Anyone I know here?
Imagine sitting on a 3 hour train journey and across from you and next to you there are other business people that you don’t know. Other than some pleasantries you arrive at your destination and there has been virtually no communication between any of you.
It happens to all of us and for me this reminds me of how most of us are using LinkedIn – we are there but not really communicating with anyone!
LinkedIn is probably the most powerful business social media platform. If used correctly it is a terrific way to make good quality connections and it can be the best and quickest of all the social media platforms to generate awareness for you and your business.
My Top 10 Tips for getting the most from LinkedIn are:
- Use a great photo that captures what you are all about
- Complete your profile properly, taking care that you write an inviting bio for readers and use the standard industry terms to describe your areas of speciality (e.g. Social Media Consultant)
- Request personal recommendations from satisfied clients and co-workers (even better write some for others – it will earn you lots of brownie points!)
- Maximise your contacts by using the using the facility whereby LinkedIn will check your own email database against those in its database
- Only invite people to connect that you know, have interacted with or have a good reason for justifying a connection request
- Try not to ignore a connection request – as long as it is not a competitor accept requests as it can help to boost your awareness
- Always peep at the “people who you may know” suggestions – LinkedIn is very clever and often the suggested connections can be very relevant
- Try to post a status update at least once a day
- Join relevant groups and participate proactively – comment on posts of interest to you and the very best way to boost your awareness is to start your own discussions. Using your own blog posts as discussion “starters” is very powerful
- THANK & be nice is my very biggest tip – It’s really important that you respect who you interact with on LinkedIn. Thank people who connect with you, personalise your invitations to connect and think about being helpful before you try to start selling. Try and stay as positive as possible.
If people like and trust you and understand what you do, they will be more likely to want to do business with you or recommend you to someone else.
The train is pulling in ..hope you made a few new connections!
Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion
Fuzion with offices in Dublin and Cork offer Social Media Consultancy and Training Services
