You’ve heard about the importance of LinkedIn, but what are you doing to take advantage of it? This is one website that can impact your business significantly.
LinkedIn is a social network that makes it easy to connect with professionals and groups all around the world. Every second, a new person signs up for an account with LinkedIn, and the community has over 65 million members in over 200 countries. That provides fast access to resources and insight from others in your industry, all right at your fingertips.
The question is, how can you make this powerful tool work for you? Glad you asked. Here are some tips I’ve learned along the way that can help you get the most out of LinkedIn.
• Create—and complete—your profile. Your profile is what allows people to find you, so make sure to fill it out thoroughly and make it public by enabling the Full View setting. Search engines will find your public profile, as will others who are searching online.
• Personalize your LinkedIn URL. You are able to customize the URL of your public profile, so for the best search engine exposure, put your company name in the URL of your profile. For example, your public URL should look like http://www.linkedin.com/in/MinutemanPressLincoln.
• Add website URLs to your profile. Under My Company, add your company’s website address. When people click on the links that show up with your profile, search engines recognize this—this improves your overall search rankings.
• Connect with people and companies that you do business with. Every time you gain a new client, vendor or prospect, send them an invitation to join your LinkedIn network. This helps increase TOMA (top of mind awareness), so when they have another printing job, they think of you first. It’s also smart to have everyone on your staff create profiles so that you can connect with one another and “recommend” one another on the site.
• Become engaged. Look for other Minuteman Press owners and join their group so you can connect and share ideas with one another. Also, find other groups that relate to your industry or your clients’ industries. You can then participate in the “conversation,” which takes me to my next point.
• Participate in the conversation. It’s never wise to post a discussion on LinkedIn that’s simply a solicitation. But when questions arise that fall into your area of expertise, you have an opportunity to share your knowledge and experience. This positions you as an industry expert and helps build trust with the people you’re connected with.
• Add the LinkedIn logo to your website. This is easily done by adding an image collection through your Springboard, and it will allow people to go directly to your LinkedIn page when they click it.
Lastly, “link in” with me. I’m here to help you, and it’s a quick and easy way to get in touch with me. Send me an invitation to be one of your connections on the site, and I’ll happily accept.
