Do you know what people are saying about you on the Internet? “Ignorance is bliss” they say, but not in this case – if you don’t know what’s being said on Social Media portals, review websites, discussion groups etc you can’t capitalise on the good stuff and manage the bad.

LinkedIn^® - how to make it work for you

As one of the most popular Social Media sites, a lot of the people we meet know about LinkedIn and may have set up a profile, but often don't do any more than that. Just like any form of networking, what you get back depends on what you put in, so your profile won't do anything for you unless you work at it. First let's talk about why you should bother with it.

What is LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site. Founded in 2002, it is mainly used for professional networking. Typically, professional people use LinkedIn to communicate with their network of friends and colleagues, and through them, look to expand their network by linking up with like-minded people and people who might have job opportunities or business ventures they might be interested in.
Over 20% of LinkedIn users are senior level executives and managers. What’s more, over 60% are either decision makers in their companies or have direct influence over key decisions related to product or service purchases.
Linked in is continuing to grow, with a new member joining approximately every second.

How can you maximize your presence on LinkedIn?

Create a compelling profile
Don’t make it look like your c.v. – make it client focused. Think about your skills and results you can help others to achieve. Make sure your profile is complete and check it regularly as LinkedIn® often add new features which you can use to enhance your profile. In the “current and past positions” sections.

Upload your photo
Linked in is all about personal connections, so by using your photo you’re giving a bit more personal information about yourself, and also helping people to remember you.

Create a Good Headline
The standard format is something like “Owner at XYZ Company”, which LinkedIn® takes from your current job title. But you can override that and show an eye-catching and compelling title which will get people’s attention and be more memorable.

Use target keywords in your LinkedIn® profile
One of the most effective ways to gain business value from LinkedIn® is to find potential clients, business partners, vendors and consultants who can help you. You do this by going to people search and looking for those that match your specific needs. Now, just like Google, you want to be indexed high up on the first page when people search for keywords related to your expertise.

Website links
You can use more than one and also override the standard “Company Website” description.
For example, I have 3 links set up to different pages of my website, with titles like “Search Marketing Derby” – using keywords.

Give recommendations (and ask for them, too)
Testimonials are very helpful to have on your profile. Use the “givers gain” principle – if you give, you shall receive! So if you give them to people you’ve worked with and who have done a great job for you, you will probably get a testimonial back.
You can also ask clients to post a recommendation on your LinkedIn® profile.

Join the Right Groups
You can join up to 50 groups. You might join some consisting of the “like-minded” people I mentioned earlier, e.g. people in the same profession as you. These groups are great for knowledge sharing and collaboration.
But you should also join the groups that your prospects belong to, that’s where you get the opportunity to make new connections and build your prospect list.

Engage with other people

• Update your status message regularly
• Comment on other people’s statuses
• Answer questions on the Q & A boards
• Join groups and contribute to the debates

If you want people to connect – ask nicely!
When you send out an invitation, instead of using the default message, why not personalize it? Explain why you want to connect and give some additional information to encourage the recipient to say yes.

So is LinkedIn worth spending time on? We think it is. There is a lot you can do with LinkedIn and new features are introduced on a regular basis.

If you don't have the time to do it yourself - we can help by setting up your profile, or we can manage it for you as part of an ongoing Social Media Optimisation programme.

A recent LinkedIn development is the introduction of company pages. We’ve started building ours and you can see it here – look out for another blog about this soon. 

Social Media Marketing makes use of these social and interactive platforms to enable businesses to get closer to their customers and prospects by communicating with them in the social media portals they like to use.

Facebook is huge, but will it exceed Google in terms of search effectiveness? To answer this question, you have to look past all of the hype about Facebook and really look at how people use the internet.

A recent survey by Pear Analytics, "Twitter Study - August 2009", found that 37.55% of tweets were conversational, and the remainder weren't including 40.55% of "pointless babble". Is this a case of more being less or a reflection of reality?