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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Sprache: Englisch
A step-by-step guide for succeeding on the for ''business'' social media network LinkedIn Marketing: An Hour a Day helps you create, customize, and optimize a presence on LinkedIn, the world's largest social network for professionals. In this detailed, step-by-step book, LinkedIn expert Viveka von Rosen reveals how to use this powerful platform to ensure that you or your company get noticed by the right audience. Discover previously undocumented tips and tricks for community growth and management, including how to best use Groups, events, and other LinkedIn features and applications. * Offers a complete resource for anyone who wants to market and recruit on the world's largest professional network * Features hands-on tutorials, case studies, examples, tips, and tactics * Reveals how to monitor and maintain a vibrant LinkedIn presence * Includes effective tactics for recruiters, job seekers, and entrepreneurs, as well as legal, real estate, and nonprofit professionals * Incorporates an exploration of the LinkedIn advertising platform, API, and mobile platform This soup-to-nuts guidebook for tackling every stage of the LinkedIn process ensures your online presence will get noticed.
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Seitenzahl: 568
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012
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Table of Contents
Cover
Praise for LinkedIn Marketing: An Hour a Day
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Foreword
Introduction
Chapter 1: Get LinkedIn
Social Marketing Is Marketing
Understanding LinkedIn
Using LinkedIn
The Future of LinkedIn
Chapter 2: Weeks 1–2: Get Started on LinkedIn
Week 1: Prepare Your LinkedIn Presence
Week 2: Define Goals and Join LinkedIn
Chapter 3: Weeks 3–6: Ready, Set, Profile
Week 3: Nifty Tools and Ninja Tricks for Creating Your Keyword List
Week 4: Optimize Your Profile and Be Findable
Week 5: Customize Your Profile to Stand Out in the Crowd
Week 6: Utilizing Extra Real Estate
Chapter 4: Weeks 7–9: Use Your Company Profile for Branding and Positioning
Week 7: Creating a Company Profile
Week 8: Adding Products and Services
Week 9: Company Updates, Analytics, and Job Postings—Yours and Others
Chapter 5: Weeks 10–15: Creating and Managing a Network That Works
Week 10: Using LinkedIn’s Add Connections Tool
Week 11: Connecting to Strategic Contacts
Week 12: Using LinkedIn’s People You May Know Feature
Week 13: Managing Your Network
Week 14: Monitoring Your Network
Week 15: Giving and Getting Recommendations from Your Network
Chapter 6: Weeks 16–18: Getting Strategic with Groups
Week 16: Building Your Network with Strategic Groups
Week 17: Creating Relationships with Groups
Week 18: Creating Your Own Group
Chapter 7: Weeks 19–22: Get Strategic with LinkedIn’s “Other” Options
Week 19: Using LinkedIn Answers
Week 20: Using LinkedIn Events
Week 21: Sharing with Applications
Week 22: Exploring Industry-Based and LinkedIn Apps
Chapter 8: Week 23: Putting It All Together
Monday: Use Updates for Inbound Marketing
Tuesday: Use LinkedIn Signal
Wednesday: Create a Powerful Inbound Marketing Connections Strategy
Thursday: Showcase Your Skills in Answers
Friday: Understand 3 and 3
Chapter 9: Optimizing Your Time Using LinkedIn
Getting Started on Your Checklist
Monthly, Daily, and Weekly Checklists
Checklists for Each Day of the Week
Chapter 10: LinkedIn Ads, Labs, Apps, and Tools
LinkedIn Ads
LinkedIn Labs
LinkedIn Mobile
LinkedIn Tools
LinkedIn Third-Party Applications
Chapter 11: LinkedIn and You: Getting Specific
LinkedIn and Job Seekers
LinkedIn for Entrepreneurs
Recruiters, HR Personnel, and Hiring Managers
Legal Professionals
Women on LinkedIn
Real Estate Professionals
Nonprofits and LinkedIn
Some Final Tips on LinkedIn for Marketing
Index
Praise for LinkedIn Marketing: An Hour a Day
“Viveka is an exceptionally knowledgeable LinkedIn and social media trainer. I’ve had the great pleasure of featuring Viveka several times on my various classes and she always delivers. Not only does she have tremendous expertise on LinkedIn in particular, her teaching style is extremely effective. She has the ability to chunk down and sequence everything you need to know to really optimize and succeed using LinkedIn. In her new book, she is able to bring her skills and voice to the written page. Apply Viveka’s teachings in this book and you will get measurable results! Two thumbs way up.”
—Mari Smith, Social Media Thought Leader, author of The New Relationship Marketing, and coauthor of Facebook Marketing: An Hour A Day)
“In her great new book, Viveka von Rosen, a very well-respected entrepreneur and LinkedIn authority, provides all the information needed to make LinkedIn a valued and highly-profitable part of one’s business. Really, this is a complete and thorough, ‘soup-to-nuts’ guide on how to effectively utilize what is perhaps the world’s most well-known online business medium; one with a huge potential that most people are still not tapping. Read this book, follow Ms. von Rosen's sage teachings and watch the quality of your connections, and your income take a sharp turn upwards.”
—Bob Burg, coauthor of The Go-Giver and author of Endless Referrals
“Viveka von Rosen is my absolute go-to person for LinkedIn knowledge. She knows it inside, out, backwards, and forwards and even better, she knows how to explain LinkedIn in simple, easy-to-follow language. Her book is an absolute must for marketers, business owners, consultants, sales professionals, and anyone looking to use LinkedIn to grow their business. I know I learn something amazing every single time I talk to her and now you can get it all in one handy book!”
—Andrea Vahl, Social Media Consultant, Strategist and Speaker, Co-author of Facebook Marketing All-in-One for Dummies
“Studies show that more women than men use social media to do what they do best...connect, network and collaborate. If you're a woman with a message that you want to the world to hear, with a business you want to grow or a movement you want to launch, social media is THE ticket to getting you there. But ladies...Don't limit yourself to Facebook and Twitter. LinkedIn is just as important a platform to get your word out. In her book LinkedIn Marketing: An Hour A Day, Viveka von Rosen meets you wherever you are on your journey, bringing you an invaluable roadmap for learning and leveraging LinkedIn in just one hour a day, so you can do what you came her to do...deliver value, make a difference and make your passion profitable! Don't wait another minute...go get LinkedIn Marketing: An Hour A Day today!”
—Liora Mendeloff, President & Founder, Women Speakers Association
“Viveka rocks the world of LinkedIn. Period. It’s not only about her knowledge and expertise with LinkedIn—but it’s her friendly personality and authentic delivery of the content which will make you a fan of Viveka—and LinkedIn!—as you read her book!
—Neal Schaffer, Author of Maximizing LinkedIn for Sales and Social Media Marketing
“This book is very effectively written for a practical seeker of results using LinkedIn, especially for exposure and introductions that lead to revenue growth. Viveka’s natural enthusiasm and effervescence comes through while she guides us through a step-by-step method for maximizing the value we get from our LinkedIn profile.”
—Joseph Olewitz, Author of www.IntentionalGrowthBlog.com and business development consultant
“Viveka delivers her extensive knowledge of LinkedIn in a fresh voice, using real-world examples that we can all relate to. Her passion for this topic is evident in every chapter, sharing her personal experiences as well as those of her contacts and customers. You won’t find ‘Rock Star’ or ‘Guru’ advice within these pages, but rather practical, actionable tips and techniques that can be applied immediately to achieve measurable results. In the swirling sea of “experts” on this topic, Viveka is an island of verifiable expertise. She needs not call herself an expert on LinkedIn, you will bestow that title on her yourself after reading this book.”
—Miles Austin, The Web Tools Guy at FilltheFunnel.com
"I've had the pleasure of working with Viveka and sitting in on her classes, and I love the way she simplifies LinkedIn and makes it so accessible and practical. No one knows more about LinkedIn and how to make it really work for your business. Viveka takes all the mystery and overwhelm out of LinkedIn, so you can use it to generate more clients and more revenue!"
—Lou Bortone, Video Marketing Specialist, http://www.loubortone.com
“Viveka von Rosen has the unique ability to blend an abundance of knowledge, technical aptitude and practical experience with a witty always entertain brand of speaking. She teaches you how to better your expertise while not preaching a singular message. On a one to one basis you feel, after just a few minutes, that you have known her forever, Viveka will have you exceeding your expectations.
I knew, as with all her publications, that LinkedIn Marketing: An Hour a Day would teach me some new tricks, however what it did do was help me through the myriad of errors that we all make when we follow the path by ourselves. If you are fortunate to have Viveka speak to your group, you will see that she will guide through the malaise of confusion that is Social Media and find out why she is recognized as one of the most influential people in the market place. However don’t take my word for it, get LinkedIn Marketing: An Hour a Day for yourselves.”
—Dennis Pugh, President, International Technical Rental Association
“You can spend an hour a day thinking about your next marketing move or you can spend an hour a day reading this book and make many more trips to the bank to make deposits! I’ve known Viveka for many years, and her LinkedIn advice never fails to be anything but relevant and practical. By employing even a few of the suggestions in her book you can have a big positive impact in the results you achieve from your social marketing.”
—Al Lautenslager, Author, Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days
“LinkedIn is a phenomenal resource for business people to connect with each other. And Viveka von Rosen is a phenomenal guide to that central B2B hub. She knows LinkedIn through and through - and has kicked its tires more than a few times. If you have wanted to get up to speed quickly in the most 'connected' space for business people to gather, read this book!”
—Laurie Macomber, CEO, Blue Skies Marketing
Wow! I thought I was using LinkedIn effectively, but after reading Viveka von Rosen’s book, I’m really ready to rock it in a much bigger way! LinkedIn Marketing: An Hour A Day not only provides strategy, but it provides actionable tactics to get the most out of the time you invest in LinkedIn. Whether you’re new to LinkedIn, or have been using it for a long time, you’ll find ways to power up your results. Viveka makes it easy.
—Ava Diamond, Keynote Speaker, Author, Founder of Big Impact Speaking.com
If there was ever an authority on getting heard, read, and remembered on LinkedIn, Viveka von Rosen would be that authority. As a Professional LinkedIn Strategist and social media phenom, Viveka does something that not many in her industry do... Listen. Whether you're consuming her in-book brilliance or simply chatting in person, Viveka's love of learning and bringing value to others is second to none!
—Brett Fairall, Creator of WOWsume
“Like many, strategically participating in LinkedIn was on my “learn how to-do” list for way too long. I was on pause simply because I wasn’t sure how to move forward. Then I read Linked-In Marketing-An Hour a Day. BAM! I was on track. This book is an unbelievable resource that provides the tangible tools and step by step instructions you need to easily make participation in LinkedIn a strategic business habit. This book has been absolutely essential to my business success, making it one of my top ten resources for reaching potential clients.”
—Kris Boesch, CEO, Choose People
“Viveka’s book is a well structured, pragmatic, do-it-now, get results, piece of art. I'm amazed at the different ways to get value from LinkedIn, ways I would have never imagined.”
—Alan Martin, Sr. Account Executive at Oracle Telecoms North America
"When it comes to using LinkedIn, there are only a handful of people who are truly experts and Viveka von Rosen is at the top of the list. Not only is Viveka extremely smart, she knows how to teach and write about using LinkedIn so it's easy to understand and more importantly, easy to implement her tips and tactics so you get the results you want. Viveka is my go-to gal when I need to learn the latest about how to use LinkedIn to boost my visibility and my business."
—Denise Wakeman, Online Visibility Mentor, http://DeniseWakeman.com
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Copyright © 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana
Published simultaneously in Canada
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Dear Reader,
Thank you for choosing LinkedIn Marketing: An Hour A Day. This book is part of a family of premium-quality Sybex books, all of which are written by outstanding authors who combine practical experience with a gift for teaching.
Sybex was founded in 1976. More than 30 years later, we’re still committed to producing consistently exceptional books. With each of our titles, we’re working hard to set a new standard for the industry. From the paper we print on, to the authors we work with, our goal is to bring you the best books available.
I hope you see all that reflected in these pages. I’d be very interested to hear your comments and get your feedback on how we’re doing. Feel free to let me know what you think about this or any other Sybex book by sending me an email at [email protected]. If you think you’ve found a technical error in this book, please visit http://sybex.custhelp.com. Customer feedback is critical to our efforts at Sybex.
Best regards,
Neil Edde
Vice President and Publisher
Sybex, an Imprint of Wiley
To my parents, who are the ultimate role models. I owe it all to you, Mom and Dad. To Alan, the SIRI of my soul. And to my tribe: thank you for your support.
Acknowledgments
I have the best parents in the world. Thanks, Mom, for correcting my grammar (still) and never doubting my abilities to achieve any of my goals. Thanks, Dad, for living a life with no boundaries—showing me I could do the same.
Thanks to Alan for preventing me from throwing my Mac through the window. Many times.
Deep appreciation for Laurie Macomber, who educated me on Google and introduced me to LinkedIn. And who is the best besty.
More thank-yous go out:
To Mari Smith, who is the ultimate role model for many of us. Because of you, I knew I could create a career in this crazy industry. And you are part Canadian like me! Coolio!
To Bob Burg, I still see that first interview with you as being the beginning of my true career. You have been an amazing support to me. I am blessed to have you as a friend.
To Miles Austin, Jason Alba, Neal Schaffer, and Joseph Olewitz, who have been amazing mentors and role models. You guys are the most generous people I know!
To Laurie, Ava, Kris, Yael, and Natalie, who have seen me through so much. Every girl needs her pack. Thanks for being mine.
To Steve Cassady, if it weren’t for you, the #LinkedInChat would not be around today. Thanks for being such a marvelous co-moderator.
To Willem Knibbe, Alexa Murphy, Pete Gaughan, and Becca Anderson—excellent editors.
To John Hellerman and my amazing PR team at Hellerman Baretz Communications.
And a very special thanks to my most magnificent and wonderful tech editor, Stacy Donovan Zapar, who really should be getting co-author credit on this book. I could not have done this without her knowledge, generosity, time, and general amazingness.
Finally, thanks again to my tribe; my Twitter followers especially, who have been very supportive.
Thank you!
About the Author
Viveka von Rosen is known internationally as the “LinkedIn Expert” and speaks to business owners, corporations, legal firms, and associations on the benefits of marketing with social media, and in particular, LinkedIn.
Her website, LinkedIntoBusiness.com, was a LinkedIn resource blog before LinkedIn even had its own blog. She is also a regular source on LinkedIn for prestigious news outlets such as Mashable.com, TheSocialMediaExaminer.com, Bloomberg Law, and The Miami Herald. She is the host of the biggest LinkedIn chat on Twitter: #LinkedInChat (recently quoted by Mashable as one of the top 10 business blogs) and co-moderator of LinkedStrategies, the largest strategy group on LinkedIn.
Viveka has 26,000-plus first-level connections and a network of over 24 million people on LinkedIn, as well as 45,000-plus followers on Twitter. Her seminars, webinars, and workshops have taught and trained well over 10,000 people.
She was also recently listed as:
Forbes 10 Most Influential Women in Social Media
Forbes 50 Most Influential People in Social Media
TopRank’s 25 Women Who Rock Social Media in 2011
Foreword
“Relationships Matter” is the LinkedIn slogan.
I didn’t realize how much relationships mattered until I started my business during the summer of 2006. I depended on relationships to find the core team to build my product, and then relied heavily on finding and nurturing relationships to help spread the word about my products and services.
I didn’t use LinkedIn much back then; the tool I had at my disposal was Google. I could find people, but it wasn’t until I started using LinkedIn that I could research them and figure out how to best communicate with them. LinkedIn let me learn about a prospect’s background and identify talking points, including where they worked, what they did, and what industry they were in.
Such information is difficult to glean from a Google search. LinkedIn had it all in one place!
I started telling my readers to use LinkedIn shortly after I got on LinkedIn. Many said, “Okay, I’m there, now what do I do?” Years later, people ask the same question! That’s probably why you bought this book, right?
If you mistakenly thought you could get on LinkedIn and set up a profile, and then you’d get business, you’ve probably been as disappointed. LinkedIn is a great tool, but it’s as useless as a tool left in a closet unless you do certain things.
Viveka’s ideas will help you get more out of LinkedIn. She’ll take you from beginner through advanced tactics. Following her processes and techniques with consistency will help you find new contacts, be found, have meaningful conversations, develop and nurture professional relationships, and grow your pipeline.
Read this book with a highlighter, and more importantly, put her tactics, techniques, and tips into practice. Then you can join the ranks of people who have increased sales and improved their professional standing through relationships found on LinkedIn.
Good luck!
Jason Alba
Founder of the popular job search organizer,JibberJobber.com
Author of I’m on LinkedIn—Now What???
Introduction
I can’t remember a world without social networking. Whatever did we do without Facebook and LinkedIn and Twitter? How did we connect? Set up meetings? Reach our audience? Connect with employees and investors? Oh, right. The phone. And email. And face-to-face meetings. And coffees and networking events. How much, and how little, our world has changed.
I remember the first time I heard about LinkedIn. It was at a networking event I had set up for the members of my business center. I had invited Laurie Macomber, a Web 2.0 expert, to come talk to our entrepreneurs about this crazy new world of interactive web communication. At the very end of the presentation Laurie mentioned an online business-networking site called LinkedIn.
This was early 2006, when Facebook was still a newfangled site for college students, MySpace was scaring the pants of parents, and the only social networking people knew about was Match.com. So the idea of a business-focused social networking site was fascinating to me.
I had managed to double our business in a year with face-to-face networking events (which I still strongly espouse) and thought, “If I can do that in a town of 100,000 people, what can I do with 7 million (the number of LinkedIn members at the time)?” Apparently I was not the only person having these thoughts.
A year later when I joined Twitter and got the username @LinkedInExpert, I realized I better start living up to the name. Eventually I was training and consulting so much on LinkedIn that I had to quit my day job. And I have never looked back.
Every strategy I share with you in this book I have used myself and with clients. There’s no magical mystery solution. There’s no sophisticated secret formula. This book is here to guide you through the ever-changing landscape of LinkedIn and give you the tools and strategies you need to succeed. I am so excited to be on this journey with you! Together we create a cohesive and powerful strategy you can use to create greater success in your business and personal life. No matter what your business, or reason for being on LinkedIn, it can definitely help move you forward. So, are you ready? Then…ready, set…get LinkedIn!
Who Should Read This Book
Raise your hand if you have been told you must be on LinkedIn but are not sure how to get started. Raise your hand if you have a LinkedIn account but have gained little, if any, business from it. Raise your hand if you need to grow your organization—your business, association, church, practice, or nonprofit. This book is for you. It is intended for both LinkedIn newbies and experienced LinkedIn users:
Salespeople wanting to expand their network and visibility and increase sales, whether for business-to-business or business-to-consumer
Marketing professionals looking to establish their company’s brand
Job seekers looking for connections to increase their likelihood of gaining employment
Entrepreneurs hoping to position themselves as experts and gain new clients
Churches and religious organizations hoping to increase membership
Artists, authors, and creators hoping to expose their work
Nonprofit directors and volunteers hoping to increase donations and visibility
Project managers looking for a way to find and coordinate team members
Recruiters, HR professionals, and hiring managers looking to find new candidates and employees
Legal professionals hoping to retain and attract new clients
Event planners looking for vendors and strategic partners
If you fall into any of these categories, you will find this book useful.
What You Will Learn
Success on LinkedIn requires that you be clear on the reason you are using LinkedIn in the first place, a manageable LinkedIn strategy and diligence. I am not here to create your brand for you or design your marketing strategy (although many of the exercises will help with that as well), but I am going to share with you the tools and strategies I have learned and developed over the years.
In fact, I include the LinkedIn checklists and schedulers I use with my clients as an added bonus to help ensure your success. (Did I mention I sell them for $250 each?) I can’t do the work for you, but I can give you the steps you need to take and the tools to get you there.
What You Need
What do you need to get started on mastering LinkedIn marketing?
A basic understanding of social media and social media marketing
A clear idea of who you are and what you have to offer the world
A defined goal for beginning this process
Access to a computer and the Internet
The willingness to devote an hour a day to yourself and your business
What Is Covered in This Book
LinkedIn Marketing: An Hour a Day is organized to walk you through every aspect of the LinkedIn platform while showing you how to optimize LinkedIn to increase your exposure, and develop, implement, and optimize a winning LinkedIn marketing strategy.
Introduces the idea that social marketing is still marketing and that you probably already have the skills you need to succeed with LinkedIn
Gives you the history of LinkedIn, some useful statistics, and describes where LinkedIn might be heading in the future
Shares some basic definitions you might need to use LinkedIn more effectively
Before getting started, there are some necessary but often ignored steps people should take to prepare them for their journey into LinkedIn.
One part of the preparation is defining your goals, and this chapter will take you step by step through the process, as well as provide a very useful LinkedIn questionnaire you can use to make your journey easier.
Getting your keywords so that your profile can get found
Optimizing your profile with those keywords
Customizing your profile so you stand out in a crowd
Using the extra real estate LinkedIn has to offer that most people are unaware of and you can use
A closer look at what a company profile can and can’t do on LinkedIn so that you can use or create an effective one (and don’t make any inadvertent mistakes)
Instructions for adding your products and services to your company profile
Information on company updates, analytics, and job postings so that you can begin to work them into your strategy
Using LinkedIn’s Add Connections tool so you don’t get in trouble and render LinkedIn useless
Using the Advanced People search to connect effectively with strategic contacts
Using LinkedIn’s People You May Know feature to safely grow your network
Monitoring your network to make sure it is growing how and where you want it to grow
Managing your network so that you can communicate more effectively
Giving and getting recommendations from your network
Building your network with strategic groups to increase visibility and connectability
Creating relationships with groups through reversed engineering and search features
Creating your own group for better communications and thought leader positioning
LinkedIn Answers
LinkedIn polls
LinkedIn skills
LinkedIn events
LinkedIn applications
Third-party applications
Using your updates every day as an inbound marketing tool
Monitoring your brand and your competition, and creating relationships with LinkedIn Signal
Creating a powerful inbound marketing connection strategy
Marketing subject matter expertise through Answers
Using the “3 and 3 technique”
LinkedIn Ads
LinkedIn labs
LinkedIn third-party applications
LinkedIn Mobile
Job seekers
Recruiters
Legal professionals
Women
Entrepreneurs
Real estate professionals
Nonprofits
How to Contact the Author
I welcome feedback from you about this book or about books you’d like to see from me in the future. You can reach me by writing to [email protected]. For more information about my work, please visit my website at www.linkedintobusiness.com.
Sybex strives to keep you supplied with the latest tools and information you need for your work. Please check their website at www.sybex.com/go/linkedinhour, where we’ll post additional content and updates that supplement this book if the need arises.
Chapter 1
Get LinkedIn
Welcome to LinkedIn Marketing:An Hour a Day. It is my intention to share with you not only the features of LinkedIn, but also actionable strategies you can use to create greater business success using this amazing social media platform.
In Chapter 1 you’ll look at the origins, not only of LinkedIn, but also of social or inbound marketing. I’ll explain why I think LinkedIn has grown into the largest and most influential of business social networks and where it might be going in the future. I’ll clarify the different accounts available on LinkedIn as well as the various kinds of businesses that can use it.
Understanding LinkedIn and its features and uses will help you to be more effective in your marketing, in your networking, and in your business.
Chapter Contents
Social Marketing Is Marketing
Understanding LinkedIn
Using LinkedIn
The Future of LinkedIn
Social Marketing Is Marketing
Here’s the good news. When it comes to marketing with LinkedIn, you do not have to throw the baby out with the bathwater. In fact, many of the skills, tools, and strategies you have developed as a businessperson will not only be applicable to your LinkedIn social media marketing strategy but will be absolutely essential. There may be times when reading this book that you think, “Well, that’s not social media marketing, that’s commonsense marketing!” And you would be absolutely right. Social media is just another tool that you can add to your business toolbox. It might be the Swiss Army knife of your arsenal, providing many different tools in one, but it is still just a tool you can use. I think people get overwhelmed with the social media platforms themselves, forgetting the most crucial elements of marketing: communication and engagement; listening and sharing (notice which I put first). LinkedIn, like Facebook and Twitter, just gives you a different, sometimes better, sometimes more informed way to communicate with your business audience.
Do you remember your world before social networking? Those ancient days before Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Twitter? Whatever did we do before social networking? How did we connect? How did we set up meetings? Reach our audience? Connect with employees and investors? How did we communicate before texting, tweets, and status updates? I vaguely remember a piece of ancient technology I used to use before Skype: it was called the phone. And there was that other text-based communications channel called email…as well as those practically prehistoric practices of face-to-face meetings, including coffees and networking events.
I’m being a little sarcastic here to make a point. With the “new” technology and platforms available today, many people forget to use the traditional communication platforms from which they originally built their businesses. Perhaps one of the biggest mistakes people make is only adopting social media to the exclusion of more traditional forms of communication. I’m here to tell you that even though this book is about communicating and marketing with LinkedIn, those traditional tools of the trade—your phone, your email service, your favorite coffee house, trade shows and conferences—will remain an integral part of your business marketing success. When it comes to business communication and marketing, it is amazing to me how much, and how little, our world has changed.
Do you remember the first time you heard about LinkedIn? I remember it clearly. I was the general manager of the Executive Center where we rented office space, full and part time, as well as business services and equipment to solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, and small business owners. I was sitting in one of our conference rooms overlooking beautiful old-town Fort Collins, Colorado, listening to an Internet marketing and copywriting expert, Laurie Macomber of Blue Skies Marketing, speak about Web 2.0 and how the interactivity of the Internet was affecting how we were doing business. Even though the Executive Center had a website and we did some basic brochure type marketing on the Web, I had no idea of the power of web marketing. I learned many things from Laurie that day. Near the end of her presentation, Laurie mentioned this online business networking site called LinkedIn and how she had used it in her move from Manhattan to Fort Collins to find the office space, realtors, vendors, and business contacts she would need in a new city.
This was early 2006 when Facebook was still a newfangled site for college students, MySpace was scaring the pants off parents and the only social networking sites that “normal” people knew about was Classsmates.com and Match.com. So the idea of a business-focused social networking site was intriguing to me. Since I had doubled our office business center membership in a year with face-to-face networking events (which I still strongly advocate), I thought, “If I can do that in a town of 100,000 people, what can I do with 7 million people using LinkedIn?” Our business was an interesting combination of business-to-business (B2B), business-to-consumer (B2C), virtual, and brick-and-mortar, so there really were no limits. Apparently I was not the only person having these thoughts. In 2006, LinkedIn soared to 20 million users and it became apparent that this was a social networking site that wasn’t going away.
The Theory of Inbound Marketing
There are all kinds of descriptions and theories of inbound marketing. In fact, we have a whole book on it, Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs, co-authored by the “Father” of inbound marketing, Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shaw (John Wiley & Sons, October 2009). To put it simply, take everything you know about traditional marketing and turn it on its head.
Traditional outbound or push marketing is about sending out (blasting) your message to your potential customers and clients and “interrupting” them in their homes, places of work, and so forth. Traditional marketing tools are TV and radio ads, direct mail, newsletters, coupons, and just about any other form of marketing you and your ancestors experienced up until about 2004. Traditional marketing takes a lot of money, research, and time. Traditional marketing worked in the past because people had to interact with the marketing medium. They had to watch the commercials on TV and listen to ads on the radio. The ads were in our newspapers, in our newsletters, and in our mailboxes.
But then we, as the consumer, started making our own choices. We recorded TV shows and fast-forwarded through commercials. Later the adoption of TIVO and DVR technologies allowed us to skip commercials altogether. We subscribed to XM Radio. We downloaded our own music and created our own playlists. We decided what we wanted to absorb, and in most cases it wasn’t the commercials and advertising of products and services we had no interest in.
So began the shift.
Another huge shift was Web 2.0 enabling communities’ ability to comment on products or services in a very public manner. We trusted our peers, what they liked or disliked, much more than the advertisements landing on our TV screen that we were no longer even looking at.
In order to grab the attention of their consumers, marketers had to start producing content that was valuable, useful, and interesting to them. They had to start building relationships with their consumers. And relationship marketing took on a whole new meaning. Beyond the more traditional definition of relationship marketing as getting to know your prospect on a lunch date or via referral, relationship marketing became about engaging a tribe of like-minded individuals, people who knew, liked, and trusted you enough to buy your product or service.
There’s one very positive result of this inversion of the marketing pyramid: Not only is more useful content being shared, but engaging in inbound marketing is markedly less expensive than traditional marketing. Anyone with time, knowledge, passion, and a computer can play!
What does this have to do with LinkedIn? As I mentioned earlier, LinkedIn was built on a platform of relationships. Its mission statement is to “Connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.”
Many of the techniques you’ll learn in this book have to do with creating and sharing content that your connections and network will find interesting and valuable. I’ll share step-by-step techniques, whether you are a beginner or an advanced user, that will help you to more easily engage with the exact people you need to in order to be “more productive and successful.”
Understanding LinkedIn
Very simply: LinkedIn is a social networking platform that allows you to connect, engage, and do business with other professionals by making the relationships of your business network visible and by giving you the tools you need to connect with them.
As of this printing, there are almost 200 million business members on LinkedIn and over 2 million company profiles.
LinkedIn is growing by about 100 percent per year. While it will never reach Facebook’s or even Twitter’s numbers, one has to concede that LinkedIn is a force to be reckoned with. As a business professional, no matter what industry you work within, whether you are a jobseeker, employee or an owner, LinkedIn will probably become an integral part to your business communications, positioning, marketing, and lead generation. Even those not in marketing, PR, sales, and similar fields will find some uses for LinkedIn. (More on that in the final chapter of this book, Chapter 11, “LinkedIn and You: Getting Specific.”)
The relationships you build on LinkedIn open the way to new customers and clients, business and referral partners, affiliates and vendors, mentors, advisers and coaches, hiring managers, recruiters, employers and employees. LinkedIn is a channel to increase, not a tool to replace, your networking efforts, and it is an excellent vehicle to facilitate some facets of your marketing and business strategies.
I want to make it clear from the onset that while I think LinkedIn is one of the most powerful tools a business professional can utilize, nothing replaces business referrals and face-to-face meetings. Throughout this book I will share many strategies that you can use to increase your business relationships “the old-fashioned way.” Of course, today business is online and immediate, so I will also show you ways of using LinkedIn with recent social marketing strategies.
The History of LinkedIn
According to LinkedIn’s “About Us” section (http://press.linkedin.com/about), LinkedIn was created in the living room of co-founder Reid Hoffman in December 2002 and was officially launched on May 5, 2003. Hoffman, who is now executive chairman, remained CEO of LinkedIn until 2009.
Hoffman was working at PayPal and conceived the idea with four others, two of whom he had worked with previously to create SocialNet.com (a dating site).
Allen Blue was a Stanford buddy and executive at SocialNet.com, as was Jean-Luc Vaillant. Also in the founder’s circle were Eric Ly and Konstantin Guericke. According to LinkedIn legend, on its May 5, 2003 launch date (known to the company as “Cinco de LinkedIn”), Hoffman, Blue, Vaillant, Ly, and Guericke invited 350 of their friends to connect. By the end of May, LinkedIn had a total of 4,500 members in the network. Their “rapid” growth, as well as a focus on recruiting, earned $4.7 million in financing from the well-known Silicon Valley venture capital firm Sequoia Capital. By the end of 2003, LinkedIn’s membership had grown to over 81,000 members and they had a staff of 14 employees.
A little different than that other social network created by some college kids in a dorm room… The business minds that conceived LinkedIn were shaped in places like eBay and PayPal, Logitech, IBM, Sun, and Fujitsu. The five men who created LinkedIn all had rich experience in Silicon Valley and had already been fairly successful in their previous business ventures. The foundation of LinkedIn was formed on their business practices and experience.
In December 2008 LinkedIn hired Jeff Weiner, and in June 2009 Weiner changed his title from interim president of LinkedIn to CEO. Weiner had been running the day-to-day operations for about 6 months, during that time achieving record operating and financial results. Prior to LinkedIn, Weiner was an executive in residence at venture capital firms Accel Partners and Greylock Partners. He had also spent over seven years in key leadership roles at Yahoo!.
Reid Hoffman wrote in the blog announcing Jeff’s new position: “Jeff’s experience building multiple products on a global scale is highly relevant to LinkedIn and will be critical as we continue to grow the LinkedIn professional network around the world.” See the announcement here:
http://blog.linkedin.com/2009/06/24/new-linkedin-ceo-jeff-weiner-has-updated-his-profile/
Although never confirmed by LinkedIn Corporate, many people believe Weiner was brought in to take LinkedIn public, and on May 19, 2011—almost 8 years to the date that the company was first launched—LinkedIn executed its initial public offering (IPO).
Today LinkedIn operates the world’s largest professional network on the Internet with members in over 200 countries and territories. Sixty percent of LinkedIn members are currently located outside of the United States, and LinkedIn is available in 16 languages: English, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish.
Some of the latest Worldwide Membership Statistics show LinkedIn has:
161m professionals around the world as of March 31, 2012
44m+ members in the EMEA region (Europe, Middle East and Africa) as of February 17, 2012
34m+ members in Europe as of February 17, 2012
9m+ members in the UK as of April 2, 2012
3m+ members in France as of November 29, 2011
3m+ members in the Netherlands as of December 6, 2011
2m+ members in Italy
2m+ members in the DACH region (Germany, Austria and Switzerland)
3m+ members in Spain as of March 27, 2012
1m+ members in Belgium as of September 22, 2011
1m+ members in Sweden as of June 20, 2012
1m+ members in Turkey as of February 10, 2012
25m+ members in Asia and the Pacific as of January 29, 2012
15m+ members in India as of May 29, 2012
4m+ members in Southeast Asia as of January 29, 2012
1m+ members in Indonesia as of February 21, 2012
1m+ members in the Philippines as of March 12, 2012
5m+ members in Canada as of January 19, 2012
8m+ members in Brazil as of May 3, 2012
3m+ members in Australia as of March 12, 2012
As of March 31, 2012, students and recent college graduates are the fastest-growing demographic on LinkedIn.
LinkedIn counts executives from all 2012 Fortune 500 companies as members, and its corporate hiring solutions are used by 75 of the Fortune 100 companies. More than 2 million companies have LinkedIn company pages, and there are more than 1 million LinkedIn groups. That’s a lot of networking!
Despite these numbers, there are still millions of businesspeople not using LinkedIn in their businesses. If you are one of those people, keep reading!
Why People Think LinkedIn Isn’t a Social Network
You say “social network” or “social media” and people think Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, and Google+ (usually in that order). Most people associate social media with the sharing of piano-playing cat videos, unfortunate photos of your cousin’s last vacation, and narcissistic updates about every move your ex-roommate makes. Despite reams of case studies, research, white papers, and proof to the contrary, there are still people who think social media is a monumental waste of time, with no business or marketing value whatsoever.
If you think social networking has no place in your business world, I encourage you to read Dave Evans’ Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day (Sybex, 2008) or any of the social media For Dummies books. What I would like to convince you of is LinkedIn’s place in the world of social networking and its invaluable place in your business.
In my opinion (whether you asked for it or not) LinkedIn is the social network. It was built, after all, on the precepts of professional networking—people connecting with people they know, and using those connections to facilitate other connections and business relationships.
As LinkedIn continues to evolve, it has embraced most of the same applications as Facebook and Twitter. LinkedIn’s status updates are almost identical to Facebook status updates—down to the “share, comment, and like” capabilities. And with LinkedIn Signal, the update stream is searchable and much more manageable, in many ways resembling Twitter. You can read more about LinkedIn Signal in Chapter 8, “Week 23: Putting It All Together.”
While prolific personal photo and video uploading is not a part of LinkedIn (thank goodness), the sharing of news with LinkedIn Today brings an informational and business-oriented social aspect to the platform.
So while LinkedIn still carries a stigma of being a recruiter or job seeker’s network, please take a second look. Whether you are an engineer or a massage therapist, a business owner or a lifelong employee, LinkedIn is a tool you can use in your business.
The Rise of LinkedIn
LinkedIn was not the first business networking site. A UK-based site called Ecademy was founded in 1998, a good five years before LinkedIn. It is one of the longest-standing online business networking sites, with millions of users worldwide. So why did LinkedIn become the biggest business social networking site in the world? There are four reasons:
LinkedIn doesn’t pretend to be anything other than a business networking site.
LinkedIn’s basic (free) account is still very functional.
LinkedIn has exponential network growth and visibility.
LinkedIn has a multifield search engine that works.
Let’s take a closer look at LinkedIn’s advantages now.
Exclusively Business Focused
While Facebook certainly has a strong business presence with more than 37 million “pages” (according to this filing: www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000119312512034517/d287954ds1.htm#toc287954_3a) and has made a stab at usurping business social marketing with apps like BranchOut and BeKnown, it is not solely a business-networking site. Even though almost one billion people have a Facebook profile, many business individuals are still wary of Facebook.
Twitter is utilized for both business and personal use. But early on it earned a reputation for being too noisy and having users who shared overly irrelevant information. So while it is a great marketing and PR tool, many businesspeople avoid the platform.
On the other hand, LinkedIn is clearly a business network. There are really no other uses for it. When you start to use LinkedIn you can expect that the people you interact with are also businesspeople, whether you are looking for a vendor, employee, customer, or client. Are there people who abuse the network? Of course. But your chances of finding the right business contact on LinkedIn are much higher than finding them easily and accurately on Pinterest, Twitter, or Facebook.
Functional Free Account
LinkedIn has both a free and several paid memberships (from its basic Business Account at $24.95 to its Recruiter Account that can run in the thousands). What I like about LinkedIn’s free account is that it is completely “usable” once you implement a few of the strategies shared in this book. Having a paid account makes searching and communicating on LinkedIn easier, but you don’t have to have a paid account to use LinkedIn effectively.
Besides LinkedIn, there are probably hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of online business applications available that you can use to engage your customer base, build relationships, and communicate pertinent information. However, LinkedIn has done a great job of combining numerous business applications and functions into one relatively cohesive platform. LinkedIn becomes the landing site for your résumé, Rolodex, networking, news, and communications platforms.
While there are now many online business social networking platforms (Ryze, Plaxo, Ecademy, Quora, etc.), LinkedIn still offers the most options and interactivity. Even with the recent decreased functionality of the free account, LinkedIn offers its users a more comprehensive, business-focused, and interactive platform than many of the other paid and free networking-based sites.
Exponential Network Growth and Visibility Potential
Nothing compares with LinkedIn when it comes to growing your business network. The reason LinkedIn is so much more than a Rolodex is the very clear path of connection. Whether you upload your contact list, upload business cards from a tradeshow, use the CardMunch app, find someone to connect with in a search, or use one of LinkedIn connection suggestions, LinkedIn will show you the degree to which you are connected (first, second, or third) and who you share a group with. You can even jump into your first-level connections profiles and see whom they are connected to (if they have not turned off that option in Settings). Some third-party applications allow you to see the depth of connection on Twitter and Facebook, but on LinkedIn the level of connection and visibility of connection is built right into the system and is extremely accurate!
Why is this important? Imagine you are looking for the executive director of a local not-for-profit that you wish to offer your vendor services to. When you do a search, you find out that your neighbor is directly connected to the person you wish to contact. Now you can either use LinkedIn’s tools or walk across the street and ask for the introduction. Without LinkedIn you might have never “seen” that connection and could still be trying to get past the volunteer at the front desk!
You can read more about finding and growing your network in Chapter 5, “Weeks 10–15: Creating and Managing a Network That Works.”
Effective Multifield Search Engine
LinkedIn’s search algorithm works. Period. Even with the free account, LinkedIn’s advanced search gives you numerous fields to search in:
Keyword
First Name
Last Name
Location
Country
Postal Code
Title
Company Name
School
Industry
Relationship
Language
The basic business paid account includes these additional search fields:
Company Size
Seniority Level
Interested In
Fortune 1000 Level
OpenLink
When you get your search results, you can see exactly how you are connected to the individual you searched for and what you need to do in order to make contact and engage with them. LinkedIn puts its connection tools (Connect, Get Introduced, Send InMail, Send a Message) right there in the LinkedIn member’s profile for you to see and use.
You’ll learn more about doing an effective search on LinkedIn in Chapter 11.
Using LinkedIn
Before we get into the meat of LinkedIn, let’s take a look at why it works and who can use it.
How Your Network and Advanced Search Come Together
One thing I have said from the beginning is “You are only as visible as the size of your network on LinkedIn.” (I should probably trademark that!) One of the biggest complaints I get from clients is that LinkedIn just doesn’t work. And they are absolutely correct! If your network is too small, then LinkedIn won’t work: every time you do a search for a potential employee, client, or vendor, you get a “LinkedIn Member” result and an invitation from LinkedIn to upgrade to a paid account. But there is a way around that: strategically and systematically grow a network that makes you visible, and that makes your connections visible to you. You’ll learn more about this strategy in Chapter 5.
What You Can Do on LinkedIn
Almost anything you do in marketing your existing business can be done on LinkedIn.
Use LinkedIn to:
Increase your ability to be known. There are many ways to participate on LinkedIn that will help define your personal and corporate brand. By contributing, giving, and sharing in a positive way, you can develop a good reputation in your target communities.
Find others. With a big enough network, you can develop the reach you need to search for and find the employees, potential customers, clients, vendors, partners, donors, sponsors, and strategic connections you need to excel at your business.
Learn and share your knowledge. LinkedIn Answers, Status Updates, and groups are excellent tools to showcase expert advice, position yourself as a thought leader, and learn from other subject matter experts in your industry.
Connect with LinkedIn group members. There are many exclusive groups that give you access to other members, people who share commonalities.
Demonstrate your social marketing “savvy.” Show you are plugged into current technology. Active participation in LinkedIn tells others you are serious and competent about networking and new technology.
Types of Profiles
LinkedIn is similar to Facebook in that you have to create a personal account (on LinkedIn known as a “professional” account) before you can create a company account or a business account. One question I am always getting asked is: Can or should I create more than one account on LinkedIn?
The short answer is no, mainly because it goes against LinkedIn’s end-user agreement (EUA). LinkedIn itself doesn’t seem to be monitoring for duplicate accounts, but if another user reports your duplicate profile, LinkedIn will suspend both accounts and, if they are feeling generous that day, ask you to choose the account that you want to keep.
That means all the time and effort you put into creating your “second” account—all the people you invited, all the recommendations you received, all the work you did on writing your profile—will be deleted. I know this for a fact because I created a second account strictly for training purposes (LinkedIn should have known this because the headline said: “This account is for training purposes only”) and it was closed down. At the time that account had over 500 connections and 10 recommendations. A lot of effort down the drain.
Some reasons people feel the need to have more than one account are:
They are a C-level executive at a company but also have their own small venture.
They might be working for a company but also be considering new options and looking for a job on LinkedIn.
They might be an entrepreneur with three viable businesses and one start-up.
They might be a Mom-preneur with a successful day job and a hobby that pays—in a different industry.
They might be a student with vastly different interests.
They might be both a professional musician and a teacher.
They might be both an artist and an attorney.
They might want a profile to reflect them as a person and a profile to reflect their company (a big no-no in the EUA—they have company profiles for that:
www.linkedin.com/company/add/show
).
In each of these cases, having more than one account or several different accounts might seem viable. And although some solutions are allowed on LinkedIn (professional profile and company profile, for example), there are many times when people break LinkedIn’s EUA without even knowing it.
Some LinkedIn users will knowingly break the EUA:
They might be a LinkedIn trainer and want a free account so they don’t teach their clients how to do something only available on a paid account.
They might have reached the connection limit and have created a second account to keep growing their network.
They might be a recruiter seeking confidentiality so they created a secondary bogus account to keep from revealing any telling information about their employer or client.
They might be a spammer who is knowingly abusing LinkedIn policies and doesn’t want to risk getting their “real” account shut down.
Whether you create more than one account knowingly or unknowingly, the result is the same: LinkedIn will suspend both accounts and you will have to delete one. In some extreme cases, LinkedIn might delete both accounts for you.
So let’s look at the different types of profiles and accounts on LinkedIn to see which accounts will work best for you and your business.
Professional Profile
Your professional profile is the personal profile you first create when you sign up for LinkedIn. It is from your professional profile that most of your interactions take place. Your professional profile on LinkedIn is “you.” It is autonomous. It is the initiator of all other profiles. You can’t have another profile on LinkedIn without your professional profile. When I mention “profile” from now on in this book, this is the one I am talking about. See Figure 1-1 for an example.
Figure 1-1: LinkedIn professional profile
Your LinkedIn professional profile is discoverable through searches on Google, Bing, and Yahoo! (and any other search engine you might use) as well as through LinkedIn’s own search algorithm. You are in complete control over what others see on your profile. Leveraging this profile to showcase your skills and talents ensures the right people and opportunities will find you.
A few ways to differentiate your personal and public profiles:
Status Update feature
Links for websites, connections, and Twitter
“See All” link for experience and education
Public profile URL
To read more about optimizing and leveraging your profile, read Chapter 3, “Weeks 3–6: Ready, Set, Profile.”
