A few days ago, the folks in iSmart had an internal discussion about social media and in particular, LinkedIn is killing some major local jobs portal. This is quite a surprise for some of us because we normally look at LinkedIn from a marketing perspective. Quite clearly, LinkedIn is making a dent in its competitors' market share. It is also a great platform for B2B marketing because of its original design and purpose. Below are 3 major activities you must follow through to establish a solid LinkedIn presence.
Create And Optimize Your Account
The first thing to do is create your account and your profile. You should ask yourself 3 questions:
1. What is my goal?
2. Who is my audience?
3. How would my profile lead my audience to engage me and start a conversation?
You should create your profile according to your answers above and make it compelling. For example, if you are good at doing Inbound marketing*, mention the achievements and highlights of your career and ask some typical leading questions about your customers' problems so that potential clients would feel interested to learn more about you when they see your profile.
Optimize your profile headline by filling in keywords that your potential clients use when they are searching for what you offer, such as "marketing director", "social media consultant" etc. Also briefly describe what value you provide to give others a reason to read your profile further.
Build Connections
Upon completing your profile, you can let LinkedIn help you build your first connections by scanning your email account to see which of your email contacts have LinkedIn accounts so that you can connect with them. There is a "People you may know" function which recommends people having the same interests, coming from the same industry of you, having common connections and so on.
You can use "advanced search" to search your target by different categories such as industries, skills, locations, job titles and so on.
Engage And Interact
It is important to engage with your network before you directly approach your potential clients. They may not be willing to respond to you if you had no interaction with them before. The following are some tips for you to engage on LinkedIn so that you can start a conversation with your audience and make it natural to approach your potential clients.
1. Share someone else's update and article
If you read something you like and think the information will be beneficial to your audience, share them and tag the authors to give credit at the same time so you can get yourself exposed to the tagged contact's network.
2. Comment on someone else's update
More than just liking, why not leave a comment that is smart, inspiring or meaningful? Other readers will be curious to click your profile picture beside the comment and build a connection with you. It also helps to maintain the relationship between you and the person who shared the update.
3. Join groups and start discussion
Joining groups is another way to increase your profile exposure and visibility. Join some groups that relate to your particular interests, your industry or your potential clients' industries. Starting discussions and commenting on new threads to further expand your network and explore clients.
If you keep doing these, your network will grow and it will be easier for you to find new business on LinkedIn. Once you discover your potential clients, talk to them and get your business deals!
* Inbound Marketing is a form of digital marketing that involves SEO, Social Media, blog and landing pages to generate sales leads.
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