I'm on LinkedIn. Now What?

Posted by Erin Anderson on 1 July 2009 | 0 Comments

Tags: social media

LinkedIn has come a long way, baby! What was once a basic online resume and networking site has begun to grow into a professional networking powerhouse. Over the past two years, LinkedIn has added features that allow you to connect with like-minded professionals in a variety of ways.

For B2B marketers, this is great news. You can use LinkedIn to promote thought leadership and engage in rich discussions to enhance your reputation and build traffic to your site.

Here are three features on LinkedIn that are worth taking the time to explore:

Groups
There are groups of every size and shape on LinkedIn. What’s more, there are relevant, dynamic discussions happening in those groups. A few months ago we began posting topics for discussion in several groups, including Advertising Professional, B2B Online Marketing and Inbound Marketers. (Membership is easy — just request entry to the group and the moderator will approve you within 48 hours). These discussions have introduced us to people outside of our contact groups and have led to several new connections.

To get the full benefit of these discussions you have to join in. First, join some groups that appeal to your interests. Browse the discussion boards, add your two cents to some discussions, and — voila! — you’re part of the conversation.

You can also start a conversation. Add a discussion topic, article, blog post or link and ask group members for their feedback.

Or, start a group of your own. We did this recently for our client, Vertex, as part of an integrated communications plan for a thought leadership website called Tax 2.0. We used a group on LinkedIn to drive traffic and registrants to the Tax 2.0 site, and as a way to spur dialog among senior tax professionals. Thus far, they’ve attracted nearly 200 members, opening a new channel of communications with an important audience.

Answers
Have a topic you want feedback on? Interested in crowdsourcing an idea? Then LinkedIn Answers is the place for you. The Answers section of the website is just that — a place for people to post questions and for the rest of the community to answer them. You don’t need to belong to a specific group to answer questions — just join in.

Some recent questions in the Marketing section include:

•    How do you go about building a B2B marketing lead generation campaign?
•    What do you do to drive your social networks?
•    How to create a Web cast?

Applications

LinkedIn also offers several Applications that you can utilize on your profile to share content, like Slideshare and Box.net. These apps allow great collaboration among your colleagues and contacts on LinkedIn. For example, Slideshare allows you to upload and share presentations on your profile and on the main Slideshare page on LinkedIn. You can use Slideshare to search for presentations, find experts in your network and make new connections.

There are also a number of other apps, like LinkedIn Polls, that allow you to poll other users on a topic. All of these applications help you get the information, knowledge and answers you are looking for on a specific topic — all in one place and from a trusted network of colleagues. It can also provide inexpensive research if you want to get a broader set of opinions on a topic.

Two other features worth checking out are the LinkedIn Blog and LinkedIn Learning Center. Both provide great tips and insights that will help you get the most out of your LinkedIn experience.

Like other social networking sites, LinkedIn is driven by great content. Taking advantage of these features and sharing content will enhance your reputation and is a powerful new way to extend your marketing reach.

Tweet