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M A R K E T I N G  T I P S  O F  T H E  M O N T H:

MARKETING YOUR BUSINESS USING LINKEDIN...FOR FREE!

What is LinkedIn?

You really should know the answer to this by now...LinkedIn is a professional social networking site. On LinkedIn, you can connect with professional colleagues, meet new people, find recommended services and find new contacts in your current network. Currently, you can reach “more than 11 million” professionals on the service, including all of the Fortune 500 companies.


What You Can Do With LinkedIn

It is important to remember that LinkedIn is a good tool to reach specific people; it is not so good at mass market broadcasting. If you want to reach ten million people, then this may not be your best avenue. If however, you want to reach the specific person who may be interested in your service, then LinkedIn can definitely be a very useful tool.


Even looking at LinkedIn from a very high-level point of view, there is much you can achieve with the service. You can see who your connections know, in order to take advantage of your existing network. You can also find out “who you need to know” to reach your goals. For example, if you sell paper products, you can find out who is in charge of purchasing these supplies at the company you want to do business with.


Aside from these basic uses, there are other uses for LinkedIn. For example, by using LinkedIn effectively you can:

  • Increase the visibility of your business and brand
  • Pursue direct sales
  • Generate traffic and support your SEO efforts (Search Engine   Optimization)

LinkedIn Groups

Groups on LinkedIn are actually quite simple and very effective. 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.  You also have the ability to send individual "notes" to each Group member.



Increasing Your Company's Visibility


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

  • First, you can display your expertise in “Answers” and your "Groups". 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.
  • Second, you can announce your services to others in Answers and Groups. Simply post a question that relates to your service, or ask a question looking for something you need.
  • Third, 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.
  • Finally, 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 through LinkedIn by conversing with people in “Answers” and within your "Groups". Not only can you find new business partners and ventures, but you can also answer the questions of people who may be suitable clients.
  • Second, you can respond to service requests, such as when people are looking for a consultant in your field.
  • Third, you can look for the right person to contact at the organization you are seeking to do business with.


Supporting Your SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

LinkedIn is actually a reasonably good, quality site to get a link from.

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 (and anything else you check here) public.

Again, 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.



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