Why is LinkedIn Important?

LinkedIn is a Social Networking Site which specializes in connecting business professionals. It’s estimated that LinkedIn has nearly 100 million users from around the world, which makes it an extremely powerful marketing tool.

This chart from Quantcast shows that ~4.4 million people visit LinkedIn each day to view approximately 41 million pages; the average salary of LinkedIn users is over $100k.

What this means: if you are a business which is not currently “Linked In”, then you are simply throwing money away.

It’s easy to get started with LinkedIn, just head to www.linkedin.com and create your account. Once that has been completed, it is time to make your profile!

**IMPORTANT**: You need to fill out your profile as thoroughly as possible, especially the picture. Skimping on any of the details is going to make you less visible to people who might be searching for someone like yourself to do business with (or hire!).

It is extremely important that you fill out your Summary, Experience, and choose your skills. The Skills you select are extremely valuable for getting hits on your profile. In your Summary, you should link your Twitter, Facebook and/or Website, and desire to connect so people can easily find and connect with you.

Twitter Integration

(**IMPORTANT**: Twitter is currently one of the most potent marketing tools available. If you are looking to grow your Twitter followers FAST, please follow this link to my blog on how to do so!)

To connect your Twitter account to your LinkedIn account, click on “Edit Profile” then select “Add Twitter” next to the Twitter field. Make sure your Twitter account is set to “Public”.

This will link your Tweets to LinkedIn for your connections to see. For me this is important because every time I publish a blog, I can Tweet it to my Twitter and LinkedIn audiences in one fell swoop.

How do I connect?

After getting your account created and your profile polished, it’s time to connect! The first question you need to ask yourself is: “Am I looking for a small targetted audience (quality), or am I looking for mass connections (quantity)?”. There really is no wrong answer, it just comes down to your business needs.

The easiest way to connect is through “Groups”. LinkedIn discourages people from connecting with members which they have no direct contact with, so joining groups relevant to your interests provide you an informal way to introduce yourself.

In the upper right hand corner of the LinkedIn site, you will see a search bar. Change the dropdown box from “People” to “Groups” and search for relevant interests. Example: If you are interested in engaging people in “Social Media”, then search for Social Media, and so on.

LinkedIn will allow you to participate in up to 50 groups. If you are looking to mass connect, then you should attempt to join as many groups as possible. Some groups are “Open”, meaning you can join freely; others you need to apply for membership to join.

Once you have joined a few groups, you should follow their discussions. If you see someone asking or responding to questions and you feel you share similar interests, you should connect with them! To do so, click on their profile and select the “Add to Network” link next to their picture, put in their email address, select how you know them (there will be a “Group” dropdown box you can select your mutual group from) and click send.

**IMPORTANT**: LinkedIn will automatically generate a canned greeting and request to connect to be sent to the reciever, but it’s more likely someone will connect if you personalize the message.

I generally use something like:

Mary,

My name is Dan, and I am an Assistant Store Manager with a large retail chain. With each of us being a veteran of retail and sharing a group, I sincerely hope you will accept my invitation to connect!

With kind regards,

Daniel J. Cassidy

www.commandcs.com

http://twitter.com/CommandCS

Tip: Draft up a personalized greeting and save it to Microsoft Word so you can easily access it to copy & paste when needed – just make sure you change the name on the greeting before you send the invitation to connect!

Tip: Add your Twitter and/or Facebook information to the greeting for extra exposure.

Mass Connecting

The fastest way to boost your connections is through Open Netorking Groups such as LION (LinkedIn Open Networkers), or using websites such as OpenNetworker.com or TopLinked.Com.

TopLinked.com allows you to add yourself to, and access massive LinkedIn Open Network user lists which you can download into excel. From there, you can copy and paste the emails into the “invite” field in LinkedIn’s “Add Connections” tab and send 500 invites at a time. This Link gives you about 1800 free Open Networkers with instructions to get you started.

Within many groups you will find discussions such as “Add yourself to this list if you are open to connecting”. This gives you free connections, with the minimal work of adding everyone manually.

LinkedIn & Other Social Media

You will also find Open Networking discussions from people looking to network on other social media platforms such as Twitter, Google+ and Facebook. This means that your investent into LinkedIn will also pay off in many different types of social media exposure.

Summary

Overall, I have been very satisfied with my level of engagement on LinkedIn. In the last two weeks, I have added over 900 connections and have watched the traffic to my fledgling website grow.

Good luck, and I look forward to connecting with you!

Please follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/CommandCS and connect with me on LinkedIn at: djcass77@gmail.com.

-Dan

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