Use LinkedIn to Build Success

LinkedIn is sometimes considered to be more of a social media application for professionals and grown ups – it’s simply is a great tool to learn, network and create exposure for yourself or your business. Like the old adage says, ‘it’s not what you know, it’s who you know’ still holds true. LinkedIn takes it a step further.

• People with more than twenty connections are thirty-four times more likely to be approached with a job opportunity than people with less than five.
• All 500 of the Fortune 500 are represented in LinkedIn. In fact, many of these are represented by upper level management.
• LinkedIn has over 39 million members in over 200 countries and territories around the world.
• A new member joins LinkedIn approximately every second, and about half of our members are outside the U.S.
• Executives from all Fortune 500 companies are LinkedIn members.

Despite these astonishing (and exciting!) facts – many people still are unsure as to how to effectively utilize LinkedIn to leverage themselves or their business. It is very possible to use LinkedIn in order to makes sales, build client trust, form partnerships, network with related professionals and suppliers, or even get a job. If you understand how to use it, you are better prepared to dive in and let your profile work to your favor. Despite the tremendous popularity, it is a tool which remains unutilized – which is why I’ve compiled this list of 5 major ways to use LinkedIn.

1) Establish your Niche

Do you specialize in sales? What kind of sales? Be specific and list all your experiences to better establish yourself as an authority on the topic.

After tweaking your profile, and then tweaking a bit more – join some LinkedIn Groups that relate to your specialty. Participate in discussions, leave answers, or better yet, post your own topics straight from a blog (which is dedicated to your specific skill set). Begin adding connections to improve your visibility. This increases the likelihood that people will see your profile when searching LinkedIn on your subject. It’s no secret that people like to work with those they know and trust. Your LinkedIn profile is an open door and should establish help establish your personal brand.

Also, don’t forget to find others you’ve worked with and swap references.

2) Enhance your Network

Many LinkedIn users make the mistake of only posting their current company information on their profile. Not much different from a resume, you may be making yourself look more limited in your knowledge of your specialty. Like an executive biography, post as much information as you can regarding past experience, honors and activities, affiliations, and education.

If you have a blog, be sure that there is a link to your profile. Facebook even has an application that add a badge to your profile wall. The more links that point to your profile – the better. Another great idea would be to add a link to your profile in your email signature. Do not feel strange doing this – if your competitors aren’t already doing this, they will be soon. In this web 2.0 world we live in, you and your business are behind glass – make this a good thing!

3) Improve your Google Visibility.

LinkedIn enables users to make their profile information available to search engines to index. In order to do this, make sure your profile is set to ‘public’ and it’s set on full view. You should reach 100% completion as well, so be sure to have associates leave a recommendation. If you use Google’s PageRank Tool you’ll notice that high pageranks are given to LinkedIn profiles. Make sure you designate a specific URL for your profile as well – for example, mine is: http://linkedin.com/in/deancowart.

You may also want to leave backlinks pointing to your profile on email signatures and blog comments.

4) Let LinkedIn work as an SEM tool

A great search engine marketing tactic is to have ‘do follow’ links to your website, using keyword defined anchor text. Since LinkedIn allows you to publicize links to your website take advantage of it.

There are a few preselected categories, such as “My Website” or “My Company” – but if you select “Other” you can modify the name of your link. Instead of selecting a default category, type in a keyword or key phrase that relates to your website. This not only helps increase your PageRank, but also people are more likely to notice the site and take interest. Once again, make sure your profile is set to “Full View.”

Also, be sure to add some of your industry keywords in the ‘Specialties’ box. For example, if you’re a web developer you may consider certain phrases like “Ruby on Rails,” “Java,” or “CSS.” You can also perform searches for these keywords to find other professionals in your industry.

5) Perform blind, “reverse,” and company reference checks.

LinkedIn’s reference check tool to input a company name and the years the person worked at the company to search for references. Your search will find the people who worked at the company during the same time period. Since references provided by a candidate will generally be glowing, this is a good way to get more balanced data.

Companies will typically check your references before hiring you, but have you ever thought of checking your prospective manager’s references? LinkedIn allows you to scope your potential employer out.

If you’d like to even take it a step further, you can also check up on the company itself by finding the person who used to have the job that you’re interviewing for – or who you are having that next business meeting with. You may be able to gain some insider knowledge which would allow you to break the ice. This same principal applies to looking up the competition and benchmarking, or learning about their clientele.

6) Get Advice from the Pros.

LinkedIn Answers gives you the opportunity to broadcast your business-related questions to both the people in your network and those compiling the greater LinkedIn network. The benefit to posting on LinkedIn, rather than open forums, is that you will hopefully get more high-value responses from the people in your network. At the same time, it’s an more of an opportunity for exposure and networking as opposed to forums – which can be more anonymous and vague.

What are your thoughts?

How do you get the most out of LinkedIn? Tell us about success you’ve had on the service in the comments.