The possibilities for using LinkedIn to promote your business are practically endless. If you don't know where to begin or are having trouble finding the time, try these five easy steps for promoting your business with LinkedIn.
First, you need a personal LinkedIn page. Make sure you have completed your profile and have a flattering position summary for the company to promote. Additionally, your profile should be 100% complete, including a picture. Pictures help readers feel more comfortable, if there is no picture I am less inclined to link with you, what are you hiding? Be sure to include your company web site so readers' can learn more about you.
Next decide how you will accept connections.
LION (LinkedIn Open Network) members connect to almost anyone that requests whether they know them or not. We don't recommend this open approach for everyone, however, if you want to build your network you may want to only turn away those contacts that you know who you do not want to be associated with, and give the others the benefit of the doubt.
More conservative members only link to people they personally know. This is your choice and you can adjust your settings to share or hide your connections. There are many security settings that control how much or how little of your information is shared. If you are concerned about sharing information, start with very secure settings and you can adjust as needed. Never share personal information like your home address or home phone number.
Promoting your business
1) Create a company page with your logo, overview, specialties and statistics. Make sure current employees link to the page and that you have included your website. This is an optional step. The reason for this is that there are some restrictions for company pages, particularly for communicating or blogging with your network , so some use both, we do everything from my personal page.
2) Look for groups to join that are of interest to your customers. There are many groups on LinkedIn that you can easily reach the 50 limit set by LinkedIn. Of course, you can join groups that are of personal interest, but if you are promoting your company the best groups will be those of interest to your customers.
3) Create a group based on your subject matter expertise. It is easy to create and promote a group. Create a group choosing a name that describes the group however, first you need a personal LinkedIn page.
Make sure you have completed your profile and have a flattering position summary for the company to promote before you seek out connections, some will come to you and that's fine. But you want to have your Personal Page in order before you aggressively pursue connections.
4) Start group discussions and keep the conversation live and vibrant. Some groups will be very active and others will need prodding. Periodically promote your group to get new members. Be sure to monitor messages for appropriate content and spam. You can remove abusers from your group.
Leading a group can be a substantial time commitment so be sure you have the time needed available to you (it could take10 hours a week or more if your group grows rapidly) or your group could look like the amateur hour. We wouldn't rush into this step until you have worked with LinkedIn for a while.
With or without a group, many business people use LinkedIn to source references on job seekers, to check out local staffing firms in other cities if you may want to share business with them. Some use it strictly for recruiting candidates. Only, our imaginations limit the ways LinkedIn can be used to help our businesses.
LinkedIn has many resources and suggestions to help you get the most out their service. They call it "putting a face on your company".
There are 6 episodes in this series to help us build our business through LinkedIn.
http://learn.linkedin.com/small-business/episode-1/
http://learn.linkedin.com/training/
LinkedIn offers many free training programs such as:
LinkedIn 101: The basics of LinkedIn
Learn how to complete your profile, participate in groups, adjust your settings, and search LinkedIn and more.
LinkedIn Groups: How to Run a Successful Group
In this free training webinar designed exclusively for group owners and managers, you will learn the strategies and best practices to running a successful group.
LinkedIn Pro: Get the Most out of Your Premium Account
Learn about the unique tools LinkedIn offers to Pro members, from InMail to Profile Organizer, Profile Stats Pro and more.
Build your Company Page for Business Success
Learn how to utilize all the tools of LinkedIn Company Pages to give your company a powerful online presence.
Go online to the LinkedIn Learning Center to give your company a powerful online presence.
We are confident that it won't take you very long to "put a face on your company" and grow your business. Connecting with new people or old friends should be fun as well as profitable.
