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Jan
10

LinkedIn hints and tips review: Jan 2011

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Over the hol­i­days I’ve been review­ing our sales and mar­ket­ing plan for 2011. Part of the review has been the evo­lu­tion of our social media activ­i­ties, which include this blog site, our cur­rent ‘toe in the water’ of Twit­ter and our use of the busi­ness to busi­ness social media site, LinkedIn.

I’ve under­taken a review of a good num­ber of arti­cles on top tips for LinkedIn to con­sider how we can derive more value from the invest­ment we have made in estab­lish­ing net­works. There is a tru­ism that says that the best way to learn a topic is to teach it, so I thought I’d share our own and other people’s rec­om­men­da­tions of best prac­tice, as a review article.

It’s impor­tant to keep in mind that LinkedIn is a tool to sup­port the cre­ation of and the main­te­nance of rela­tion­ships, the goal is build face to face rela­tion­ships, what my past men­tors would call “press­ing the flesh”!

  • Com­mu­ni­ca­tions should be per­son­alised : when request­ing to link to some­one make the effort to per­son­alise it, “please join my per­sonal net­work on LinkedIn” is imper­sonal and looks like your inter­ested in grow­ing con­tact num­bers rather than in estab­lish­ing relationships.

Pearsonalise your invitations to connect, your a people person.

  • On accept­ing requests, send a per­sonal mes­sage thank­ing the per­son for the request and intro­duce yourself.
  • Only give rec­om­men­da­tions to peo­ple whose ser­vice you have expe­ri­enced first hand. Like­wise only ask peo­ple to rec­om­mend you who can speak from first hand expe­ri­ence. I’ve pre­vi­ously been asked by peo­ple I like to rec­om­mend them, which is awk­ward, you have to thank them for think­ing of you, but point out that you’ve not expe­ri­enced their ser­vice first hand so are unable to rec­om­mend their service.
  • You should look to have more than 10 recommendations.
  • If like me spelling is an issue, install a spell checker in your browser tool bar (www.google.com/toolbar).

Spell checker can help avoid simple spelling errors.

  • LinkedIn is a search engine so add key search words to your pro­fes­sional head­ing. You have 120 char­ac­ters so tell vis­i­tors and search engines what you do and look to dif­fer­en­ti­ate yourself.
  • There are 3 hot links avail­able to drive traf­fic to your web­site and blog, so use all three. Also by click­ing on“edit” and then “other” you can add engag­ing key­words / phrases and link them to rel­e­vant pages on your web­site or blog.

Use keywords or engaging phrase

  • There are two appli­ca­tions avail­able to embed a pre­view of your blog arti­cles into your pro­file page (click on “More” in the tool­bar and select from Word­Press or Bloglink). This allows you to engage vis­i­tors with blog arti­cles that could be of inter­est and allows you to develop your per­sonal brand.

Adding links to your blog builds your personal brand.

  • If you embed a feed from your blog every time your post a blog this will appear in the home­page net­work activ­ity of all your con­tacts. This can attract traf­fic to your pro­file and your blog, as well as being a way to remind con­tacts of your services.
  • As above, if you use Twit­ter you can use a tool like Hoot­suit to post the ‘tweets’ on con­tacts home­page net­work activ­ity summary.
  • Review your net­work for events posted on LinkedIn you might be inter­ested in attend­ing. You can then use the atten­dance con­fir­ma­tion list to iden­tify con­tacts that might like to meet you at the event. Click on “More” on the linkedIn tool­bar and then “events”.

Whats going on that you could be interested in and who could you arrange to meet.

  • Join groups to increase your net­work, such as regional busi­ness groups or busi­ness sec­tor spe­cific groups.

Which groups create opportunities for you ?

  • The advanced search tool is great for search­ing by key­words for con­tacts, for exam­ple, search­ing for peo­ple with the word “Mar­ket­ing” in their pro­file within 50 miles of your post­code. You’re not lim­ited to key­words, you could be look­ing for con­tacts in a spe­cific com­pany or industry!

If your looking for contacts via a keyword, a company, by localtion.

  • Remem­ber your Pro­file sum­mary is your mar­ket­ing pitch, so make sure you high­light the ben­e­fits of con­tact­ing you.
  • Using the rec­om­mend a book appli­ca­tion can say a lot about your inter­ests and can be really help­ful to oth­ers. It’s prob­a­bly a good idea if you’ve read it yourself !

If you've been helped by a text, tell people, other will want to know.

  • Be a resource: answer ques­tions, go out and par­tic­i­pate in groups. Up to now I’ve not been overly involved in this facet of social media, how­ever as of the start of 2011 I’m open­ing my mind to the pos­si­bil­ity that it could be good fun, time well spent and a use­ful return on investment!
  • Think about start­ing your own group! it’s cer­tainly worth con­sid­er­ing if their is a gap in the mar­ket that would attract a healthy following.

If you’ve got tips that would add value to this review, please add them to the com­ments sec­tion below.

I hope the tips above have been useful,

All the best for 2011

Simon www.promotionmedia.co.uk

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13 comments

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  1. louise yeoell says:

    11/01/2011 at 11:04 am (UTC 1)

    Reply

    Simon seems to have a knack of ‘human­is­ing’ com­mu­ni­ca­tion which many peo­ple lose when they get onto sites such as LinkedIn.
    He says he can’t spell…but he sure as heck can com­mu­ni­cate which, after all is what his busi­ness is all about.

    The tips in this arti­cle are really use­ful. He’s gone right back to basics and reminded us that we’re all talk­ing to peo­ple, not com­pa­nies, processes or insti­tu­tions. I’ve read this — and I’ll refer back to it. Because per­son­ally speakng, I can use all the help I can get when it comes to using social media…

  2. John Cornish says:

    11/01/2011 at 7:47 pm (UTC 1)

    Reply

    Hi Simon,

    Your excel­lent top tips are really use­ful and can read­ily be used.

    Every Mar­keter needs to read through these and apply them for their own busi­ness or the busi­ness of their Clients.

    Thank you.

    1. Simon says:

      12/01/2011 at 3:18 pm (UTC 1)

      Reply

      Hi John,

      It’s my plea­sure, it’s really pleas­ing to have pro­duced a bit of work that has been so well received !

      Regards, Simon

  3. Tim Gander says:

    12/01/2011 at 3:03 pm (UTC 1)

    Reply

    “If like me spelling in [sic] an issue, install a spell checker in your browser tool bar”, oh the irony ;)

    Good tips though.

    I would of course add that get­ting a good, clean, tightly-cropped avatar photo is an oft-overlooked trick. It human­izes you and means when you finally get to “press the flesh” your face isn’t a total sur­prise (or shock!). Get it done the next time you book a ses­sion with a com­mer­cial pho­tog­ra­pher. Don’t use snappy phone pics. They look unprofessional.

    1. Simon says:

      12/01/2011 at 3:16 pm (UTC 1)

      Reply

      Hi Tim, thank for spot­ting the gram­mat­i­cal error, the irony is not lost on me, I’m still smil­ing !
      James (my busi­ness part­ner) and I have been debat­ing the avatar image, the logo shows up well in activ­ity lists, but we have come to the con­clu­sion that a well lite closeup would be more appro­pri­ate on our pro­file pages.

      Thanks for tak­ing the time to feed­back. Simon.

  4. Diane Bantten says:

    12/01/2011 at 6:52 pm (UTC 1)

    Reply

    Simon, really enjoyed read­ing your arti­cle. It is both infor­ma­tive and use­ful — more please!

    1. Simon says:

      13/01/2011 at 11:33 am (UTC 1)

      Reply

      Thanks Diane, delighted that you found the arti­cle help­ful. Simon

  5. Suzanne langley says:

    14/01/2011 at 11:52 pm (UTC 1)

    Reply

    Thanks for the tips! Really use­ful as I am new to Linked in.
    My busi­ness Coastal Direct Mar­ket­ing Solu­tions Ltd was estab­lished by me — a few years ago LOL in 1985 and I am embark­ing on a Mar­ket­ing Refresher start­ing with the 870 page book called The Social Media Bible (I am on page 2 hav­ing just started the mon­ster read.) Gone are the days when we could grow our busi­ness organ­i­cally and there­fore I have com­mited to try out the most pop­u­lar social media activities.

    I have started to attend a few net­work events but found the same prob­lems as before when I used to net­work twenty years ago. Prob­lem being that the the net­work­ers are not my tar­get audi­ence. I sell my ser­vices (mainly bulk mail­ing and print) to the larger busi­nesses and can­not find any appro­pri­ate net­work clubs. Any sug­ges­tions welcome!!

    Thanks again and I will look out for your tips with interest.

    Sue

    1. Simon says:

      17/01/2011 at 10:04 am (UTC 1)

      Reply

      Hi Sue, I’m pleased the tips are use­ful !
      Part of our 2011 sales and mar­ket­ing review has been to ana­lyze (pull off a list and see who we’ve cre­ated a busi­ness rela­tion­ship with and how we formed the rela­tion­ship) our success’s. You may know peo­ple through net­work­ing who you can form strate­gic alliances, you offer them a ser­vice they can add to their port­fo­lio, so smaller mar­ket­ing agen­cies, pos­si­bly ?
      I’m cur­rently read­ing ‘Cold call­ing for Chick­ens’ for the pur­pose of approach­ing com­pa­nies who would ben­e­fit from our ser­vices but have no need of attend­ing net­work­ing events ! Com­pany web­sites, LinkedIn and arti­cles have a lot of infor­ma­tion about prospec­tive clients, or there are qual­i­fied data base lists that can be purchased.

      Regards, Simon

  6. David Howlett says:

    31/01/2011 at 12:50 pm (UTC 1)

    Reply

    I found this sim­ple guide to Linkedin very use­ful and will rec­om­mend it to oth­ers. What I like is you’ve writ­ten it in a lan­guage any­one can under­stand. Well done!

    1. Simon says:

      31/01/2011 at 4:44 pm (UTC 1)

      Reply

      Thanks David, you’ve given us so much con­struc­tive advice and guid­ance on SEO and Word­Press, I’m pleased to have rec­i­p­ro­cated to a small degree!

      Regards, Simon.

  7. John Freeland says:

    22/11/2011 at 3:10 pm (UTC 1)

    Reply

    I’m really new to the busi­ness pos­si­bil­i­ties pre­sented by social media, LinkedIn in par­tic­u­lar, and could use some guid­ance as to where to start. The prospect of tak­ing on LinkedIn, Twit­ter and Face­book (for exam­ple) is pretty daunt­ing to some­one of my mature years. Is there a decent guide avail­able? Or a receommedned sequence of adoption?

    1. Simon says:

      22/11/2011 at 3:59 pm (UTC 1)

      Reply

      Hi John, there are lots of free sem­i­nars being offered by peo­ple look­ing to sign up cus­tomers, you could attend a few to get a feel for what’s being said, though I’d not sign up for any ser­vices until you’ve a clear view of would fit your par­tic­u­lar business.

      I get the impres­sion that every­one pur­ports to be an expert!

      There will be peo­ple attend­ing such sem­i­nars who are doing their own social media who’d be happy to dis­cuss whats worked and not worked for them!

      A quick look at Ama­zon brought up this new book that looks promis­ing http://www.amazon.co.uk/Likeable-Social-Media-Customers-Irresistible/dp/0071762345/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1321976300&sr=8–5
      I’d start by read­ing this or another overview book.

      On Linkedin, explore join­ing groups that relate to your busi­ness or region and start to con­tribute in a mean­ing­ful way.

      Hope this helps,

      Simon.

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