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A good LinkedIn profile is not only a space to present your career and your skills. It can also give you the opportunity to create a network, discover popular topics in your field and participate in discussions, but also to become an opinion leader on topics that are of interest to you.

We have been partnering with LinkedIn since 2010 and would like to give you tips to help you optimize this network. Whether you are new to LinkedIn or you want to make the most of this platform, here are the recommendations of our Employer Brand team to build your personal brand on LinkedIn:

Highlight your profile:

• Add a good quality photo that matches the style of the area in which you want to work.
• Summarize your experience at the top of your profile.
• Indicate your skills and experience and give as much detail as possible.
• Also, include elements of your personality, a profile should not be as formal as a resume.
• Use keywords to help you find your profile.

Also read: 10 Keys to Getting "Juice" to Your LinkedIn Profile

For a successful career, create a LinkedIn profile for job search to achieve your dream job. This social network can be the key to finding your ideal job or to connect with the partners who will drive your business.

LinkedIn is a social network that many have, but few people take out all the "juice" it has. This platform not only serves to see what your friends work, but it also allows you to make professional contacts that can be the key to taking your career to the next level or even give you the partners you need for your business to emerge.

However, it is not enough to have a profile for recruiters to reach your door. To attract professional connections, you need to have the right information and a photograph that looks attractive, but respectable.

We give you the tips that LinkedIn and Nikon offer to have the perfect profile in this social network.

1. Good profile:  

Complete your profile to the fullest; The more details you include, the better. For users, it will be easier and faster to find you.

2. A correct address: 

Personalize your profile URL so that it appears among the first results on Google.
Also read: 15 Brand Marketing Influencers To Follow On LinkedIn

3. Excerpt: 

Write a summary of your career with a brief, engaging and easy-to-read text. This will work as a digital cover letter.

4. Experience: 

Ask for recommendations to (ex) colleagues, (former) bosses, teachers, clients or suppliers. That will give you more credibility to new contacts.

Do not forget to add your skills, that is, highlight the tasks you have developed throughout your professional experience.

5. Projects: 

Share your work. Improve your profile by adding links to your professional projects, so that everyone can see and function as evidence of what you can do.

6. Education: 

includes universities and centers where you have received some kind of instruction, as well as courses and voluntary activities.

7. Skills and Knowledge: 

Add keywords, this way, when other professionals look for people with your skills, they will find you.

8. Groups: 

By joining LinkedIn community conversations, you will have access to new ideas, and you will be up-to-date with the latest trends.

9. Give "follow": 

find the profiles of the people you want to imitate to always be aware of their news. 
Also read: LinkedIn Marketing + Sales: Generate Leads from LinkedIn

10. Publish a professional photograph: 

remember to give a proper and responsible image.

• Avoid wearing clothes of a color similar to the tone of your skin. 
• Do not use bright colors like red or orange because they take attention to your face. 
• Avoid colors like white, yellow and pink as they make your skin look pale. 
• The best colors for photographs that give a professional image are blue, green and wine. 
• Do not use too much makeup. A natural look is the best cover letter. 
• Have a good posture. Smile, but do not exaggerate your expression. 
• Golden rule: Do not dress for the job you have, but for the job you want. 
• The framing must be from the head to the men. 
• Be natural, do not exaggerate your hairstyle or makeup because you damage your personal brand.

Following these tips will allow you to leverage your network of contacts through this social network.

It will now be possible to do more marketing and sales from LinkedIn. If your business needs more leads, LinkedIn strategic planning can help you to reach the success.
LinkedIn Sales Solutions is committed to the transformation of the traditional sales process in the B2B segment that was based on "cold calls" and renews it in the digital era.

Based on the concept of social selling and the merger of marketing with the sales force, LinkedIn Launches  "LinkedIn Sales Solutions." It bets on the transformation of the traditional sales process in the B2B segment that was based on " Cold Calls "to find people who might have an interest in a particular product or service and who has become obsolete with the advancement of social networks, the speed of information and personalization of the business relationship. 

Today, companies are integrating digital tools into their strategies of activities and are paying attention to the knowledge that social networks give to identify potential customers.
Also read: Linkedin Marketing: Are You Making These 7 Mistakes?

According to Gustavo Pagotto, regional sales manager for LinkedIn Latin America, "The more knowledge we can acquire about customers, the more prepared we will be to know the right time to offer a solution. There is no other effective way to do it today, but to Through social networks. " 

In the USA, LinkedIn has more than 9 million users - of which 2600 thousand are sales professionals - and there are more than 1100 thousand of companies with the presence on the network. Digital equipment for the office, and has tried this tool, with which, "executives who join Ricoh have been able to position themselves in the online world and generate a professional dynamic to connect with customers and prospects. Our definition of the social sales strategy to connect with the right people, know their speech and know how you can reach them, "says its marketing director, Alejandro Alcocer Toledano. 
Also read: Building Meaningful LinkedIn Relationships

Among the options offered by this LinkedIn tool to companies are the opportunity to train users who purchase the license. Also, they will be able to search for people and businesses throughout the platform and define their target audience, and the tool recommends potential contacts.

Brand management is a tough job, and talented brand managers and brand marketers continue to be a hot commodity. The internet has drastically changed how consumers behave and how businesses market their products and services. Traditional marketing models still apply, but marketers now need a whole new set of skills, as well as up to date knowledge of digital media to create their digital marketing strategies.

Within larger companies, brand managers operate like a small business owner or the CEO of their brand. While they may be considered to be part of the marketing function, a brand manager is a broader strategic role that’s charged with monitoring market trends, differentiating their brand in a crowded competitive space, and providing direction for the future of the brand.
To be a good brand manager, you better be a continuous learner, because your market, your customer needs, and your role are all constantly evolving. It helps to stay in touch with some of the folks on the leading edge of the profession.

Here are some key influencers to follow on LinkedIn:

• Charlene Li, Principal Analyst at Altimeter
• Jeff Bullas – CEO at Jeffbullas.com Pty Ltd “There is an elephant in the room for many digital marketers. They love the vanity metrics of traffic, social media sharing and follower growth. They are hooked on the engagement and feedback that cool content provides to the brand. But they often don’t work on the last few hard yards. It isn’t seen as sexy and it can be boring. It’s converting that traffic and engagement into leads and sales. It’s is time for many social media and content marketers to grow up”
  
• David Aaker, Vice Chairman at Prophet, Brand Strategist and Author
• Fred Reichheld, Bain Fellow, Author/Speaker on Loyalty
• Guy Kawasaki, Chief Evangelist at Canva
• Ann Handley, Author of “Everybody Writes” and “Content Rules,” Chief Content Officer of MarketingProfs
• Michael Brenner, CEO, Marketing Insider Group and Author of The Content Formula
• Ryan Holmes, CEO at Hootsuite
• Joe Pulizzi, Founder at Content Marketing Institute, Author of Content Inc., Speaker & Entrepreneur
• Dharmesh Shah, Founder and CTO at HubSpot
• Shane Snow, Journalist, geek, and bestselling author. Cofounder of Contently
• Brian Solis, Principal Analyst, Altimeter Group (a Prophet co.), Author of X: The Experience When Business Meets Design
• Daniel Goleman, Brainpower: Mindsight and Emotional Intelligence in Leadership
• Neil Patel, Co-Founder at Crazy Egg & Hello Bar
• Joe Fields, Digital Marketing Associate at Onalytica
• Jay Baer, Marketing and customer experience consultant, NY Times best-selling author, keynote speaker and emcee, investor

What other influencers do you follow on LinkedIn?

If you're using LinkedIn for prospecting and to drum up business, one mistake that many of your competitors will be making is to turn their profile into a CV and to keep focusing all the attention on themselves and all the "stuff" they've done in the past instead of what they offer now in the present, and to whom. 

Here are 7 other likely mistakes that you may also be making with your LinkedIn profile, and why they could be losing you connections, sales and referrals....

A. Not mentioning the problems you solve

Are you forgetting to mention the problems you can actually solve for your target market in your online profile?
Your fellow members may actually be in need of your services, but if you don't tell them about the problems, pains or predicaments you fix, how will they know. How can they recommend you if they don't know what it is you actually fix or solve? 

Some of your fellow online members visiting your profile may also be suffering from, or experiencing these problems, pains or frustrations. One of the first things you want a visitor to say when they visit your profile is - "Yup, I know how that feels" or "I know someone who knows how that feels".
People don't want to get to know you, if they don't think you can help them, or if they don't know what it is you do, or don't think you're worth getting to know.

B. Not describing the people you help

Do you actually mention who your clients are, the type of clients, and the criteria you look for in a client, on your profile? The majority of people on forums and social networks are pretty vague in this respect, and then they wonder why they get all sorts of vague introductory emails from people they don't want to communicate with, more importantly, they receive pro-active communications from people who do not have a need for their products or services, and the profile owner reacts negatively of accusing their fellow member of being "spammy". 

You are on a networking platform for god's sake; you are inviting people to contact you. All you have to do is start saying on your profile who are the people you want or need to contact you.

C. Forgetting to mention the solution you offer

It's funny, how many times have you visited a profile....Read about the person, their football team, their partner, children, which sign of the zodiac they are, which car they are like, even which character from the Matrix they are like, (some even do describe the car they are like) but you have no compelling reason or wish to actually contact them, because you don't know what problems they solve or whether they can actually help people like you. You need to discuss what can be achieved if people use your product or service and what things are likely to happen if people engage with you and their problems are solved - create a desire or want for them to communicate with you. People are interested in one thing only - results. Talk about the results you offer.

D. The Reason why

Have you forgotten to remind your fellow online members why your prospects and people you know, are experiencing the problems they are, and why they are stuck with the problems listed in A, and more importantly, not taking advantage of C. By explaining the reason why people experience the problems they do, you are further demonstrating you know your craft, have a thorough knowledge of your subject, and it helps to build to trust and credibility.
You need to explain why the reader might be having problems in your area of expertise, so you can disqualify them from being a potential client or not. Why do you think the same people keep revisiting your profile - they think you can help them, they're not just sure how or why.

E. You

We've touched on this earlier, it's about credibility and positioning you as an expert, not every aspect of your social and personal life to give scam artists and identity thieves everything they need to open a bank account in your name. 

How many business meetings have you gone to, and asked the person sitting opposite you about their dog, or which character of the matrix they are most like. You simply don't do it.

Stay focused on what you talk about regarding yourself; build a profile about you and your achievements, your track record, the people you've helped.
Yes, give an introduction to who you are, but don't dwell on it or make the classic mistake of selfish marketing and do a "me. me. me" talking only about you and not the people you can help.

F. How can they help themselves

Stop going to meetings that lead to nothing. Stop visiting profiles and think oh she's nice, let's have a coffee. You need to describe the basic steps that readers of your profile need to take in order to help themselves (or further qualify or disqualify themselves). People are silently begging to be led, they want a solution, they think you can help (if you've followed steps A-E), but now what? How can you prove you can help them? 

How can you help readers of your profile resolve their problems or at the very least, start making progress to give them confidence that they should in fact be speaking with you, want to meet you, or even engage you to provide a solution.

G. Next step

Ever had loads of people visit your profile that lead to nothing - no 121. No phone call. Not even a personal message to acknowledge they've read your profile and found it interesting. Do you actually tell your prospects what they should do next having read your profile. Remember F above? 

People are silently begging to be led. They need your solution, they're just not convinced you should be the one to provide it - they need convincing, they need Confidence to know you CAN and WILL help them. 

Start building that confidence by leading and demonstrate you can help them. Think. You've explained who you are, what you do, who and how you can help, next step is obvious - Invite them to get in touch and CONTACT YOU. How much money do you think you might have lost, by not implementing any, some or all of the above? It’s time to stop having a wishy washy online profile.
You're running a business for god's sake.
Hope that gets you thinking (and updating your profile.) ;)

LinkedIn is weird. Like any social media platform, it’s about connecting with other people. But this is the business casual version of Facebook, meant to foster useful contacts in the business world. Many students drag their feet at making a profile, and even more rarely like to actually use it as a social platform.


Your LinkedIn Profile you should make you as visible, impressive and memorable as possible to your viewers. There are tons of ways to achieve this on LinkedIn: some require a serious investment of time and money, whereas others – like these LinkedIn Hacks – are a shortcut to success.

Here are ways I’ve found to make the LinkedIn experience as pain-free as possible — even fun.

Fill Out the Profile.

Image Source: moz.org

Seriously. Just follow the prompts. LinkedIn will ask if you want to improve your profile — volunteer experience? Do you have a certification? Are you skilled at things aside from your wicked procrastination skills?

If you already have a current resume, have it on hand. The bulk of your profile can be filled out using that information.

If you don’t have a resume, now is a great time to consider doing that.
LinkedIn will give you a rating to let you know how far along you are on your journey to a complete profile. Right now I am sitting at “All-Star”, just a sliver away from 100% completion.

No Blind-Friending Allowed. (Usually)

On Facebook we balk when someone with zero mutual friends sends us a request out of nowhere. It is no different here.
Between friends, it might be forgivable: I agreed to import my contacts en masse rather than manually search for people one by one.

But a personal message can tip the scales if you want to connect with that great guest lecturer in your marketing class. No need to complicate, just: “Hi, I really enjoyed your talk on Social Media in Professor H’s class. I would like to connect with you.”
On the flipside, I’ll accept all requests unless I have a pressing reason to decline (which I haven’t yet, my life is not yet that exciting.)

Jump to the top of the list.

LinkedIn is professional, but it doesn’t mean that fun is banned. On LinkedIn mobile, searches are ranked alphabetically, meaning if your name is Zim White, you are at the bottom of the totem pole.

A nice way to get around this is to put an emoji in front of your name (or any other symbol that is not a letter or number, but really an emoji is much more entertaining.)
Still, remember that this is still networked-focused and try to have it relate back to your profession.

Get around the paywall.

I use the free version of LinkedIn, as a part of my college budget survival plan. One of the benefits premium members enjoy is using Inmail. Inmail is a messaging system allowing you to contact people you do not have connections with.

A way around this paywall is acquiring the email address of someone you would like to connect with. ReferYes is there for all your stalking needs.
And of course, aside from letting you connect with a professional you look up to, this site lets you email people directly, which is usually preferable.

Hopefully, this will aid you down your path to success.

Write a Compelling Headline in LinkedIn

Your LinkedIn headline should make the reader want to click to read more about you. Along with the profile photo, this section is responsible for determining the readers' first impression of you so it's crucial that you make the most of that space.

The headline doesn’t have to be your job title + company. In fact, you should see it as a condensed version of your profile, telling the world who you are in 120 characters or less. 

Generally, you can choose to write a Keyword-Packed LinkedIn Headline or a Power Statement LinkedIn Headline. Here is a brilliant LinkedIn Headline generator, courtesy of Donna Serdula of LinkedIn-Makeover.com, that will help you build either.

Endorse, and be Endorsed in LinkedIn

Almost everyone has received those random endorsements and have just ignored them, but these help you appear higher and in more searches.

How do you get more endorsements? Usually if you show some love, you'll get some back in return. Endorse your friends, family, lovers, former colleagues, and it's likely that they will endorse you right back.

Update Your LinkedIn Profile Regularly

To create a successful career, you need to become known in your industry as well as your company. Updating your LinkedIn Profile regularly enhances your personal brand, and you shouldn’t be embarrassed to tell the world about your recent professional achievements. There is no reason why your employer should have a problem with this.

You should also regularly post content that you find interesting – this is an easy way to stay connected with your network, whilst keeping up to date with industry news. 

If any future entrepreneurs make it big due to these hacks, please let me know. Feedback is always welcomed.

If you need any extra LinkedIn help (or assistance with any other social media platform, really) just give us a call. We don’t judge your level of expertise.

 
If you have any type of professional life, which most of us do, you should have signed up at LinkedIn. You will create a profile just as you do on other social media sites. However, just setting up your profile is not enough. You need to make sure your profile is complete and working effectively so that you get the most benefit and value from it.


LinkedIn is recognized as a very effective way for professionals and businesses to build relationships that eventually will lead to business opportunities. It is also recognized as a great way to strengthen your network, maintaining it and keeping it strong, and ensuring you get the most out of your business.
To begin with, you will establish connections that will help you increase your exposure online and help you to boost your reputation. Make sure that you have filled out the business profile so that those who are surfing and visiting the site can check it out. You should include people from within your company that you work with.

Once you connect with others, you need to do more. To build a relationship you have to go deeper. If you just connect but you never interact, there will be nothing for either of you to gain from the experience. It’s critical that you interact if you want LinkedIn to be a successful component of your business.
You might be surprised to learn that it is all in the timing. As soon as you make a new connection, you respond to a question, you are introduced to a business associate, etc. you need to make the move to communicate directly with this person. There are tons of ways to bridge that gap and open up communication. You can ask a question, show interest in what they are saying, give advice, etc.

Make sure that you make the most of every event. Pay attention to events and activities that are happening in LinkedIn and that you are involved in. There are likely a number of events that you business could benefit from. Try to find live events in your area, or follow web events. Be a resource to other LinkedIn members. If you know how to listen to other, it can be a very valuable tool. Sharing your expertise with others is an excellent way to build significant
relationships within LinkedIn and these relationships are far reaching to your business and may eventually translate to revenue.

Knowing how to build meaningful relationships on LinkedIn will help you to create a viable tool that can benefit your business in many different areas.

 LinkedIn us such a useful business tool, and yet far too often its true value is overlooked. This is by far one of the best tools available so make sure that you take advantage of it.




1. Complete your profile 
Your profile is at the heart of your online business branding. Your LinkedIn profile will almost always rank very well in a Google search. You want to have a solid profile because first impressions can make or break you. Make sure your profile is completely filled out with no missing information.

2. Connect with all 
You should connect with as many people as you can. Begin with those you know and trust and then you will be able to make recommendations to other users when they are looking for an introduction. If you want to find the opportunities that are out there, you need to keep your communication lines open on LinkedIn. The more connections you make the more you will be able to grow your business and improve your sales.

3. Create a call to action
It is easy to do and so important. You need to create a call to action on your profile. When people arrive and read what you have to say they’ll feel inspired and much more likely to click through on your links that will take them to your website.

4. Make sure you are compelling
Most LinkedIn profiles will put you to sleep. Yawn – they are so boring and show nothing of the personality of the individual. Make it interesting and compelling. Tell people who you are, who the people are you help, what you offer for sale in services or products, and anything else that could be important to making you interesting for those that find your profile.

5. Recommend Others
Give and you will receive. If you recommend then you will be recommended. When you recommend others without them asking you to do so, they return the favor and this will help to improve your profile and build credibility, which will improve your business.

LinkedIn is a social networking site for professionals and it now has more than 100 million users. Almost 60% of LinkedIn users are in consultant positions or at the executive level. As a result, LinkedIn has the highest number of decision makers in one place over all social media networks. LinkedIn is one of the fastest growing sites – one new user arrives every second, or translated that’s around one million new users every week.

Just as you would with other social media sites, you need to use the white hat approach. Rather than transparently advertising your goods or services or outright asking for work, try to interact, help, and engage people.

Your LinkedIn goal should be to establish yourself in your niche or your industry. Take the time to connect with colleagues, and customers that you have already established a relationship with and then build on that relationship.

Groups are one of your most popular tools on LinkedIn. You can drive traffic to your website and reach an endless stream of targeted professionals. There are more than 870,000 LinkedIn groups with memberships varying from 1 to 400,000. Most of the groups are business related, although there are nearly 130,000 corporate alumni and academic groups. WordPress is one of the favorite LinkedIn groups because of its knowledgeable and engaging members. You can easily get your questions answered, and you can participate in a lively discussion. Every application you use will have a LinkedIn Group that represents it. The same applies to every type of job you might do, there is a group for. Whether you are a photographer, an illustrator, a Photoshop user, a marketer – there is a group for you.
Are you already on LinkedIn? If you have not yet signed up to use LinkedIn now is a good time to do so. LinkedIn members are not there to look at their friends’ photos or to give their friends a minute-by-minute description of their day. Rather, it is an excellent place to make the types of connections that can grow an income.

Take the time to update your profile so it clearly and concisely explains what you are all about and what it is you have done. Make sure that you take the time to get at least a couple of recommendations. The best way to do this is to offer to write a recommendation for someone else. Now start driving traffic to your site.

LinkedIn today is rolling out Elevate, a content curation and social sharing platform, designed to help enterprises turn their employees into brand advocates.

LinkedIn first announced Elevate in April, and its early customers have included Visa, Unilever and CEB.
"LinkedIn members have always been able to share content about their companies, but it hasn't always been easy for them to do so. And sometimes they're not sure about the company's ground rules or what types of content to share," said Penry Price, VP-marketing solutions at LinkedIn.

"Elevate enables employee advocacy at scale," he added. "Now employers have an entire employee base to be activated so they can share content across their social and professional networks."
The subscription-based service is aimed at companies with 2,000 or more employees, and is available on desktop or via mobile app. It provides a platform that lets companies curate content from internal and external sources on the web, categorize content, set up guidelines about social sharing, give employees access to content, and measure the impact of content sharing on various metrics, from profile views to company page views.

Visa has been beta-testing Elevate since February -- initially with a handful of employees, and now with about 500 using the service.
"One thing we've been doing at Visa is changing the culture to become one of more permissiveness around social media in general," said Lucas Mast, VP-corporate social media at Visa, noting that Visa has revised its social media policy, put in place social media guidelines and added more approved social-sharing platforms for its employees.

"This is yet another opportunity for us to take our best evangelists -- our employees -- and empower them with content that is safe and approved and fits across a wide range of topics, that they would want to organically share with their social-media audiences," Mr. Mast said.

At Visa, the corporate social media team, working with other functions in the company, curates content from both inside the company and across the web on topics such as finance, technology and small-business advice. Employees log into Elevate from their internal network or via a mobile app, select content they're interested in, and share it across their social networks.

"With any sort of pilot, the key thing for us is embracing and evolving into a culture of sharing and providing the ability for people to feel empowered to do so," Mr. Mast said. "So any time we see that sort of activity being fostered and growing, it's extremely important and valuable to us."
He said Visa plans to roll out Elevate to between 1,500 and 2,000 employees by the end of the year, with a more extensive rollout planned for next year.

CEB Global, a business intelligence and technology company, has been beta-testing Elevate for about six months, said Rob Chen, CMO at CEB.
"Our objective is to build brand equity and increase the relevance of our brand among our target audiences," Mr. Chen said. "We have a lot of challenges from an awareness standpoint, because we don't have the budgets of bigger b-to-b companies."

CEB provides best-practices insights and technology to senior business leaders in functions such as finance, HR, marketing and legal compliance. It conducts research, holds events and provides content across a wide range of platforms, including white papers, blogs, research papers and case studies on its website.
"A lot of our employees touch customers we serve every day with content," Mr. Chen said. "Elevate gives us a way to supercharge that by creating a platform not only for our sales teams but for other functions, whether on the product side or advisors, to share relevant content with their networks."

About 400 CEB employees are now using Elevate to share content, he said. Since implementing the platform, profile views for those using Elevate have increased by an average of 150%, and company page views have increased by about 90%, Mr. Chen said. In addition, job views have gone up about 100%. "That is pretty key -- we are a very active recruiter of talent on LinkedIn," he said.

Post Originally Shared on: http://adage.com
Edited by Fahim

 
LinkedIn is much like paid search in many ways, as both marketing tactics involve search, clicking, connecting, and converting. We explain to clients that it is of this mindset to keep in mind as we train on our approach to social selling for lead generation.

Linkedin is a social network for business; and to be engaging with contacts and prospects should not be ignored. But as a marketer or salesperson, no activity during the day should be done without some sort of convincing as your goal. Think about it; sharing content, posting content, and being helpful are what I call social retargeting. On LinkedIn, its reminding prospects and connections of your existence, and you are sharing content that aligns with your personal brand. Retargeting in the advertising context means “finish a conversion on our website”, or “here’s a new offer you may like.” With LinkedIn, retargeting is “Remember me? Here’s content you may like. Maybe it can lead to a sale because I know stuff that can help you”
There are many ways that LinkedIn social selling is like paid lead generation programs, as the chart below shows. Let’s explain.

Search LinkedIn: I am searching from prospects based on a variety of filters, to reach out to, or ask a current connection to reach out to? Why? I hope to sell my services to my targeted prospects by first connecting with them, sharing content, and hopefully give them something of value that can lead to an appointment. Prospects use groups to search for solutions, by asking questions themselves. Paid Lead Generation: Prospects are searching for a solution to a problem. Prospects are either looking to education themselves, or find a company that has a product or service they need. They enter queries into a search engine with the hope to become a lead for a company if the content or offers are compelling enough for conversion.

Results: LinkedIn: After I enter queries into LinkedIn Search, I find a list of people who satisfy my query. I can now review and click who may be helpful to me, or who I could connect with may be a potential lead. The more specific my search; the more granular my potential lead list is, and that makes my connection requests relevant to the prospect. So if you want prospects to find you, make sure important keywords are in headlines and profile.

Paid Lead Generation: After prospects enter their search query, they get a list of companies that have the potential to satisfy their needs. The more relevant their query is, the better results they get. When buying keywords on Google, if your keywords match the intent of the buyer, your click rates will be better, and you will get more qualified inquiries to your firm.

Ad: LinkedIn: A compelling profile headline, telling people what you do with relevant keywords that prospects use to find people like you will get you more clicks to your profile, and more connection acceptances. Paid Lead Generation: If you have a compelling value proposition, and a strong call-to-action, your ad will generate more clicks, and you’ll receive increased conversions.

Click: LinkedIn: As prospects click to your profile, they are scanning your summary, background, and other profile information to make a determination whether to become a connection. Your profile needed to be written like a landing page, designed for convincing and converting. As a social seller, this is the first impression of you and your firm, before they visit websites. Prove that you are a valuable connection to a prospect. Paid Lead Generation. Prospects click to landing pages designed for lead capture. Offers, benefits, and proof points must be easily understood. A properly designed and well-written landing page can make all the difference in the world in email capture conversion rate. Don’t lose the audience; convince them instead- reassure them.

Convert: LinkedIn: If you reach out to enough prospects with a tailored and non-threatening connection request, your LinkedIn connection conversion rate will increase. If your follow up messaging is helpful, and even if you include a compelling offer with proof points in your messaging, your message-to-lead conversion will increase. And, don’t be afraid to offer something free on your profile page. Paid Lead Generation: A problem solving content asset, a free offer, or whatever you have that is so valuable that a prospect will indeed be curious enough to offer an email address, is what will capture conversions on your landing pages. Testing is important here.



With both LinkedIn and paid search, the objectives are eerily similar, even though the mediums work so differently. Our goal with any marketing or social selling endeavor:
• Attract • Convince • Convert • Then Close
Think of conversions when you engage on LinkedIn; that’s a key metric when identifying your results with social media lead generation. Agree?

One of the most powerful, and proven business strategies of all time is the system of networking and building relationships.

Building and maintaining a successful business is not something that can be done alone. There are many different elements that have to come together when growing a business, and those different elements will require you to seek outside help most of the time.


Networking also becomes of major importance when you want to generate new business. In order for people to buy your service or products, they first need to know they exist.
By building a strong and diverse network you make it more likely for people who may need to use your service to be able to find you.

If people who are within your network have actually used your company or service before, they may even recommend you to the people in their network, thus giving you a potential for new customers.

Networking Online

Our business generation is extremely lucky in that we have the Internet to aid us in our networking campaigns. We now have access to potential colleagues and customers from all over the world, and all just a mouse click away.
There are some very good websites that are designed specifically for bringing business professionals together in the name of networking. The biggest, best and most successful is LinkedIn.

What is LinkedIn?

Although primarily LinkedIn is a business-networking site, it is actually much more than that. There is a search function that can help you reconnect with old friends or colleagues that may have moved on.
If you are looking for new business then you can advertise your service within your profile, so that anyone who happens to be looking for your type of service can find you.

Lastly there is a great question and answer section that allows you to ask a specific business question. Fellow professionals who wish to pass on advice and help will then answer that question. This part of LinkedIn alone is a hidden goldmine because you could brand yourself as the expert in your niche.
This feature has been responsible for the birth of many successful partnerships.

Get Involved or Get Left Behind

I don’t think anyone can really put together a valid argument against the importance of networking as part of your marketing strategy.  A little over two years ago I stated otherwise, but I swallow the humble pill right here, right now, because back then I was burned out, and overwhelmed with the sheer amount of social networking sites.

Today, most people who are researching a business, or looking for a specific type of professional will be looking for them online. That is why your business can no longer get away with ignoring sites such as  

LinkedIn.
If your business does not have a profile, you can bet that some of your strongest and most dangerous competitors will.

As the online community gravitates even more toward social and business networking, it will soon become impossible to do business successfully without some form of networking strategy.

LinkedIn makes the whole process easy, even if you have little or no experience building a profile online. Millions of people are using the site to actively network with fellow professionals. Are you?