Linked In is a professional social network for business contacts to connect, market and exchange ideas. According to the Linked In public relations department, a new member joins about every second and total over 65 million members worldwide. With a network at your fingertips like this, it is hard to brush it off as a worthless, time-consuming social media fluke. Linked In is what you make of it and like all other business practices, you must have a plan. This guide will help you begin to think creatively about how to start using Linked In and drawing in leads today.
As an educational resource…
Linked In has a very comprensive section called Answers. There are a few different ways you can use the section to both educate yourself and to gain respect as an expert in your field.
The Answers section allows everyone on Linked In to ask a question or answer questions other professionals have already asked. If you are looking for advice on a particular situation or topic, you can serach for answers referring to your topic of interest or you can ask a question of your own. You are allowed to ask up to 10 questions per month as a member.
You can deem someone as an expert and give the recognition if they answer your question the best. This also can work in your favor, if you are the one who is trying to gain recognition as an expert.
Example scenario:
Let’s say Dr. John is an established economist. His goal is to become better recognized online as an expert in economics because he relies on speaking engagements to support himself financially. He goes to the Answer section on Linked In and selects Answer Questions. He then searches for the keyword “Gross Domestic Product.” He also could have gone to the categories of questions, selected Finance and Accounting, then Economics for more general questions. Both methods bring up a list of questions that has been sorted by either date or distance from your recorded location.
After searching the list, he finds a good question that he feels he can answer accurately. The question being “What is the gross domestic product and how does it affect my business?” He creates the answer and posts it. Also, as an added bonus, he includes a link at the end of the post to his blog entry “GDP and What it Means to You” and a note letting the asker know he has been in the game a long time and speaks frequently about Economics at business events.
As a follow up tool…
You can create an extensive network using Linked In. However, a bigger network doesn’t necessarily mean a better quality network.
Linked In is a great tool to use in addition to in-person networking. After an evening of mingling, you may begin to forget the people you met but you have a pocket full of business cards.
You can begin by looking each one of these individuals up on Linked In and requesting them as a conection. Now, you can keep track of them professionally by being apart of their online network, following their feeds, and seeing what groups they are in. When the time comes to reach out to a specific contact, pulling up their contact info is at the click of a button.
As an ice breaker…
Once you begin to use Linked In and become familiar with it, you choose to upgrade your account to include InMails. This allows you to search for particular contacts that might be good leads, partners, job applicants, etc. You can search your contact’s networks, search by company, by position, or location, or group to find the people that will help you meet your business goals. The InMail feature allows you to “cold call” by way of a Linked In message to introduce yourself.
As a Marketing outlet…
There is a feature on Linked In called Groups. There are groups for many different topics and locations. For example, Pittsburgh groups include Network Pittsburgh, Into Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Business Times, and Pittsburgh Business Calendar.
As a business gains recognition it always needs new outlets to approach with PR plans. Using the groups available to you, you can post press releases, event details, promotions, special offers, etc. It gives direct access to highly target markets.
Many business owners seem to be intimidated by social media, however, using social media sites appropriately and creatively can help you expand and generate more business. NuRelm has closed tons of new business in recent months through the use of Linked In and Biznik.
Heather Jewell is the VP of Business Development of NuRelm. As an integral part of NuRelm's Online Marketing department, she has an extensive background in promoting Web sites and writing for the Web. NuRelm is a Web software and services firm that focuses on helping non-technical professionals utilize on the Web to build business. For more information, please visit www.NuRelm.com.