LinkedIn has become one of my main go to places for my social media fix in the last 12 months. The network has finally begun to mature from a network where you made connections, and were not sure why, or what to do next, to a more serious business network.
If you want, you can connect with me on LinkedIn here https://www.linkedin.com/in/eddywebb1/
For those who are not familiar with LinkedIn, think of it like Facebook for business or professionals. I don’t have many clients who I am friends with on Facebook but I have well over 1,000 who I connect with on LinkedIn. On Facebook you have friends and on LinkedIn you have connections. It is for connecting people in work with similar people in the same industry and used for making Business to Business connections.
Why I prefer LinkedIn to Facebook?
Well, whilst Facebook is trying to clean up the weak content that many companies post on the network, (Facebook for Business Doomsday ) , there is only so much I can take of seeing other peoples’ holiday snaps, snow covered driveways or animal misadventure videos. LinkedIn has a more sensible and mature tone, with a much higher majority of the content being business focused, useful and interesting.
I see content from businesses I am interested in, updates on subjects that matter to me in my work. Better still, if you know how to use LinkedIn, you can use it to generate clients and new business!
Winning clients on LinkedIn
The most exciting thing about LinkedIn is the ability to gain clients from the network. We are doing this for ourselves and also for some of our clients. As with most social networks, if you work them correctly, in the right way, they will generate business.
For obvious reasons, I won’t go into exactly how we are doing it, but here are some basics.
- Use a professional photo – I don’t mean you have to pay for one but the one you use needs to create an impression. The right impression!
- Create an engaging Headline – Too often people leave these blank or with barely any text. This is your chance to sell yourself when somebody looks at your profile. Get to the point and blow your own trumpet!
- Create a summary that sells – The summary section gives you a lot more space to talk about what you have done. Use a friend to help you if you need to.
- Update your work and education sections – Do they say how amazing you are?
- Seek Recommendations – We live in a review driven world where we don’t like to do anything unless a friend has recommended something or we have read online reviews.
- Start building a network by searching for people or looking through the recommendations on the ‘My Network’ section
- Personalised invitations work better so take the time to include a message when you invite someone to connect
- Take your time – don’t try to add 100’s of people at a time
- Start by connecting to those that you know and build from there
- Use the Connect button to search for your contacts on LinkedIn
- You don’t have to pay for LinkedIn in the first instance. You can do a lot of proactive work in connecting and building relationships without that.
LinkedIn takes a strategic approach and some work to build relationships and ultimately get new customers, but if you put the effort in, it can bring great rewards!
We work with clients on LinkedIn marketing under our Total Digital Marketing monthly packages