Why LinkedIn?

LinkedIn isn’t sexy, but it’s powerful. As of October 2009, the social networking site boasted more than 50 million users. And while that pales in comparison to Facebook’s 350 million users, executives from every Fortune 500 company have LinkedIn profiles.

20 Ways

LinkedIn truly is the social networking site for business.

Consider your LinkedIn profile a (free) personal, professional homepage – a place to showcase your work, talent, company and more. And through its all-important “Connections” feature, you can network like a monster. Done right, you could find yourself three or four connections away from a dream job or massive sale.

But it’s not enough to set up a profile, fill in basic information and leave it stagnant. With a little time and thought, you can optimize your profile for maximum impact and value. With an optimized LinkedIn profile, you can:

Connect with potential clients, resources and employees. Consider it a virtual business card exchange. Establish expertise and gain the trust of your

network. Be found through search engines. Unless your

name is John Smith or you share a famous name, your LinkedIn profile should rank at the top of search results for your name.

Give your website an SEO bump through links. Gain exposure in a respected social media space.

You can’t limit your social media activity to Facebook, Twitter and/or YouTube. You have to showcase your skills (and optimally content) wherever potential clients are lurking, namely LinkedIn. Increase web traffic. By providing valuable and

interesting content on your LinkedIn profile, you can funnel qualified traffic to your website.

to Optimize Your LinkedIn Presence

20 Steps to an Optimized LinkedIn Presence

If you don’t think LinkedIn is important, be assured that your competitors do, and they will certainly take advantage of your weakness in the space. Optimizing your LinkedIn profile doesn’t take much time, but it does take thought. It means filling your profile to capacity with relevant, valuable content, descriptions and periodic activity updates. Here are step-by-step instructions for making that happen.

1. Complete Profile First, fill out your profile so that it’s 100 percent complete (the system will tell you the level of completeness your profile has attained). You would never send a resume, application or proposal that was 50 or 80 percent complete. According to the LinkedIn, “[u]sers with complete profiles are 40 times more likely to receive opportunities through LinkedIn.”

A complete profile includes:

Your current position

Two past positions

Your education

Your profile summary

A profile photo

Your specialties

At least three recommendations

2. Job Title Use a job title that includes your industry or another telling modifier. Instead of “Marketing Director” use “Marketing Director, Financial Services.” Try “Telecom Sales Manager” rather than “Sales Manager.” Your title is the equivalent of your page’s H1 tag; it tells search engines and LinkedIn users exactly what you do.

3. Job Descriptions and Past Positions Do more than fill in job titles. Include detailed descriptions of your current and past positions. This is your online resume. Tell people what you’ve done, what you’re capable of achieving and, most importantly, how you can help them.

4. Summary Your summary is your cover letter to the world. What are your strengths? Why are you a company’s dream employee? How can you help the people who view your profile? Why should someone do business with you?

5. Profile Picture Adding a profile picture humanizes your page. And if you have a common name, it will help people find you more easily.

6. Specialties Give the world a succinct, keyword-driven list of your professional strengths.

7. Recommendations For most of us, the best way to get recommendations is by asking (unless your clients and colleagues think so highly of you that they’ll post an unsolicited recommendation). In business, you ask clients to recommend you. When applying for a new job, you ask former employers to vouch for your work. Do the same with LinkedIn.

8. Connections Make connections. This rule applies to business relationships on and offline. Connect with colleagues, business prospects, partners, classmates, etc. The more people in your network, the greater your chances of getting found by potential clients and employers. Just make sure you know the people with whom you want to connect. “[R]ecipients can indicate that they don’t know you. If they do, you’ll be asked to enter an e-mail address with each future invitation,” according to LinkedIn. Avoid this LinkedIn penalty by making smart connections.

9. Websites Add three websites to your profile, then optimize their titles. By default, LinkedIn link names are “My Company,” “My Website,” “My Blog,” “My Portfolio,” or “My RSS Feed.” However, links carry more weight in search engines if their titles are relevant to the pages to which they link. Instead of using one of the defaults, select “Other” as your option in the drop-down menu, and type in the name of your company, blog, website, etc.

10. Vanity URL When you set up a profile, LinkedIn assigns it a URL, most likely with a combination of your name, numbers and slashes. Choose to edit your public URL so that it includes your name and/or company. By including such information in your vanity URL, the search engines will have a better idea of what or whom the page is about.

11. Public Profile Make sure your profile is public. Whatever information you hide in your public profile, you block from search engines, as well. For maximum human and search bot visibility, keep all your information available for public viewing. This isn’t Facebook where friends might post unsightly photos or make lewd comments on your wall. Everything on LinkedIn should be ready and acceptable for public consumption.

12. Status Updates Are you attending a conference or speaking at an event? Are you participating in a local charity event or fundraiser? Post relevant status updates to keep you top of mind among network connections. When contacts log on to LinkedIn they’ll see your status updates … if you post them often.

13. Twitter In early November, LinkedIn announced a new partnership with Twitter. Keep your LinkedIn connections abreast of your (professional) Twitter updates by adding this feature. You can control which tweets are posted to LinkedIn by choosing to display only those tweets with “#in” included.

14. LinkedIn Answers LinkedIn Answers is a tool that allows you to search for, ask and answer industry-specific questions. By showing your expertise, you can draw in leads and new business.

15. Groups Explore your connections’ profiles, and look for relevant LinkedIn groups to join. Most universities have alumni groups, as do professional organizations. With a LinkedIn group, you can post job listings, discussions and more to a targeted group of people – without having to make connections with all of them. Your status updates automatically get posted to group members’ LinkedIn home pages. Choose a few, select groups, and check on them often.

16. Company Pages Make sure your company is represented on LinkedIn. Search for your organization under the “Companies” tab in the top navigation. Anyone with an e-mail linked to your company can update or add information, such as a company description, industry, specialties, website, logo and more. If your company hosts a blog, it should display automatically on this page.

17. Widgets LinkedIn widgets are perhaps the best (and easiest) way to update your LinkedIn profile with regular, fresh content. If you’re already producing blog posts, presentations, white papers, tweets, etc., widgets allow you to repurpose that content for your LinkedIn audience. Here are a few Wax recommends:

WordPress – Display excerpts from your latest WordPress blog posts on your profile. This will drive visitors to your blog and website, show off your expertise and writing skills and give you an SEO bump.

Blog Link – For people whose blogs don’t run on WordPress, Blog Link displays posts from TypePad, Movable Type, Vox, Blogger and LiveJournal, in addition to WordPress.

SlideShare – Showcase your SlideShare PowerPoint presentations and documents through LinkedIn. You can use this application for business presentations, white papers, sales pieces, portfolios and much more.

Google Presentation – If you don’t have a SlideShare account (which you should, by the way), you can upload PowerPoint presentations through the Google Presentation widget.

Poll – LinkedIn allows you to build polls to send to your connections for free or to a targeted group of non-connections for a fee. With a strong LinkedIn following and this tool, you can conduct market research at no cost.

18. Profile Updates Update your profile when you move to a new company or take on a new role. Beyond these types of obvious updates, make small changes to your profile every quarter. Seek out new connections, change your profile picture, comment on an issue in one of your groups – or else you’ll fade from the LinkedIn spotlight.

19. Other Social Media Make your LinkedIn profile accessible through other social media, such as Facebook and Twitter.

20. Custom LinkedIn Landing Page No one says you have to link to your company’s home page from LinkedIn. If you want to better control your visitors’ experience, you can create a custom landing page for people who come to your website through LinkedIn. Tailor a marketing message to someone you can (relatively safely) assume is social-media savvy and interested in you or your services or products. If they reviewed your optimized LinkedIn profile, they should know a lot about you and your business. Tell them something new – draw them in.

Think of how many dry, empty LinkedIn profiles you’ve encountered. Make yours stand out with smart linking, detailed descriptions, regular updates and solid content. Give your connections – and your 50 million potential connections – the information they need and want to take action.

For more information on LinkedIn or other social media platforms, contact Caroline Hatchett via e-mail at c.hatchett@waxcom.com or by calling 305-350-5700.