Social Networking for Business
Good business networking has always been a fundamental asset of any individual or company seeking to get the best from those one-to-one connections. LinkedIn is a social networking tool for business that super-charges the networking process making it easy. Drawing on the power of the net and Web 2.0, LinkedIn has streamlined the process of connecting to suppliers, potential customers, employees, employers, even staff and colleagues.
There are145, 000 CEOs on LinkedIn and all 500 of the Fortune 500 are represented.
Like all social networks, you register and set up your profile and then invite contacts to be linked to your profile. All your contacts have contacts of their own and you are linked to these with one degree of separation. The benefit of this is you can tap into new resources via the relationships your friends or colleagues have with others.
More than 8.5 million experienced professionals from around the world representing 130 industries
Here are some of the potential benefits of using LinkedIn:
· Promote yourself or your business to a vast network
· Recommendations from others can be placed against your profile to enhance your trust levels
· You have the option for your profile to appear on Google with a high ranking, enabling you to influence how you are being perceived online
· Use it to search for new staff or contractors
· Ask for recommendations from your connections if you are after a new supplier or service
· Research companies or individuals you are thinking of doing business with. Employers can check employee references and employees can seek out previous employees of the company they are thinking of working for
· Check out the competition, potential customers, potential employees, partners
“I’ve seen huge benefits. Myself or colleagues have landed more than $2M in contracts via LinkedIn. I’ve hired and been hired via LinkedIn. I got a book deal via LinkedIn… when I need someone for a gig, if an individual doesn’t spring immediately to mind I turn to LinkedIn, ping someone, done.” – Jeremy
How to get the best from LinkedIn:
· Add more connections – you’ll increase your visibility and appear the nearer the top of search results
· Include as many jobs, associations, awards, educational establishments, affiliations on your profile, this will build your connections
· Include a link in your email signature to your LinkedIn profile. This will show more details of your background to those your emailing
· Ensure all your important relevant keywords are included in your profile so you appear when they’re searched for
· Make your profile public and choose ‘full view’ to have your profile appear on Google and other search engines
· The more personal information you include in your profile the more appealing it will be
· Connect to current clients and colleagues to broaden your network
· Change your url to include your name, this will raise the search engine ranking of your profile
· Use the ‘Answers’ section to get input on absolutely anything. For example, you can leverage thousands of others to assist and give feedback with your latest idea or project
LinkedIn grew by 189% over the last year making it the fastest growing social network, better than MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and YouTube – Nielsen Online
There are many new opportunities that open up when using a tool like LinkedIn, the fact that you can search on any individual, company, industry or job can lead you to a wealth of possible information resources not previously available. With a bit of creative thinking the ‘Advanced Search’ function can be experimented with to find a host of useful data. LinkedIn is the 21st Century way to build a successful business network.
Tags: linkedin, social network marketing, social networking, web 2.0 marketing
