Ideas For Marketing Using LinkedIn
March 7, 2009 by Sandy Mitchell
Filed under Marketing
If you haven’t yet joined LinkedIn, the social media site aimed at older (over 25) professional people, you should. The site is a great way to connect with others in your industry as well as make your company and product known around the Web. Joining LinkedIn is free. You create a circle of colleagues and associates by inviting them to join your network. Information and new contacts are shared among the network. You can also ask questions of your group.
Here are a few ideas on how to use LinkedIn to promote your business:
1. Announce your new product or project in the “What I’m working on” section. That will be sent to all of your contacts ever time you change it.
2. Respond to questions asked by those in your network. You’ll showcase your expertise in your field.
3. Point to your relevant blog posts or Web site articles in answer to network questions, thus driving track to your Web site and possibly acquiring a new customer.
As with all social media marketing, you’ll want to walk that narrow line between marketing and spam. Don’t be tempted to send unrelated links to other unsolicited.
(photo credit: Newscom)
Good article.
Another LinkedIn tip for you – put common misspellings of your name in the Summary field of your profile. That way, if someone is searching for you with that spelling, they still find you. This is actually one of the “The Missing LinkedIn Tips” from my new blog at
http://www.the-linkedin-speaker.com/blog/2009/01/27/missing-linkedin-tip-%e2%80%93-misspell-your-last-name-in-your-linkedin-profile/
where I actually have a video that shows how to do it.
Pat O’Malley
A while back on our blog, we marveled at the spectacular growth that LinkedIn was achieving, heralding the beginnings of widespread adoption of social media for business. You can read the post here: http://inmedialog.com/index.php/archives/social-networking-for-business/
Since then, the business world has taken social media to new heights with other tools like Twitter.
In addition to the promotional capabilities for businesses that you’ve suggested, in these tough economic times, I think that more and more individuals are using LinkedIn as an organic, interactive C.V. and certainly the LinkedIn Answers forum has emerged as a great place to participate in conversations with one’s peers about hot topics in one’s space.