The Language of LinkedIn

The Language of LinkedIn & How to Drive Business Using LinkedIn
Erin Blaskie
www.erinblaskie.com
@ErinBlaskie (Twitter)
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/bsetc

What You’d Find Out About Me From My LinkedIn Profile
I own a company called Business Services, ETC (aka BSETC) which provides outsourcing services to companies around the world.
I worked at Willis College, TRM Technologies and Club Assist before becoming an entrepreneur.
You could see who makes up my 500+ network.
You could join groups that I find relevant and interesting.
You could view recommendations from colleagues.

About This Session
Introduce you to LinkedIn: what you need to do to setup an effective profile.
Introduce you to the regular activities you should be doing in LinkedIn to really strengthen your presence.
Introduce you to some of the ways that you can use LinkedIn to grow your business, gain publicity and generate visibility for your company.

Show of Hands - LinkedIn Survey
How many of you have used LinkedIn before for business use?
How many of you use LinkedIn right now to generate business, leads, joint venture partners or general visibility?
What has been the biggest area of resistance for you in adding LinkedIn to your business marketing practices?
For those of you using LinkedIn, what do you most often use it for?

The LinkedIn Landscape
LinkedIn is growing by a new member approximately every second.
Half of the members are in the US, 11 million are in Europe and 3 million are in India.
The site uses a “gated access approach” which means you need to know the connection or have their e-mail in order to gain access.

The LinkedIn Landscape
Most people are using it to find jobs, people and business opportunities.
Employers can list jobs and search for potential candidates.
Job seekers can review the profile of hiring managers.
Users can post their own photos and view other photos to aid in identification.

LinkedIn’s Primary Features
Member Profiles aka Contacts
Companies
LinkedIn Answers
LinkedIn Groups
LinkedIn Polls (alpha)
Jobs

LinkedIn.com’s Home Page

Getting Started on LinkedIn
Create your free account on LinkedIn
Follow prompts to create your professional profile
Search for your friends based on your e-mail contact lists
LinkedIn will suggest people you might know - feel free to add them
Send invitations to your friends and colleagues
Go into your profile and fill it out to completion - the percentage complete will help

Important Profile Update
Make sure to set your Public Profile URL to make linking to your profile easier.

Other Tips for Your Profile
Add the e-mail address you use for your account to your last name. Example: Blaskie (erin.blaskie@bsetc.ca)
Gather recommendations from family, friends and colleagues.
Use lots of great keywords to sell yourself. LinkedIn is an advertisement for YOU so sell it!

Five Things to Do Daily (15 Mins)
Check your pending invitations - accept / deny
See if any new contacts of yours are on LI
Review incoming messages and reply
Post one question or answer a question
Participate / join in one LI group

Pending Invitations - 2 Mins

Check for New Connections - 5 Mins

Review Incoming Messages - 2-4 Mins

Post or Answer a Question - 5 Mins

Participate In / Join a Group - 4 Mins

Ways to Grow Your Business
Use the search function to find business partners or ideal clients

Ways to Grow Your Presence
Answer questions in LinkedIn Answers
Will expose you and your account to many new users
Will allow you to position yourself as an expert
Will give you the opportunity to follow-up with the question asker to offer additional support
You could answer one question per day or a few questions per week

Building Your Business
Ask strategic questions in LinkedIn Answers
Do your market research here - ask people their opinions on products, services or your industry
Use the questions to expose other things you are doing - example: “I’m working on a Build Your Own Widget workshop and I want to know, what would you like to learn about if you were attending?”

Join relevant groups and participate in them
Choose 2-3 groups that are aligned with your company or industry and become active
Choose a group that contains people in your target market but don’t hard sell to them
Educate gently, provide resources where it feels like it fits and be an expert for the group

Create your own group
If you can’t find a relevant group, create one!
You’ll gain exposure for the group and for your profile
Create lots of value within your group - make people want to join and invite their colleagues
Provide LinkedIn only discounts or promotions for your group

LinkedIn Events
Whether running virtual or in-person workshops, use LinkedIn’s events to promote your event
Create event and update your connections
Use the status update section to let people know that you’ve created a LinkedIn event
LinkedIn can even help you process registration and payments

Ways to Grow Your Business
Introduce your colleagues
LinkedIn runs on the principle of making new connections - connect two colleagues you feel may be a good fit
Connecting people will keep you top of mind for those individuals when you are looking for a connection of your own

LinkedIn Applications
LinkedIn has introduced applications
Bring in your blog as an RSS feed
Add your Amazon recommended reading list
Bring in your Tweets to your status update area
Bring in your presentations from Slideshare.net
Connect your travel with My Travel
Connect your files with Box.net
And more…

Mobile Apps & Integration
LinkedIn can connect to Outlook to auto-find LinkedIn connections
LinkedIn has an iPhone, a Blackberry and a Palm application
LinkedIn also has a browser toolbar that you can install to any browser
Connects to Lotus Notes as well

Engage With Me So That I May Engage With You
@ErinBlaskie on Twitter
www.erinblaskie.com and www.bsetc.com
erin@erinblaskie.com

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The Language of LinkedIn

by Erin Blaskie on May 05, 2010

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