Many companies are using Twitter and Facebook to market themselves and clients, so they are in full agreement with the recent attention to both sites. However, it seems as if people rarely ever talk about LinkedIn anymore, even though it remains a formidable marketing tool and stellar company (it reached profitability long before the others).
LinkedIn is a social networking website for people in professional occupations. Founded in December 2002 and launched on May 5, 2003, it is mainly used for professional networking. As of June 2012, LinkedIn reports more than 175 million registered users in more than 200 countries and territories.
LinkedIn offers a multitude of marketing opportunities outside of paid advertising or status updates. If you want to try your hand at LinkedIn Marketing, you are encouraged to do so since there is so much great opportunity but you have to be careful – the techniques required for LinkedIn vary from other Social Media as this is a professional Networking Site.
To help you maximize your LinkedIn Marketing efforts here are a few tips which are worthy using.
1) Create A Headline That Demands To Be Clicked; This is not a time to be modest. Your LinkedIn profile should present you as the Top Dog in your field or top company. You really need to stand out to get ahead and it all starts with your profile headline. Your headline should include your expertise, your job title and your primary keywords all in a nice, concise little package.2) Hire A Professional Photographer; You only get one chance at a first impression. When other professionals view your updates in their news feeds or click on your profile, your photo is usually one of the first things they see. If your profile photo isn’t professional, you may lose out on all the opportunities that LinkedIn marketing can provide. Hire a photographer and don’t take chances with your first impressions.
3) Maximize Your Connections; LinkedIn provides you with many ways to add to your contacts and connections list. You can search your email account address books for potential LinkedIn users, you can manually add email addresses and LinkedIn will even recommend people you might want to meet. But don’t stop there. Look through your contacts and view their contacts. You never know when you might be one relationship step away from a new partnership, client or customer.
4) Join And Participate in Groups; LinkedIn groups are a terrific way to keep up-to-date with the latest happenings in your industry. You can mingle with other professionals in your field, including experts, and that is a great way to get noticed and ahead. As an extra tip, spend a little bit of time each day participating in various groups and people will soon take notice of your marketing efforts.
5) Answer Questions; As noted in the previous section, each group affords you the ability to post discussions and respond to threads, allowing groups to be an important tool in displaying your expertise. In addition to group discussion boards, LinkedIn also has a general Questions section available for anyone to post questions and answers to. Taking a few minutes out of each day to help others and expand your business’s reach is an extremely valuable way to market your business through LinkedIn.
6) Keep Active; LinkedIn marketing won’t work unless you keep posting on your profile. A dormant LinkedIn profile isn’t going to do you a bit of good. An active profile is a successful profile, never forget that.
