LinkedIn Marketing

LinkedIn is a professional niche social networking site. You can connect with professional colleagues, meet new people, find recommended services and find new contacts in your current network.

LinkedIn is a good tool to reach specific people; it is not so good at mass-market broadcasting.

You can see who your friends know, in order to take advantage of your existing network. You can also find out “who you need to know” to reach your goals.

By using LinkedIn effectively you can: Increase the visibility of your business and brand, Pursue direct sales and generate traffic and support your SEO efforts

Things to Keep in Mind

Everything you do on LinkedIn happens under your real, professional, and company name. So even though the service may be “faceless”, it is wise to behave professionally.

Not only are you easily identifiable, but everything you say and do on LinkedIn is recorded publicly and indefinitely.

LinkedIn Answers

“Answers” is just as it sounds - anyone can ask a question, and anyone can answer. The nice thing about this tool is that you can interact with people who are not in your network - which helps you meet new people and make new contacts.

When you ask a question in the “Answers” area, many people can answer you. When the question closes you are asked to choose the “good” answers. Out of these “good” answers, you are asked to choose a “best” answer. The person who is chosen as having given the “best” answer gets an “expertise point” that shows in their LinkedIn profile.

“Answers” offers a great deal of opportunity to display your expertise. If someone is looking for help on a topic where you have expert knowledge, your answer not only shows what you know, it also opens a conversation. And if you want to keep up to date on what questions are being asked in your category, you can always subscribe to the RSS feed.

At the same time, asking a question can also be helpful. Many people who have an interest in the topic may read your question. This can be a good place to announce new ventures and look for new business partners.

LinkedIn Services

“Services” is basically a system where you can find services that are recommended by others. So for example, you might be able to find a local accountant who is highly recommended.

At the same time, by getting your own clients to recommend you, others who are searching for your services can find your business. The more recommendations you have, the better you can look to prospective customers.

Search LinkedIn

“search” allows you to find people, regardless of if you know them or not. You then have the option of finding someone who knows them to introduce you, purchasing a paid account from LinkedIn to contact them directly yourself, or finding another way to contact them.

LinkedIn Groups

Groups are actually quite simple. By joining a group, everyone in the group basically becomes a connection. Anyone else who is also a member can see the group logo in your profile.

Jobs on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is known as being popular with recruiters. So it should come as no surprise that you can post a job on the system.

Increasing Your Brand’s Visibility

There are several ways you can use LinkedIn to increase the visibility of your business.

You can display your expertise in “Answers”. Frequently people ask questions like “where can I find a consultant”, etc. If you fit the bill, you can use the question to open a conversation.

You can announce your services to others in Answers. Simply answer a question that relates to your service, or ask a question looking for something you need.

You can drive readers to your blog posts. If someone asks a question to which you have blogged the answer, simply point people to your blog post - driving traffic and gaining a quality, relevant link at the same time.

And, you can get your service recommended in “Services”. The more recommendations you have, the better your business looks.

Generating Sales Leads

You can reach potential clients by conversing with people in “Answers”. Not only can you find new business partners and ventures, but you can also answer the questions of people who may be suitable clients.

You can respond to service requests, such as when people are looking for a consultant in your field. Also, you can look for the right person to contact at the organization you are seeking to do business with. And, you can get your service recommended.

Supporting your SEO

LinkedIn is actually a reasonably good, quality site to get a link from. They are also not using the “no follow” tag on their outgoing links.

More and more people are recognizing the need to build a network of quality links to their websites. Not only can these links provide a way for search engines to find you, but they can also drive qualified, relevant traffic.

If your organization has, say 100 employees, and 40 of them have LinkedIn accounts, then why not send out a company-wide email requesting a link back to the company website? If only 20 staff members add a link, you’re still up 20 free, quality, possibly relevant links, simply by sending an email. And remember - each account on LinkedIn has space for 3 links with whatever anchor text you like.

In order to make the link viewable to search engines, it is important to add the “show website” feature to each profile that will link to your site. This can be done in each account by clicking on “Edit My Public Profile“, make sure “Full View” is checked, and that also “Websites” are also checked. This will make the website link public.

You can also respond to service requests and other questions in LinkedIn “Answers”, in which you can post a link to your website as a reference. Many “Answers” pages are also indexed in search engine results pages.