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PLEASE BE AWARE: This is an old article, and while we think there are still nuggets of good advice included here, it may be out of date. Things move very quickly in the world of Digital Marketing, Lead Generation and Conversion Rate Optimisation - so please see our latest news for the most recent advice on how to get more out of your website and online marketing.
Build your business with LinkedIn – it takes effort, but LinkedIn can be a great asset to your business once you get the hang of it. Here is the essential guide to your business’ LinkedIn account:
1. Make sure you are in your profile picture. I know this seems an obvious point, but a lot of the time people try to be clever with their profile picture and then wonder why no one can find their page. At Xposure we have noticed that the most effective images have solid backgrounds with the logo or photo of the person who’s profile it is.
2. Your business titles are important! Your professional headline will appear below your name in all areas of LinkedIn. It is included in every reference about you, this is why it is essential that you include your title and your company, but don’t get too caught up in trying to make it clever, make sure that people can understand it. This is of primary importance.
3. You aren’t just your job! You need to find the balance between telling people what you’ve had for your lunch, and constant business updates about your company. You should add friends from networking groups and affiliations. The more connections that you add, the more easily you will be able to be found by potential clients.
4. Wherever you can, create connections that matter. Spend time every month updating your contacts within LinkedIn. Some say, as a rule, if you wouldn’t feel comfortable picking up the phone and calling the person, don’t connect with them.
5. Get lots of recommendations. Recommendations can enhance your reputation and making sure that you get as many as possible will add weight to your profile. These recommendations become social proof of your prowess in your particular field. The easiest way to get recommendations is to ask for them, request recommendations from colleges and friends, but carefully edit the email that is sent from you to them to ensure that it is personal. If you find that your recommendations don’t come through, write your own and you will be surprised how many people will reciprocate once you have helped them out.
6. Use your summary effectively. Don’t waffle your summary out, using empty and unspecific information. Sell yourself to viewers of your profile and answer the question, why do you do what you do. Think of a summary and include any interesting back stories that would intrigue and entertain your connections.
7. Flesh out the details. A relatively new feature of LinkedIn is the ability to add sections to your profile, giving you the opportunity to include details about your qualifications from other online sources. A particularly useful plug-in is content from your other outlets to your profile, including Twitter, WordPress and Slideshare.
8. Control content. Simply by clicking you can pretty much control the narrative that greets the public when they visit the profile page. Within each section of your profile there is an arrow that allows you to re-order and emphasize sections that you deem important for your public profile. An example of an effective way to do this, is move the most impressive part of your profile to the top of the page. If this is the recommendations section, make sure they are the first thing that the public see!
9. Remember the SEO benefits. As long as your profile remains public, search engines such as Google and Bing will index it. LinkedIn is a trusted site, and will bring your profile up when appropriate searches are undertaken. Use your full name throughout and use relevant key words often to make sure that it is as SEO friendly as possible.
Now, if you have followed these steps and completed the tips suggested, you should be at the stage to promote your business on LinkedIn. It is essential that you begin with, at the very least, a solid LinkedIn profile, but this is not all you need. LinkedIn provides lots of tools to drive interest and traffic to your business- so use them all!
10. Add it to your email signature. Once fully on the way, you should start to build awareness of your LinkedIn profile, include a link to your profile into your email signature.
11. Explore the rest of the tool kit. There are a great number of easy-to-use tools that can bring real value to your site. Use LinkedIn to beef up your About and Bio page. Add links to your blog and plug-ins that link back to your profile and other social media outlets that you might have. Make sure that you also include the “recommend with LinkedIn” button, in an obvious place, so that the public see it and recommend you.
12. Dominate the update area. LinkedIn presents a list of updates from those in your network, as soon as a user logs in. This can be an excellent way to increase the knowledge of our brand. Create a constant stream of relevant and interesting information that will appear on the home page of users in your networks.
13. Join LinkedIn groups. There are more groups on LinkedIn that you could ever hope to join; but becoming members of relevant groups can be an easy way to build authority through comments and discussion on significant industry posts. The real benefit of having your own group, is that it gives you the opportunity to send vast emails to a number of people and increases the exposure of your business within your relevant industry. You have the opportunity to control how many messages are sent out to the members, choosing from daily, weekly to monthly.
14. More emails? On top of the emails you can send to your group, you can also construct your own email newsletter and send that to the connections on your profile. If you have an interesting story or idea, you have the opportunity to express your ideas to your contacts. Rather than seeming to spam your audience, make sure your emails are extremely useful and informative, and aren’t often enough to become irritating.
15. Work your company page. A new feature recently added to LinkedIn is company pages, which has become an easy way to provide addition details about your business. As you update the company page, consider including special offers that appeal to your audience..
The value of your LinkedIn is entirely dependent upon the work that you put into it. Throughout LinkedIn you are provided with an abundance of useful and powerful tools that can leave your marketing strategy much more effective.
Within this guide, the surface has been scratched with some of the most important aspects, but there are many more out there, so get experimenting and comment Xposure with your results in the boxes below!
