LinkedIn is the largest professional social networking site online today with over 135 million users and a targeted audience of business professionals. If you are a business professional or a job seeker, it is imperative that you have a powerful presence and optimized profile on LinkedIn. This document takes you through the steps needed to develop your presence, build your network, and market yourself.

1. LinkedIn Personal Profile
Basic Strategy
LinkedIn suggests that having a completed profile provides you with a 40% greater chance for
networking success, and they make it easy for you to understand how to achieve that 100%
completion.
To achieve a powerful and complete profile:
o Upload a professional image
o Create a compelling headline – you only have 120 characters at the top of your profile to
describe what you do and attract attention. Use brief, but descriptive keywords.
o List your current position and at least two past positions.
o Complete the “summary” section of your profile – write it in the third person, otherwise
you’ll be using the word “I” to frequently.
o Edit your public linkedin URL
o Customize your website listings
o Include a link to your Twitter profile
o Make sure your entire profile is set to be publicly visible to “everyone”
o Upload your contacts from email to see if any of your email contacts are on LinkedIn
o Add previous colleagues and classmates to your network.
o Browse the networks of your immediate network, and invite others to connect.
o Interact with other’s updates.
Basic LinkedIn marketing strategy: First optimize your profile, have keywords and make sure
your profile is fully filled out. Often, the biggest mistake people make is not having any
information on their profile. You’re on LinkedIn to connect with new peers so not everyone
knows your name. Use keyword-rich descriptions; include your company website, a photo or a
logo of your company.
Post an update at least once per week.
Make it a point to review your profile once per month. You may be surprised at how many
opportunities there may be to add a new skill, or just change a few words in your descriptions.
Endorse others. LinkedIn makes it easy for you by suggesting this frequently when you first
login. An endorsement is a task or skill that you know that another connection has.
Ask for recommendations. Recommendations consist of a few sentences of a connection’s
experience with your work and your skills. Click “profile” in the LinkedIn navigation, then click
“recommendations” then “request recommendations”. From here, follow the steps to ask
clients, customers, and vendors to recommend you and your business. Public testimonials are a
huge plus.
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2. Make your profile keyword-rich so that your profile gets found. Your LinkedIn headline and
description are two great areas to put in keywords that you want people to find you for.
Remember to put yourself in your prospect’s shoes and use the words they use to describe your
industry – which may not be the same words you would use.
LinkedIn groups are a great way to have instant access to a very targeted audience. You can
search for groups on LinkedIn, answer questions and be a resource to that group. Starting your
own group can be a good way to get yourself known as a leader in that community and use
LinkedIn marketing as a way to succeed.
You can automate and schedule LinkedIn updates ahead of time using HootSuite. You can also
use HootSuite’s RSS feature to update LinkedIn with your latest blog posts automatically.
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