkedIn newsfeed as they do everywhere else. Make sure that you use a visual at the top of your blog post that resonates with the professional demographic that make up LinkedIn.

4. Headlines are Critical

Time is short, and while your content might go out into the LinkedIn network updates, that’s only half off the battle: Your headline must be short, concise, and give professionals a reason to click through. A look at the most popular headlines of Influencer posts will give you and idea of some great headlines that you can try to emulate for success.

5. Keep Your Post Short

My posts are on the long side (this one is around 1,050 words), but your posts don’t need to be. My rule of thumb would be to make your post at least 300 words, but there is no reason why you have to blog longer than 1,000 words here on LinkedIn. Once again, I believe that for professionals where time is money, many simply don’t have the time to read through a longer post. Keep it short and simple when possible.

6. Link with Love

Just as you should update your LinkedIn profile with visual elements to showcase your work and content across the web, you should also do so here when you blog on LinkedIn. I wouldn’t overdo it, and I would definitely make it look natural and organic, but linking to provide a greater resource is an absolute best practice in blogging anywhere. “Link with Love” is also about recognizing other authors of content that you can link to if they influenced you, or marketing partners if you did something with them that is relevant to your post (see 9. below).

7. Share Your Post Inside AND Outside LinkedIn

If you want to get your content read on LinkedIn, don’t just share it on LinkedIn: Share it everywhere you can! Other social networking sites and your email newsletter are a great start. And, while I don’t recommend you creating a blog post and summarizing it on the LinkedIn publishing platform, I do recommend creating a LinkedIn publisher post and then summarizing it on your blog to a link back to LinkedIn!

8. Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile

Needless to say, every post that you publish might lead people back to your profile. If you want to be considered an authority on the subject, you’d better have an optimized LinkedIn profile! Here are my most recent collection of LinkedIn profile tipsfor you to follow.

9. Embed

Right now LinkedIn only provides you the option of embedding YouTube videos and Slideshare presentations, but if you have one that is relevant to your post, that can only help in better engaging with your audience – and building greater loyalty for your future posts. While the below YouTube video is not just about the new LinkedIn publishing platform, I was on a Google Hangout with Eric Enge from the leading digital marketing agency today where I discussed the future of social media in 2014 and why the new LinkedIn Publishing platform changes everything.

Note: The above was embedded using a custom 600 x 338 size.

Finally, while there might be some things that you can’t embed, I did want to give you a catch to listen to my latest podcast where I talk further about understanding the compelling power of the new LinkedIn publishing platform. You can also “embed” other things into your posts in the same way with a link until LinkedIn gives us the ability to embed more sources of media.

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Build Relationships for Your Business Using LinkedIn Groups

23 Monday Feb 2015

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in LInkedIn, Multi Channel Marketing, Uncategorized

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LINKEDIN FOR BUSINESS, LinkedIn Groups, LinkedIn Insights

Whenever I’m holding a webinar, presenting at a seminar, or just interacting with our awesome customers, I’m asked a lot of social media questions that span all major networks.

When it comes to LinkedIn, the one question I hear time and time again is “Should I be spending my time participating in Linkedin Groups?”

My short answer is “yes” and here’s why…

LinkedIn Groups are virtual meeting rooms (or forums) where people with similar interests can post and hold conversations around topics they want to share or learn more about.

Participating in Groups allows you to show off your expertise around a subject and start to grow relationships with like-minded people.

Many of these people may be colleagues, who could offer solutions to certain challenges you’ve been facing, or could provide partnership opportunities to help you grow your business in the future.

Others could be potential customers, who are using groups to network and also find solutions of their own.

By sharing your expertise, participating in conversations, and being a reliable source of information within the Group — you’ll have the opportunity to build valuable relationships to help you do more business.

How do I find and join the right Group?

LinkedIn makes it easy to find Groups that are relevant to your business, or the audience you’re trying to reach. Within LinkedIn, you can perform a search based on keywords and filter to find the right Group.

For each Group found in your search, you have the option to view who in your network belongs to those Groups. Joining Groups that your connections are already members of can help you nurture the connections you’ve made on LinkedIn.

Take it one step further and reach out to your network to ask them what they think about the Groups they belong to. This can help to continue building the relationships you already have, while starting to understand what Groups may be right for you.

On LinkedIn there are both public and private Groups. If they’re public, all you need is to hit the “join” button when you find a Group you’re interested in and you’ll gain access instantly. Private groups on the other hand, require you to request an invitation from the manager of the group to get access.

You can join up to 50 Groups, but be aware that many groups aren’t actively managed. Make sure to spend the majority of your time on the key Groups you find that are managed well and have constant interactions.

How do I participate in a Group?

When you join a Group, take the time to familiarize yourself with the content people are sharing, and types of questions that are being asked.

Relevant content is the only way to take full advantage of a LinkedIn Group. When you share content that others are interested in, your chance of “connecting” with that person is much higher than if you just hit “connect.” Use groups to strengthen relationships, with your ultimate goal of connecting on and offline with Group members.

Here are a few tips to remember when participating in a LinkedIn Group:

  1. Show off your expertise by answering questions that others have asked, and don’t forget to ask some questions of your own! Groups are meant to be a forum for like-minded people, so make sure you’re asking and answering.
  2. Post articles and ask questions. Share articles or blog posts you’ve found and ask the Group members a question related to the article.
  3. Don’t over-promote! Your goal when posting articles or answering questions is not to promote yourself or what you’re doing, but to build relationships. When you use the words “me”, “I” or “my”, your content will more than likely get sent directly to the “promotions” tab of the Group.
  4. Make that connection. Once you’ve been interacting with someone in your Group, and you’ve built up some familiarity, send them an invitation to connect on LinkedIn. Make sure to let them know why you want to connect, and remind them of your interaction in the Group.
  5. Don’t forget other networks. If you have been interacting with someone on numerous occasions in a Group, connect with them on Twitter or find their business page on Facebook. Most people are participating in a Group for the same reason you are, so they will be happy to connect with you and extend your relationship!

Are LinkedIn Groups really worth the time and energy?

Hopefully, by now, I’ve convinced you that the answer is YES! The ability to reach people you wouldn’t otherwise have access to is one of the main reasons that social media works, and LinkedIn Groups are no exception.

Get out there, begin by joining three groups and see what relationships you can build by engaging with the right audience.

Have you joined a LinkedIn Group? How has it worked for you and your business? Let us know in the comments below.

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Three Social Media Rules Your Business Needs to Break

19 Monday May 2014

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in Best Practices, community manager, Facebook, LInkedIn, Online Marketing, Pinterest, Yelp, YouTube

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Best Practices, Community Management, Facebook, Google Analytics, LINKEDIN FOR BUSINESS, Pinterest, SEM, Social Media, social media tools, Strategy


social media rules to break

If you stay up to date on social media trends and advice, you have likely heard that you need to post a lot of content, get as many fans/followers as you can, and post when most of your fans are online. Rules are meant to be broken, and I’ll explain why it is necessary to break each of these rules. 


1. Post a lot of content

Yes, you need to post content. A lot of it. But this stress on always posting can result in substandard content. On Facebook, you should never post more than twice a day, and even twice a day can be too much. Instead, aim for 5-7 times a week. When you post too much content, you increase your chance that you are just adding to the social media “noise”. Instead focus your effort on creating smaller amounts of high quality content. Quality over quantity.

Why to break this rule
The Facebook algorithm works in a way that it tries to guess what you want to see. One way this is accomplished is that if you normally click on a business’ Facebook page, it is more likely to show you their content. If your business is posting too much low quality content, people will stop clicking. And when you actually do post good content, less fans will see it.

Real world example
There is a restaurant I frequent that I “like” on Facebook. They post any and everything on their Facebook page (they post about 5-10 times a day), whether it is related to the restaurant or not. The result is that I NEVER see their content in my news feed because I first ignored their nonsense posts. What good is my like if they never get their message to me?

2. Get as many fans as you can

We all want more fans. But if these fans are never going to purchase your product or service, what good are they? Social media can easily become a popularity contest: “we have more fans than you.” But worthless fans are, well, worthless. Actually, they can be much worse than worthless….

Why to break this rule
Remember that Facebook algorithm? Another way it works is that when you post content, it shows it to a handful of your fans. If these fans interact with your content, Facebook then shows it to more of your fans. If you have fans that don’t actually like your product/service, they won’t interact with your posts. This means that it will be more difficult to reach your fans who actually are actually interested in your business.

Real world example
While doing consulting work with an Italian restaurant, we quickly learned that if we focused our Facebook advertising to the local area, we received two-three “likes” for every dollar we spent. When we just aimed for total likes, we doubled that number. We could have spent a relatively small amount of money and gotten hundreds of likes. The problem was that the likes all came from Italy, a demographic that was unlikely to ever visit the restaurant or interact with the content. Aim for quality fans over a large quantity of fans.

3. Always post when the most fans are online

You want to get your message out to fans, and you want that message to reach the most screens as possible. Knowing when your fans are online is essential. The Facebook newsfeed works in a way that rewards current content, and makes older content unlikely to show in a person’s newsfeed.

Why to break this commandment
You certainly need to post when most of your fans are online, but you do not need to do it religiously. Focus most of your posting at peak hours, but switch up your timing once or twice a week. This is important because certain fans have different Facebook use habits. This means that if you always post at the same time, you are likely missing fans that have different schedules.

Real world example
We found that a sports rehabilitation physician had more success with his posts after he varied up his posting schedule. He often included exercise tips, and saw his engagement increase after he started posting later in the day. By posting later in the day, he was able to reach fans that otherwise had been missing his posts. Now, these fans are more likely to see all of his posts, no matter the time of day he posts.

 

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How Social Media Is Changing Politics, From Wendy Davis To Anthony Weiner

14 Monday Apr 2014

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in Best Practices, Political, PR, Uncategorized

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Best Practices, Community Management, LINKEDIN FOR BUSINESS, MOBILE SOCIAL NETWORKING, Online Marketing

The Commonwealth Club and The Huffington Post San Francisco present “Commonwealth Club Thought Leaders,” an ongoing series of insights from the most interesting people in the San Francisco Bay Area. Read the summary below and watch the video above–then share your thoughts. You can view the entire interview here.

Access to and utilization of social media has increased tremendously in the past decade, and its influence in our daily lives has also affected politics in our nation. Everything from Obama’s 2008 campaign, which focused heavily on outreach through social media outlets, to the ouster of politicians’ misdeeds thanks to the omniscience of social media, the public now has a new way of participating in the political process.

This new avenue of participation was no more apparent than during one legislative session in Texas in which Wendy Davis, the pink sneaker-wearing policymaker, led a filibuster for 12 hours against a pending vote on abortion clinics. The vote would have effectively shut down most abortion clinics in Texas. Davis, a democrat who was against the legislation, filibustered the old-fashioned way by giving the legislature a 12-hour speech, taking the session past midnight. According to the rules, the session technically ended at midnight and the vote on the new law was thereby void. Despite the filibuster, the vote passed in July 2013.

However, Davis was not alone in the filibuster. Although she was the representative who stood up in front of the legislature, it was her supporters in the chambers and online who made the filibuster a success. A live stream of the legislative session allowed online viewers to see when the session ended and when the vote was cast. And in conjunction with their peers who were physically present in the chambers, the filibuster proved successful. Clay Shirky, a social media theorist and a professor at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program spoke at The Commonwealth Club of California and explained the idea of digital dualism and how it played a role in Texas’s legislative process. (See the video above)

Shirky points out that this phenomenon is not restricted to the United States but has been present in other political movements, such as the Arab Spring, the Occupy movement and the protests in Turkey. He says that this evolution and immersion of technology into the political process is not by design but rather, a side effect of the tools available to individuals combined with their political interest. Watch Shirky talk about Texas above; you can listen to his entire program here.

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Social Media and Political Engagement

14 Monday Apr 2014

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in Political

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Best Practices, Community Management, Engagement, LINKEDIN FOR BUSINESS, Politics, Public Opinion, social media tools, Strategy, Trending

The use of social media is becoming a feature of political and civic engagement for many Americans. Some 60% of American adults use either social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter and a new survey by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project finds that 66% of those social media users—or 39% of all American adults—have done at least one of eight civic or political activities with social media.

Overall, there are mixed partisan and ideological patterns among social media users when it comes to using social media like social networking sites and Twitter. The social media users who talk about politics on a regular basis are the most likely to use social media for civic or political purposes. And the social media users who have firmer party and ideological ties—liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans—are, at times, more likely than moderates in both parties to use social media for these purposes.

Some of these activities are more likely to be pursued by younger social media users compared with the social media users who are ages 50 or older. Younger users are more likely to post their own thoughts about issues, post links to political material, encourage others to take political action, belong to a political group on a social networking site, follow elected officials on social media, and like or promote political material others have posted.

Here are the key findings in a recent nationally representative survey:

  • 38% of those who use social networking sites (SNS) or Twitter use those social media to “like” or promote material related to politics or social issues that others have posted. Liberal Democrats who use social media are particularly likely to use the ‘like’ button—52% of them have done so and 42% of conservative Republicans have also done so.
  • 35% of social media users have used the tools to encourage people to vote. Democrats who are social media users are more likely to have used social media to encourage voting—42% have done that compared with 36% of Republican social-media users and 31% of independents.
  • 34% of social media users have used the tools to post their own thoughts or comments on political and social issues. Liberal Democrats who use social media (42%) and conservative Republicans (41%) are especially likely to use social media this way.
  • 33% of social media users have used the tools to repost content related to political or social issues that was originally posted by someone else.  Republican social media users are more likely to do this on social media—39% have used social media to repost content, compared with 34% of social media using Democrats and 31% of independents.
  • 31% of social media users have used the tools to encourage other people to take action on a political or social issue that is important to them. Some 36% of social-media-using Democrats have done this as have 34% of Republicans. This compares to 29% of independents who are social media users.
  • 28% of social media users have used the tools to post links to political stories or articles for others to read. The social media users who are liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans are the most likely to have used social media this way (39% and 34% respectively).
  • 21% of those who use SNS or Twitter belong to a group on a social networking site that is involved in political or social issues, or that is working to advance a cause. There are no major differences by ideology or partisanship when it comes to using social media this way.
  • 20% of social media users have used the tools to follow elected officials and candidates for office.  Some 32% of the conservative Republicans who use social media follow officials on social media and 27% of liberal Democrats who use social media do so.

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The Ultimate Cheat Sheet for Mastering LinkedIn

13 Sunday Apr 2014

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in LInkedIn

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Best Practices, Engagement, LINKEDIN FOR BUSINESS, LinkedIn Insights, social sharing, Strategy, Trending

With more than 259 million users, LinkedIn is the most popular social network for professionals as well as one of the top social networks overall. Are you using it to its fullest potential?

While new social networks are sprouting up constantly, LinkedIn is a powerful platform that often gets underutilized or put on the back burner.

But the truth is, LinkedIn can be extremely powerful — especially when you’re aware of all the little hidden tricks that don’t get nearly enough exposure as they deserve. To help youmaster LinkedIn, below is our ultimate list of 35 awesome tricks you may have been overlooking.

We’ve divided these tips into three main categories — optimizing your LinkedIn presence,using LinkedIn for professional networking, and using LinkedIn for business and marketing. Click these links to jump to individual sections.

Optimizing Your LinkedIn Presence

1) Customize your public profile URL.

Make your profile look more professional (and easier to share) by claiming your LinkedIn vanity URL. Instead of a URL with a million confusing numbers at the end, it will look nice and clean like this: http://www.linkedin.com/in/pamelavaughan. Customize your URL by going here and clicking Customize your public profile URL down on the right-hand side.

2) Create a profile badge for your personal website.

If you have your own personal website or blog, you can promote your personal LinkedIn presence and help grow your professional network by adding a Profile Badge that links to your public LinkedIn profile. LinkedIn has a few different badge designs to select from, and you can configure your own here.

3) Make your blog/website links sexier.

Instead of using the default “Personal Website”-type anchor text links in your LinkedIn profile, you can change the anchor text to make those links more appealing to people who view your profile. So if you want to increase clicks on the website links you display on your profile, change those links’ anchor text to something more attention-grabbing than the standard options LinkedIn provides.

For example, if you want to include a link to your blog, rather than choosing LinkedIn’s standard “Blog” anchor text, customize it to include keywords that indicate what your blog is about, like “Inbound Marketing Blog.” Each profile can display up to three website links like this, and they can be customized by editing your profile, clicking the pencil icon next to your website links, and selecting Other in the drop-down menu.

linkedin-links-1

4) Search engine optimize your profile.

You can also optimize your profile to get found by people searching LinkedIn for key terms you want to get found by. Add these keywords to various sections of your profile such as your headline or in your summary.

5) Show work samples.

Did you know LinkedIn allows you to add a variety of media such as videos, images, documents, links, and presentations to the Summary, Education, and Experience sections of your LinkedIn profile? This enables you to showcase different projects, provide samples of your work, and better optimize your LinkedIn profile. Learn more about adding, removing, and rearranging work samples here.

6) Add, remove, and rearrange entire sections of your profile.

LinkedIn also enables users to reorder the sections of your profile in any way you prefer. When in edit mode, simply hover your mouse over the double-sided arrow next to theEdit link for each section. Your mouse will turn into a four-arrowed icon, at which point you can click, then drag and drop to another position on your profile.

rearrange-1

You can also customize your profile with sections that apply only to you. Find a full list of sections to add to and remove from your profile here.

7) Take advantage of Saved Searches.

LinkedIn allows users to save up to ten job searches and three people searches. After conducting a search, clicking the Save This Search option on the right allows you to save a search and easily run it again later. You can also choose to receive weekly or monthly reminders (+ daily for job searches) via email once new members in the network or jobs match your saved search criteria.

8) Quickly turn your LinkedIn profile into a resume.

Job seeking is one of the most common — and beneficial — uses of LinkedIn. Were you aware that LinkedIn enables you to turn your profile into a resume-friendly format in seconds with its Resume Builder tool? Just choose a resume template, edit it, and export it as a PDF that you can print, email, and share.

9) Find a job through LinkedIn’s job board.

Now that you’ve generated that awesome new resume from LinkedIn’s Resume Builder tool, you can use it — and LinkedIn’s Job board — to help you land an awesome new position. LinkedIn allows you to search for jobs by industry and location. It even suggests jobs you might be interested in based on the information in your LinkedIn profile. Save some job searches like we suggested in number 7 to get alerted when new jobs pop up, too!

10) Get endorsed.

Back in 2012, LinkedIn launched a feature called Endorsements, which enables users to endorse their connections for skills they’ve listed in the Skill & Expertise section of their profile — or recommend one they haven’t yet listed. These endorsements then show up on your profile within that same Skills & Expertise section, as you can see in the screenshot below.

Okay, so you can’t guarantee your connections will endorse you for those skills, but because it’s so easy for your LinkedIn contacts to do (all they have to do is click on the + sign next to a particular skill on your profile), you’ll find that many of them will do it anyway. Just make sure your profile is complete and you’ve listed the skills you want your contacts to endorse you for. It will definitely give your profile a bit of a credibility boost. You can also remove endorsements if you find people are endorsing you for skills that aren’t very applicable. 

endorsements

Using LinkedIn for Professional Networking

11) Use OpenLink to send messages to people you’re not connected to.

Aside from the exception of group members (more on that later), LinkedIn only allows you to send messages to people with whom you share a first-degree connection. But did you know some people let you send them messages anyway, even if you’re not connected? The ability to be part of the OpenLink network is only available to premium account holders, but it allows them to be available for messaging by any other LinkedIn member if they choose to be. OpenLink members will appear with an icon that looks like a small ring of dots next to their name in search results and on their profile.

12) Check in on Network Updates.

Found on your LinkedIn homepage, Network Updates are essentially LinkedIn’s version of the Facebook News Feed. Check this feed periodically for a quick snapshot of what your connections are up to and sharing. You can also sort by various criteria as well as customize your feed to show only the types of updates you want to see.

linkedin-network-updates-1

13) Be identifiable.

Allow others to see who you are if you view their profile. To allow this, go into your settings and click Select what others see when you’ve viewed their profile. Make sure you check off Your name and headline (Recommended). This allows you to take advantage of the next feature we’re about to mention …

linkedin-identity

14) Check out who’s viewed your profile.

How? With the “Who Viewed Your Profile” feature, of course! This tool, which is accessible in the main navigation via the Profile dropdown, enables you to drill down into which other LinkedIn users have visited your profile page (so yeah, exactly what it sounds like). In fact, LinkedIn gave this coveted creeper feature a facelift in February 2014, so the information it provides is better than ever.

Has someone been checking out your profile that you might want to connect with? This might be the “in” you’ve been waiting for to connect. (Remember, if you don’t make yourself identifiable via our tip in number 13, you won’t have access to this feature. It’s a two-way street!)

15) Export connections.

Want to transfer your LinkedIn connections to another contact management system? LinkedIn enables you to easily export your connections. Under Network in LinkedIn’s top navigation, just click on Contacts, click the settings gear icon on the top right, and clickExport LinkedIn Connections under Advanced Settings on the right. You’ll have the option of either exporting as a .CSV or .VCF file.

export-connections

16) Easily find new connections — or connect with old ones!

Speaking of connections, the Network tab in the top navigation offers a variety of tools to grow and connect with contacts in your professional network. Click Add Connections in the drop-down menu to import contacts from your email accounts, and use the Contacts tool to connect with suggested new contacts, stay in touch with current connections, keep track of your communications, and get notifications when contacts in your network change jobs, have birthdays, or when you haven’t chatted with them in a while — on desktop or in the Contacts mobile app!

17) Leverage the perks of LinkedIn Groups.

Did you know that if you’re a member of the same group as another user, you can bypass the need to be a first-degree connection in order to message them? In addition, group members are also able to view the profiles of other members of the same group without being connected. Join more groups to enable more messaging and profile viewership capabilities.

18) Take advantage of Advanced Search options.

LinkedIn’s Advanced Search feature provides a much richer search experience. For example, say you want to find out if you’re connected to anyone who works at a specific company. Type the company name in the company field in Advanced Search, then filter the results by “Relationship” to see if you have any first- or second-degree connections to any employees.

19) Share your LinkedIn status updates on Twitter.

Ever since the LinkedIn/Twitter breakup of 2012, you can no longer automatically sync your tweets to publish on LinkedIn (or even selectively by using the hashtags #in or #li in specific tweets). But don’t fret — the opposite is still possible! So if you’re ever posting an update to LinkedIn that you’d like your Twitter followers to see as well, you can easily syndicate that update to Twitter by selecting the Public + Twitter option in the Share With dropdown before clicking Share in the LinkedIn update composer.

post-to-twitter-1

20) Leverage @mentions in your status updates.

In 2013, LinkedIn rolled out the ability to tag or @mention other users and companies in status updates — much like the way it works on Facebook and Twitter. Want another LinkedIn user or company to see your status update? Include the @ symbol immediately followed by the user’s/company’s name in your status update. As a result, that user/company will get alerted that you mentioned them, and their name will also link to their profile/page in the status update itself.

Using LinkedIn for Business/Marketing 

21) Optimize your Company Page.

The design of Company Pages has changed a lot over the years. Make sure yours is set up correctly and optimized for the newest layout. We’ve published an entire free ebook about optimizing your page for the latest design, so check it out. Also, keep in mind that as of April 14, 2014, LinkedIn is no longer supporting the Products & Services tab of Company Pages. Unfortunately, this means your product recommendations will also be going away. Learn how to save copies of existing recommendations here (which must be done before May 30, 2014). This also means you’ll want to set up and take advantage of LinkedIn’s new Showcase Pages instead, which leads us to our next tip …

company-page

22) Create targeted Showcase Pages.

Showcase Pages are niche pages that branch off your main LinkedIn Company Page. They allow you to promote specific products or cater to your individual marketing personas, providing a more personalized experience for your Company Page visitors. LinkedIn users can also follow specific Showcase Pages without having to follow a company’s main page or its other Showcase Pages, allowing your business to tailor the page closely to the audience specific to the page. To create a Showcase Page, click the Edit dropdown at the top right of your Company Page and choose Create a Showcase Page. For more information about creating Showcase Pages, check out our beginner’s guide.

showcase-page

23) Post Company Status Updates (and target them!).

Make the most of your LinkedIn Company Page by publishing company status updates for all your page followers to see. This will give LinkedIn users even more reason to follow your Company Page, growing your LinkedIn reach. To learn how to enable LinkedIn Company Status Updates, read this post.

Been using Company Status Updates for a while? Why not step it up a notch and leverage the power of segmentation with LinkedIn’s targeting options, which enable you to target your status updates to the Network Update feeds of specific users. Page admins can target their updates by criteria like company size, industry, job function, seniority, geography, or by including/excluding company employees. In fact, according to an internal LinkedIn study,companies have shown a 66%+ increase in audience engagement as the result of targeted updates.

targeted-updates

24) Use Pulse to keep track of industry news.

Pulse is an awesome section of LinkedIn that provides you with the most popular articles shared on the social network. Follow specific Influencer contributors, publishers, or topic-related channels to stay on top of news and stories in your industry. You can also sign up for daily or weekly email summary notifications of Pulse news, or instant notifications when Influencers you’re following post something new.

25) Use LinkedIn’s Trending Content tool, too! 

Get a sense of which types of content are most popular on LinkedIn in your industry withLinkedIn’s Trending Content tool, unveiled in March 2014. The interactive tool highlights the most popular content being shared on LinkedIn for various audiences and topic segments. Monitor this to understand what content your company should be creating and sharing on LinkedIn to generate the most engagement.

26) Use LinkedIn to generate leads.

In an internal study of HubSpot’s customer base, we found that traffic from LinkedIn generated the highest visitor-to-lead conversion rate (2.74%) of the top social networks, almost 3 times higher (277%) than both Twitter (.69%) and Facebook (.77%).So yes — LinkedIn can help you generate leads. To get the most out of LinkedIn for lead generation, promote and share links to your landing pages in your company status updates, where appropriate in LinkedIn Groups, on your Showcase Pages, and in calls-to-action placed in posts you publish via LinkedIn’s publishing platform (see number 32 coming up).

27) Experiment with LinkedIn Ads and Sponsored Updates.

If you’re looking to complement your organic marketing efforts with some paid advertising,LinkedIn Ads aren’t a bad choice to consider. We wrote about why B2B marketers might want to cozy up to LinkedIn ads, and one of the biggest benefits is … you guessed it … the targeting options! LinkedIn’s PPC ads let you target specific job titles, job functions, industries, or company size, to name a few options — you know, the people who are more likely to need what you sell. If you want to get started with LinkedIn’s advertising platform, here’s a simple guide to setting up your first LinkedIn ad campaign. To learn specifically how to use LinkedIn’s newest form of advertising — Sponsored Updates — this is the post for you.

28) Use Group Statistics for better targeting and marketing.

Another little LinkedIn gem that not a lot of users or marketers are aware of is the fact that you can access statistics for any LinkedIn Group — even groups you’re not a direct member of! To access the Group Statistics for a specific LinkedIn Group, click on the group, then click the i icon in the group’s top navigation. Then click Group Statistics in the About section.

group-statistics-1

Not only do LinkedIn Group Statistics tell you how many members are in a group or how active those members are; they also provide other key insights about the group’s members such as locations, seniority, function, and industry. Use this data to analyze the makeup of a group before you decide to join, identify which LinkedIn Groups you should target in your LinkedIn Ads, help guide you in the best ways to segment your Showcase Pages, or gather insights about your buyer personas to help you do better marketing outside of LinkedIn.

29) Create your own industry LinkedIn Group (or subgroups).

Or you could just create a LinkedIn Group (as well as subgroups if you’re so inclined) of your very own, like HubSpot did with our popular Inbound Marketers Group. Create a group based on an industry-related topic, and become a LinkedIn Group administrator. You can then use this group to establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry, grow a community of advocates, generate new marketing content ideas, and even acquire new leads! 

30) Email your LinkedIn Group.

Acquire new leads from that group, you say? That’s right! One of the perks of managing a LinkedIn Group is the fact that you can literally email the members of your group — up to once per week. These emails take the form of LinkedIn Announcements, which are messages sent directly to the email inboxes of group members (if they’ve enabled messaging in their settings). This is a prime opportunity for generating leads from LinkedIn, particularly if you’ve built up a robust group of users. In fact, at HubSpot, our best performing LinkedIn lead gen days are usually the days on which we’ve sent a LinkedIn Announcement. Here’s how to get the most out of your LinkedIn Group emails.

31) Poll your (or another) LinkedIn Group.

In addition to emailing, you can also poll your group members. Just go to the group in which you want to publish a poll (it’s up to group managers to decide whether everyone can publish polls regardless of group membership), and in the Discussion section of a group, click the poll icon (it looks like three horizontal lines) within the discussion composer.

poll

Then enter your question/answer choices and schedule for how long you’d like your poll to run. (Hint: If you’re trying to increase membership for your own LinkedIn Group, make use of the Group + Twitter sharing option that allows you to share your poll on Twitter to generate more traffic and activity to your poll/group.) Use polls to generate blog and content fodder, collect feedback, conduct research, attract new group members, or get ideas for new marketing offers.

create-poll

32) Experiment with LinkedIn’s publishing platform.

You don’t have to be an influencer to publish a new article to LinkedIn Pulse. Publishing is now available to all users, ever since a February 2014 feature announcement. Experiment with how this feature can support your marketing goals by creating content for the platform and promoting it via your Company Page. Learn more about it here.

33) Recruit new talent.

Looking to fill a position or two on your marketing team — or anywhere else within your company, for that matter? Then be sure to build out the Careers section of your Company Page, which you can use to promote your available job openings. For more robust Careers section customization options, you can also purchase a Silver or Gold Careers package, which allows you to add a large, clickable cover image that can be transformed into a call-to-action. This image can direct users to a specific job, a list of jobs and opportunities located on your website, or examples of your company’s culture. The Silver or Gold packages also enables dynamic, customizable modules (that display different version of the page based on viewers’ LinkedIn profile), analytics on who is viewing the page, direct links to recruiters, video content, etc.

The look and feel of your Careers page depends on what information and images you choose to include, such as a list of jobs, people at your company, a summary section for your careers, what employees are saying about working at your company, and recent updates. Furthermore, if you’re actively recruiting candidates with specific skills and expertise, don’t forget about LinkedIn’s Advanced Search feature (see number 18)!

34) Add the Company Follow and LinkedIn share buttons to your website/content.

Promote your company’s LinkedIn presence and help grow the reach of your Company Page
by adding the Company Follow button to your website. Furthermore, consider adding theLinkedIn Share button to your various content assets like blog posts, emails, and landing pages to extend the reach of your content to LinkedIn users. To build these buttons and more, check out our cheat sheet for creating social media buttons.

35) Analyze your LinkedIn marketing performance with Page Insights and LinkedIn’s Content Marketing Score.

So … how are your LinkedIn marketing efforts faring? Use LinkedIn’s Page Insights to evaluate the performance of your Company Page. Page Insights offers data into the effectiveness of your page’s status updates, engagement, and reach, as well as information about your page’s followers — demographics, where they came from, how your following has grown over time, how your data compares to other companies, etc. Access your Page Insights by clicking the Edit dropdown at the top right of your Company Page and selecting View Page Insights. For even more analytics about how your LinkedIn marketing efforts are helping you generate traffic, leads, and customers, you’ll need a closed-loop marketing analytics tool like HubSpot.

Furthermore, LinkedIn offers a “Content Marketing Score,” which measures member engagement with your Sponsored Updates, Company Pages, LinkedIn Groups, employee updates, and Influencer posts (if applicable)” and ranks you against your competitors in those same categories. You can request your Content Marketing Score from LinkedIn here.

by Pamela Vaughan

Courtesy of Hubspot Inbound

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The 7 day plan to transform your sales results using LinkedIn – in just 15 minutes a day

21 Friday Feb 2014

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in LInkedIn

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LINKEDIN FOR BUSINESS, LinkedIn Insights, Social Media Marketing, social media tools, Strategy

Any sales people out there remember the good old Rolodex? When I say remember, I should explain that Rolodex is still going ‘strong’ producing the device that holds specially shaped index cards that the user writes on the contact information of any new contact or company.

Times have moved on though, with client management systems (CRMs) such as Salesforce.com and Infusionsoft, to name just two, providing salespeople with the ability to input hundreds, in fact thousands of companies and individuals for the purposes of follow up – you’d need a great number of Rolodex systems on your desk to achieve the same level of client recording.

Now LinkedIn is far from being a CRM system but most of us will have noticed in the past 12 months a significant number of platform enhancements from the professional online networking site, most are useful, some extremely annoying. Nevertheless, from a sales perspective, LinkedIn has a significant number of benefits, which, if applied consistently, will transform your ability to create more sales and importantly, more profitable sales.

 

One of the most useful and recent enhancements, especially if you can’t afford a fancy CRM system, is the new LinkedIn ‘Relationship‘ tab. Accessible from other’s profiles, this new feature enables you to record personal notes about your new LinkedIn contact, including how you met them, a reminder of who introduced you and it will even allow you to schedule a reminder for when you want to get in touch with your contact again.

Photo originator www.bluewaterbrand.com

Photo originator http://www.bluewaterbrand.com

With all this in mind, here is my 7 day plan to help you create more profitable sales, using LinkedIn, in just 15-20 minutes a day:

  1. Monday – Using a scheduling tool, such as Hootsuite, schedule useful posts, 3 times a day, for the next 7 days. Consider the times of day when your target audience is most likely to be on their SmartPhones or PCs e.g. commute times – Time 10 minutes. Respond to any relevant invitations to connect or inbox messages – Time 5 minutes
  2. Tuesday – Search relevant LinkedIn company pages, groups or use LinkedIn’s search platform to find 5-10 relevant target contacts and invite them to connect. Time 15 minutes. – Check who’s viewed your profile and respond to any relevant individuals by inviting them to connect – Time 5 minutes.
  3. Wednesday – In the 2 or 3 LinkedIn groups you have decided to be most active in either a) start a discussion that you believe will encourage responses from members or b) respond to any existing discussion where you feel your comments will add value and create recognition for you personally –Time 15 minutes.
  4. Thursday – Search relevant LinkedIn company pages, groups or use LinkedIn’s search platform to find 5 relevant target contacts and invite them to connect – Time 15 minutes. – Check who’s viewed your profile and respond to any relevant individuals by inviting them to connect – Time 5 minutes.
  5. Friday – Send a useful and relevant content message to your connections that you have saved in specific LinkedIn tags. Using tags you can send a LinkedIn email to up to 50 of your connections in one bulk message. – Time 15 minutes. Respond to any relevant invitations to connect or inbox messages – Time 5 minutes
  6. Saturday – Check who’s viewed your LinkedIn profile and any invitations to connect received and invite relevant people to connect with you. – Time 10 minutes.
  7. Sunday – Plan what key messages you will share with your LinkedIn network next week. What current issues or challenges are your target audience facing at the moment and how can you help solve these problems for them? – Time 15-20 minutes.

7 days?! I know, 7 days – ‘I’ve got to work 7 days?!’ I can hear you say. No, you don’t – in fact you don’t have to do any work at all to try and generate more sales. However, what I have presented you with is a schedule of just 15-20 minutes a day, where, before breakfast, at tea time, in your lunch break, on the train, bus, taxi, in fact at any point in your day, you can undertake simple but effective LinkedIn tasks that if done consistently, week in, week out, will ensure that you:

  • Raise your brand profile with your target audience
  • Increase the size of your professional network with relevant prospects
  • Share your expertise with your target audience and attract interest in what you do
  • Build relationships with many LinkedIn connections who will come to know, like and trust you – meaning they will buy you, more so than your price. This equals more profitable sales.
  • Manage your prospects by easily accessing them in tags
  • Are focused on growing your sales and not just daily operational tasks

And if you can’t find time for the above? Clearly the more time you can devote to sales & marketing, the better and at the bare minimum, even if you can’t find time to perform any of the above tasks, ensure that for any new sales prospect you come into contact with that you give yourself the edge. How? By finding out as much as possible about this potential new client by finding them on LinkedIn and researching their personal profile as well as his/her company page to find who the other key influencers might be.

One final point – content sharing on LinkedIn is easy. However, if you want to curate or create really useful content that will engage and enthral those you want to do business with, then you’re going to need to spend additional time over an above the 7 day plan outlined above.

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Creating a strategy for using LinkedIn for B2B marketing

21 Friday Feb 2014

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in Best Practices, LInkedIn

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LINKEDIN FOR BUSINESS, Marketing, MOBILE SOCIAL NETWORKING, Social Media, social media tools, Strategy

Developing a strategic approach to LinkedIn Marketing for B2B companies – advice from Steve Phillip of Linked2Success

In this interview, Steve Phillip, a leading Coach and Expert on using LinkedIn shares his approaches and explains how his clients are using LinkedIn. The interview covers the basic such as overcoming barriers to entry, avoiding the common mistakes, strategy planning for first time adopters, plus more advanced tips and hints on how to use this successfully as well as his views on the hot issues in 2013. You can get more advice from Steve at Linked2Success.

Barriers and solutions to using LinkedIn to generate B2B business

Q. From your personal experience of working with companies who are new adopters to LinkedIn , what would you say have been the main barriers for companies and how should they overcome them?

I’d say there are the 2 main issues here:

  • 1. Limited knowledge base  of staff meaning they are not fully comprehending the full range of functions LinkedIn provides the business user.
  • 2. Sustained time and focus. We have trained many hundreds of individuals during the past 3 years, most of which were genuinely excited and initially determined to use LinkedIn for their business. In a number of cases, weeks or months on, they had not moved any further forward, due mainly to the demands of other more familiar aspects of their working day.

Q. How have you worked toward helping clients overcome these barriers?

Firstly, our training programmes are always linked to the client’s measurable objectives.

Where the client sees a direct link between using LinkedIn and business outcomes then they become more motivated to use it.

Secondly, our training programmes provide continuity support and follow up to review progress made by our clients and providing additional coaching.

We find that training and a well planned, focused social media strategy will help clients increase their sales, create new opportunities and gain increased ROI through this social media platform. For example, working with EnviroVent’s sales teams, he overcame their barrier to adoption by providing easy to follow steps and giving them the confidence to join in discussion groups. As a result they received an order that represented 33% of their sales territory annual target.

Mistakes to avoid with LinkedIn

Q. What have been the common mistakes which companies are making which we can all avoid?

It’s simple. Lack of a clear strategy is the biggest mistake. Users sign up to LinkedIn but then have no clear plan in mind how they will use it.

Q4. What advice would you give to a company with planning their LinkedIn strategy, if they have little resource?

They should be clear about who they need to be building relationships with and be specific – Industry sector, company, job title of relevant decision maker, geographic location and then share information; news updates; web resources; own blog content etc that will be of value to their network.

Also make a decision to focus on one or two aspects of LinkedIn, such as networking and engaging in discussions in 3-5 LinkedIn groups maximum.

With limited resource, it will become extremely time consuming to attempt to work in more than 3 groups really, whilst searching for new prospects – using Advanced search, checking who’s viewed your profile and posting status updates.

Also decide, which aspects of LinkedIn will help you to engage with the right business connections and focus on these only.

LinkedIn features for lead generation and brand awareness

Q5.  Can you name your top x features in LinkedIn which companies can use to create leads or brand awareness?

Almost every aspect of LinkedIn will have an impact on generating leads and raising brand awareness, but here are my top 5 tips of practical actions you can take to support business goals:

  • 1. Brand awareness – Post useful updates once a day from your personal LinkedIn profile and if you have one, your LinkedIn Company page (see more advice from Annmarie Hanlon) – this activity has had a significant impact on brand awareness for our business and others we work with.
  • 2 Brand awareness – Be active in 3-5 LinkedIn groups consistently – share good content, discussions and other interactions – be a Thought Leader.
  • 3. Lead generation – Use LinkedIn’s advanced search facility to locate useful business connections by name, company, university, job title, geographic location.
  • 4. Lead generation – Don’t just connect with other LinkedIn users – always send a thank you response message, particularly to relevant contacts, then share useful content monthly that directs them to your website or email database sign up.
  • 5 Lead generation – Check who’s viewed your profile daily – this is a great source of hot leads – after all, they’ve looked at your profile for a reason.

Benefits for Non corporate LinkedIn members

Q6. From your experience of working with non corporate LinkedIn members (individual profiles), what benefits have you seen them realise?

Benefits have been varied, from saving time, to generating new sales and raising brand awareness and increased website traffic. Many are finding the quality of resource information available on LinkedIn incredibly beneficial, probably one of the reasons that LinkedIn is placing considerable emphasis on content sharing going forward.

Hot 2013 LinkedIn topics

Q7. Do you have any thoughts to how LinkedIn will grow in 2013, any hot topics?

Content is becoming increasingly important to LinkedIn. The recent introduction of ‘Influencer posts’ where Leaders such as Richard Branson share their wisdom and thought leadership is evidence of LinkedIn’s desire to make the site increasingly content rich, rather than the slightly dull platform it has been perceived as in previous years.

I think we’ll also see considerable developments in the use of LinkedIn company pages (LinkedIn announcement) which until mid 2012 were fairly static domains. The ability for companies to promote and share their news is attracting a lot of interest currently.

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Get the most out of LinkedIn with these 10 tips

23 Thursday Jan 2014

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in LInkedIn

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Best Practices, Engagement, LINKEDIN FOR BUSINESS, LinkedIn Insights, LINKEDIN LEAD GENERATION

Business professionals to make connections and build their network. At times though, it can seem like only big businesses or recruiters use LinkedIn.

However, LinkedIn offers plenty of great tools for small and medium-sized businesses to connect with current customers and find new customers as well. In fact, LinkedIn can help your business look bigger, extend your marketing efforts and drive growth for your business.

LinkedIn and other social media tools allow you to get your messages out more quickly and easily than ever before. While most small businesses can’t compete with high-scale advertising campaigns that large companies produce, leveraging social media levels the playing field as the tools available are the same for all companies, big and small. Even niche small businesses have the potential to do well on social media, because you can find customers anywhere in the world interested in your unique offerings.

The following are 10 tips for growing your business on LinkedIn:

1. Create your company page. If your business doesn’t have a company page, create one right now. Follow the steps here to get your page set up quickly. You will need to verify that you are an official representative of the company during the process. Make sure you build out your company page completely by adding a header image, logos, a detailed description about your business, industry, website link and contact information.

2. Maximize your presence. Add products and services to your page and include detailed descriptions and images. Once you’ve created your products and services, ask your connections to recommend them through the tools offered by LinkedIn – it’s easy. Having recommendations on each of your products and services allow prospective customers to see who’s finding value in your business. Also, add job openings to your company page to let potential employees know that you’re hiring. Your current customers and followers may also see these openings and have the perfect candidate in mind. LinkedIn also recently created Showcase Pages that allow companies to highlight brands, products and services with dedicated pages that allow for specific content updates about each product.

3. Update your personal profile. Like it or not, you and your employees frequently become the “face” of your business. A professional-looking profile on LinkedIn goes a long way to present the image you want for your company. Make sure your profile – and the profiles of your key employees – includes:

  • Professional photo.
  • Concise description about you and your position at your company.
  • Industry keywords and terms to further demonstrate your business expertise and what makes you different.
  • Complete education and work history with description of each role at previous employers.

4. Make connections. A key for growing your business is networking and making connections. And chances are, you know many of your customers personally. Invite them to connect on LinkedIn and grow your personal network. One note though – resist the urge to use LinkedIn’s “stock” connection invitation. Instead, write a short note telling the individual why you’d like to stay connected on LinkedIn. Once you’ve built up your connections, LinkedIn’s “People You May Know” tool can help you find even more connections. Having more connections gives you more opportunities to get introduced through LinkedIn to people you’d like to know – future customers.

5. Engage your followers. When posting updates to your company and your personal profile page, make sure you’re following best practices to create content your followers will read, comment on or share. Make sure you:

  • Use images – According to LinkedIn, posts with images have a 98 per cent higher comment rate.
  • Include links – Posts with links to other content have twice the engagement rate than posts without.
  • Add videos – Adding a video in your company page update can result in a 75 per cent higher chance of that update being shared by your followers.
  • Post frequently – Companies that post 20 times per month reach at least 60 per cent of their audience. That works out to about once per business day.
  • Pose questions – When adding links to content, don’t just post them and hope someone replies. Ask your followers questions relative to the information you post to get them to engage with you.

6. Attract more followers. First, invite your customers and your connections to follow your company page. Explain that you’ll be providing valuable content and updates on your company page, making it easy for them to stay informed. Add a LinkedIn icon to your website and email signatures and link the icon to your LinkedIn company page. Give your current followers a reason to share your content with their connections. This provides your business with exposure to a greater audience and the opportunity to gain new followers. You can always view who is following your company by clicking on the number of followers near the top of your page. Try experimenting with sponsored updates to reach additional new followers as well. LinkedIn provides great segmentation tools to help you reach your target audience.

 

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5 Ways You Can Use LinkedIn as a Lead Generation Tool

16 Monday Dec 2013

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in LInkedIn

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Tags

Business, Lead Generation, LINKEDIN, LINKEDIN FOR BUSINESS, LINKEDIN LEAD GENERATION, LINKEDIN LEADS, LINKEDIN MARKETING, MOBILE SOCIAL NETWORKING, Online Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Trending

1. Enhance Your Profile

Your LinkedIn profile is a place where you can showcase your professional career. It is also a place to actively promote the value of your business to potential leads, so make the most if it!

A few ways to enhance your LinkedIn profile:

Complete your profile including past and current employer information, your background summary, special skills, education information plus all contact details including websites and social media networks. Make sure keywords specific to your industry are included.

  • Upload attachments such as letters of recommendation, client testimonials, presentation slide decks, or other information relevant to your occupation or industry.
  • Add a business headshot that best suits the professional LinkedIn atmosphere.
  • Create a strategically written headline that immediately allows community members to identify with and understand your value proposition.

  2. Make Thoughtful Connections

LinkedIn is an excellent way to connect with potential leads.  However, it is important to abide by LinkedIn best practices and avoid being viewed as a spammer.

If you are sending requests to connect, do not send one without adding a custom message. Sending the standard LinkedIn message does not explain who you are or what your purpose in connecting is.

The LinkedIn default message states, “I use LinkedIn to keep track of my professional network, and would like to add you.” If it sounds like an easy way to quickly send random new connections an invite, you would be wrong.

Take your time in identifying who you would like to connect with and be thoughtful in your intentions to connect. Re-work that standard message to include details about you, your company and a short explanation as to why you would like to connect.

  3. Participate In Groups

Joining a LinkedIn group relevant to your business or niche is a wonderful way to strengthen connections with like-minded individuals and connect with consumers interested in a particular product or with a specific need.

LinkedIn groups offer a space where members can share their experience, knowledge and wisdom in a trusted and credible environment.

Research and join groups that have similar interests to yours. Then actively participate to build credibility within the community. Become an enthusiastic member and network to build trust and relationships over time.

  4. Create a Group

In addition to the above LinkedIn lead generation concept, you have the ability to create your own group.

As the owner of a group, you are given extra privileges to communicate with your members through an email newsletter. This is a powerful way to generate leads by targeting a group interested in your specific niche or product.

Start daily conversations by asking questions, answering a frequently asked question, posting a video tip or providing a resource that consumers are eagerly in need of.  Your goal is to provide as much free information as possible and become a go-to resource within your industry or field.

  5. Paid Advertising

This opportunity might sound simple, but it remains a powerful way of generating the right leads through LinkedIn. You can purchase advertising and target a wide range of demographics ensuring that LinkedIn provides the quality leads you are looking for.

Used effectively, LinkedIn can serve as your main source of quality leads. How will you get started with LinkedIn lead generation today?

 

Originally written by Rebekah Radice and posted on Steamfeed.

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