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Use LinkedIn to Promote These 7 Ways
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By
Joan Stewart
LinkedIn, the most powerful social networking tool for
business, can also be used as a valuable tool to promote any
product, service, cause or issue.
The cardinal rule for anyone using LinkedIn to promote,
however, is that you must give more than you get. That means
your first contact with people who have connected with you
can't be an invitation to buy something. You must lay the
groundwork long before asking for the sale.
Promote on LinkedIn carefully using these steps:
1. Create a complete LinkedIn profile so people can find
you.
The best place to start is with your resume. Give a complete
work history, and also list the high school and college you
attended. Former classmates might be searching for you, and
if your profile doesn't mention schools you've attended, you
might miss the chance to connect with somebody who might
someday need what you're selling. The more complete your
profile, the easier it is for people to find you when they
use the search box at LinkedIn.
2. When making connections, concentrate on quality, not
quantity.
Compiling a long list of connections can actually work
against you. If you send a message to one of your
connections, and they don't know you, they might flag you as
a spammer and LinkedIn can suspend your account. If someone
asks you to connect and you don't know them, it's best to
reply and ask "How do we know each other?" Before accepting
the connection. Read more about
"How LinkedIn Connections Can Hurt You" in Item #1 of
the Aug. 26, 2008 issue of my newsletter.
3. Use the question and answer feature to ask a question.
LinkedIn can be a valuable tool for research. The
question-and-answer feature lets you ask a question, and
people who are connected to you can respond. Use this
feature to take an informal survey, learn about the kinds of
problems your target audience is trying to solve, learn
about the solutions they've found to a particular problem,
collect people's predictions about how something will turn
out, and find out what's on their minds.
4. Use the question-and-answer feature to answer a
question.
This is one of the best ways to promote your expertise
because other people can see your answer. LinkedIn also has
a nifty feature that lets the person asking the question to
tag an answer as "best answer." On your profile page, people
can see instantly how many times you have given the "best
answer" to a questions. My blog post
Use LinkedIn to Promote--Ethically & Powerfully shows
how social networking expert Scott Allen uses the Q&A
feature to promote his expertise.
5. Offer recommendations to people you know or have done
business with.
This gives you exposure on their profile page. If you give
them a recommendation, it's a good chance to ask them to
return the favor. The more recommendations you can
accumulate, the great the chances that someone will be
inclined to do business with you.
6. Ask your connections to help you spread the word about
something you're doing.
People don't like sales pitches. But many of them are more
than happy to help you. So if you're planning a live event
and you're trying to promote it, for example, don't ask your
connections to attend it. Ask if they can share the
information with others via their blog, newsletter, website
and word of mouth.
7. Link to your websites and blogs.
Your profile page lets you link to three pages. Be sure to
include your websites, blog and any other places people will
find helpful, like the Free Articles page at your website.
"How to Use LinkedIn to Promote
Anything--Ethically & Powerfully"
includes a timeline on what do to on LinkedIn, and when,
whether you're promoting a product, service, cause or issue.
It's a recording of two 70-minute teleseminars with Scott
Allen, a LinkedIn expert.
Direct comments or questions about this article,
including requests for reprint rights, to:
Joan Stewart
The Publicity Hound
3434 County KK
Port Washington, WI 53074
Phone: 262-284-7451
JStewart@PublicityHound.com
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