33 Ways to Use LinkedIn for Business
July 13th, 2009 (11:00am) Meryl Evans 53 CommentsTweet This (557)
Is your LinkedIn account mostly sitting idle? You can do so much more with it than simply look up contacts: find gigs, sell products, expand your networks, grow your business and gain free publicity.
Here are 33 ways to use LinkedIn more effectively.
- Fill out your profile completely to earn trust.
- Use widgets to integrate other tools, such as importing your blog entries or Twitter stream into your profile.
- Do market research and gain knowledge with Polls.
- Share survey and poll results with your contacts.
- Answer questions in Questions and Answers: show expertise without a hint of self-promotion.
- Ask questions in Questions and Answers to get a feel for what customers and prospects want or think.
- Publish your LinkedIn URL on all your marketing collateral, including business cards, email signature, email newsletters, web sites and brochures, so prospects learn more about you.
- Grow your network by joining industry and alumni groups related to your business.
- Update your status examples of recent work.
- Link your status updates with your other social media accounts.
- Combine your social media approach: when someone asks a question in Twitter, respond in detail on LinkedIn and link to it from Twitter.
- Use the search feature to find people by company, industry and city.
- Start and manage a group or fan page for your product, brand or business.
- Research your prospects before meeting or contacting them.
- Share useful articles and resources that will be of interest to customers and prospects.
- Don’t turn off your contacts: avoid hard-sell tactics.
- Write honest and valuable recommendations for your contacts.
- Request LinkedIn recommendation from happy customers willing to provide testimonials.
- Post your presentations on your profile using a presentation application.
- Check connections’ locations before traveling so you can meet with those in the city where you’re heading.
- Ask your first-level contacts for introductions to their first-level contacts.
- Interact with LinkedIn on a regular basis to reach those who may not see you on other social media sites.
- Set up to receive LinkedIn messages in your inbox so you can respond right away.
- Link to articles and content posted elsewhere, with a summary of why it’s valuable to add to your credibility.
- List your newsletter subscription information and archives.
- Find experts in your field and invite them as a guest blogger on your blog or speaker at your event.
- Post discounts and package deals.
- Import vCards and contacts from other applications to find more connections.
- Export your contacts into other applications.
- Buy a LinkedIn direct ad that only your target market will see.
- Post job listings to find qualified talent.
- Look for connections related to a job you want.
- Find vendors and contractors through connections.
(Thanks to Frank Strong, Zale Tabakman, Robert Medak and Jon Tucker for their suggestions for this post.)
What other ways do you use LinkedIn for business?
Tags: linkedin, social media, social networking
Web Work 101: How To Escape The Cubicle
Meryl
Thanks for posting the information we discussed. I was excited to be able to see the other tips that people have talked about…lots of great info on the post.
Feel free to email me with any other stories you’re working on. Would be happy to help again.
Jon Tucker
CompeteOnWeb.com
A few other ideas for using LinkedIn:
1. Check your contacts and see who might benefit from knowing each other. Then introduce them to each other, using InMail or traditional email (not the LinkedIn introduction function).
2. Create a short newsletter for your LinkedIn contacts to let them know what’s happening in your career or job-search.
3. Mentor a fellow employee or a colleage who needs a job.
4. Find your next project work team by checking their skills on their LinkedIn profiles.
5. Keep track of your colleague’s promotions and title changes on LinkedIn and send congratulations. They will probably show up on their profile or Network Updates before the company newsletter.
6. If your employer doesn’t have online networking tools, start a LinkedIn group. Consider inviting alumni, too.
7. Network with professionals in similar roles in your industry.
8. Use LinkedIn’s Outlook toolbar or use Xobni, from Xobni.com to find new contacts.
9. Research Career 2.0 — what you’ll do if or when your current job is gone.
10. Remember, networking is more about giving than getting. Build your karma.
11. If you are job-hunting, see my profile, http://www.linkedin.com/in/andybrandt1 for a free PDF book on job hunting online, networking and using LinkedIn, “The Job Seeker’s Guide to Online Networking and Using LinkedIn.”
Andy Brandt
My big frustration with LinkedIn is that it doesn’t do more to help broker introductions to other members who may have a need for what it is you do; or can answer a need to you have. Sure, one of your contacts may make the introductions for you, but how often does that happen?
LinkedIn members are looking for help with challenges and buying services every day and yet it does nothing to help connect people to make this happen.
Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
Great post!
Thanks for sharing the list.
I’ve used it also as a Linkedin health check: good to see that I’m doing 90% of what the list suggests :)
Best
Fred
Very informative article. As someone who is now assisting clients with getting up to speed on all there is to know/keep up with on social media sites, I’m sure they’ll find this helpful as well. We are now in a world where personal branding via such tools as LinkedIn is essential.
I cannot find the link to a twitter widget that will work with Linkedin. Can I get a direct link?
Make it so you can share this article easily on Linkedin. I find it ironic that you cannot currently.
Wow! Great post, thx! More to learn and implement each day. I will tweet this one.
I’m finally getting into LinkedIn. There are so many helpfull articles and free e-books all over internet. I especially like ‘How to REALLY use LinkedIn’. I found the free light version at http://www.how-to-really-use-linkedin.com.
Really recommended!
@Haig, load the “Company Buzz” application to import your Twitter content into LinkedIn. Also, go to your Profile and click “What are you working on?” There, you can share links and finds.
@Haig Merl has the idea – Company Buzz is at http://www.linkedin.com/opensocialInstallation/preview?_ch_panel_id=1&_applicationId=1000
You could also stream your Tweats to a blog (WordPress) and then post the WordPress blog to Linkedin – either way it is a couple of steps, but a cool way to repurpose your content and contribute to the community.
Thanks for the great article, Meryl. This will really help build up my profile so LinkedIn can be a more useful tool for my company. It’s amazing how quickly a network grows, once you add those first few people, then everyone seems to know someone and *poof* you have a network. Now your article will be really helpful in leveraging that network! All the best…
Thanks!
Of all the social spaces linkedin is the one I am the worst at using well. Thank you for this post. I am quickly becoming a fan.
LinkedIn has a ton of potential for businesses and individuals and it’s one of the few that is resistant to spammers. Great post on helping us utilize it!
I will assign this to my Masters classes at NYU.
Meryl,
As you mention in your post LinkedIn is a very useful tool for prospecting.
There are actually several specific techniques to use LinkedIn this way. Ed Callahan (http://www.coherentsalesconsulting.com) has a new ebook out covering many of these and we have several authors writing about them on our site.
Nigel
http://www.linkedin.com/in/nigeledelshain
I particularly like Andy’s suggestions as well. It takes a while to shift the mindset from the in-person model of networking, and balancing not being too “16.# Don’t turn off your contacts: avoid hard-sell tactics.” with the efficiency of online networking. It still takes time, you need to be more organized – where are those names, and articles and links. When you are online you probably should actually give them to a person, rather then ‘call me I know …. but I don’t have the number at this event right now.’ But being organized and REALLY helping connect people will help you and your network a whole lot more.
Just keep remembering to look at online networking with the new mindset until it becomes habit. These ideas are great starts.
Hey Meryl,
What an exhaustive list you have
shared. Just doing a third of what
you’ve shared will surely help anyone leverage LinkedIn.
Have a great week!
Won’t Be Denied,
C.F. Jackson
The Authority Site For Authors & Writers
If any of you are in New York on August 25th, we’re presenting a half day seminar on LinkedIn strategies for business… you know, like how to actually use it to find business. I post this here because this is one of the posts I reference in the seminar.
Hope to see some of you there!
info at http://seminars.visibleshops.com
Really enjoyed the post, it’s amazing how many opportunities LinkedIn affords for marketing. Also, what really distinguishes it from Facebook is that LinkedIn’s most powerful marketing tools are free. There’s more of a focus on creating content, groups, etc. within LinkedIn. I actually recently wrote a post with some other relevant examples of how to use LinkedIn for business: http://www.newmediacampaigns.com/page/using-linkedin-to-market-your-company
Thanks again for the great post!