Michael Cohn
You are probably working your marketing strategy pretty effectively, including through LinkedIn and the other social media channels. No doubt, your marketing efforts include all sorts of online activities. Do you find yourself wondering how the marketing professionals use the tool?
The approach of social media professionals
Get the backing of LinkedIn for your status updates: When it comes to leveraging LinkedIn and making the most out of it as part of your marketing strategy, there are several different things that you can try. Only you will be able to decide for your particular business what combination works most effectively. When it comes to posting updates, using the background support of LinkedIn is a wonderful way to start. If you have that support, other people will notice and it will do a great deal for your credibility in your particular niche or industry. If that happens, you will be positioning yourself as a subject matter expert (SME), which is one of your goals anyway. You can also track the analytics on the support and it will help you to determine what you are are doing right and what you may have to adjust.
Make use of graphic images: Graphic images will help to make your LinkedIn profile even more attractive and more effective than it was previously. It is interesting to note that many people are unaware of this capability within LinkedIn. If you use the image feature, people will notice and if they notice, they will remember you and your business more easily. You can use the image feature to highlight many different aspects of your profile. It is important to remember that you shouldn’t merely make use of that feature once and then forget about it. You can revisit it regularly and use it to keep enhancing your profile over time. You overhaul many different parts of your professional image. It is important that you don’t forget to do the same thing with you LinkedIn profile as well. You may be surprised at how effectively the changes will attract other people.
Develop meaningful relationships on LinkedIn: You must be aware by now that at the heart of social media success is the relationship itself. You will develop (and cultivate) relationships with all sorts of people. Some of the people with whom you build relationships are influential. One of your goals, of course, is to stand above your competitors. One really good way to do that is by interacting with influential people. If you surround yourself with people who stand out in the crowd, you will stand out in the crowd as well. It really is about who you know in a lot of cases.
Make a solid contribution in your LinkedIn groups: It is meaningless for you to be a part of a LinkedIn discussion group if you don’t contribute anything to those discussions. It is very important that you add value to the discussion. The value can be in the form of a comment, a question, sharing an interesting article that someone else wrote, writing about someone else’s innovative, new product and/or service, etc. You must really walk the walk. You may be surprised at how much valuable material can come out of one discussion. You have a lot to contribute and other people really want to be a part of that and they want to benefit from your knowledge and experience.
Use LinkedIn connections in the right way: Having many connections will not do you much good if you don’t actually manage to turn them into relationships. You want to turn the opportunity into a bona fide set of interactions. Allow people the opportunity to get to know you and you also need to get to know them. That means that you talk to them, share valuable information with them, ask questions of them, etc. Connect with those people on a human/emotional level and they will want to do the same thing with you. Before you know it, you will be sharing a relationship that is mutually beneficial and enduring.
Conclusion
LinkedIn is an extremely valuable social media tool that can really help you to bring your business to the next level. Any professional who is not interacting through LinkedIn and who is not working LinkedIn to its fullest potential is really doing him- or herself and the business a disservice. If you are not using it effectively, you should start as soon as possible. Make sure that you really allow your online LinkedIn connections to get to know you and to embrace what you can do for them and for their business. LinkedIn should be an important part of everyone’s marketing strategy. Is it a part of yours?
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