Category Archives: LinkedIn Strategy

LinkedIn Tip: Get your Current Roles in Order

November 21, 2011 by Mark White, LinkedIn trainer

LinkedIn current roles - how to reorder themMost of us wear more than one hat in business and on LinkedIn, we reflect this by having a number of “Current” roles on our profile. This might also include membership of business organisations, networking groups, non exec positions etc. or we may simply be using it as part of our LinkedIn Profile optimisation and hence splitting out the roles we have to help push us towards the top of the search results in LinkedIn.

Whatever our reasons, we almost certainly have one which we particularly want to be known for and which should appear at the top and then a preferred order for the others to appear. Previously on LinkedIn, we could only change that order by ‘playing’ with the start dates, as the roles were ordered purely on the basis of the start date for each role.

That is no longer the case.
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Article Categories: LinkedIn Advice, LinkedIn Site Changes, LinkedIn Strategy, LinkedIn Tips
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How Keyword Research helps on LinkedIn

October 16, 2011 by Mark White, LinkedIn trainer

LinkedIn Search - Keyword Research - SEOKeyword research forms the basis of every type of online marketing activity from Search Engines to pay Per click, email marketing and, of course, the elements of social networking and social search that we are interested in here. The keywords, and most commonly keyword phrases, that result from this research dictate to a large degree how we get found and whether we are getting found for the right things or not.

How you use the keyword phrases is important but finding the right ones is critical or else all the time that you spend using them after that point will be time wasted. If you are focusing your attention on being found for one phrase but your prospective clients are using a totally different one as they search for potential suppliers then we have a mismatch – and unfortunately you are going to be the loser in this.

Why bother with LinkedIn?

When we search for people to connect with on LinkedIn, we tend to do so for a variety of different reasons. Two of the main ones are that we are looking for (more…)

Article Categories: Businesses using LinkedIn, LinkedIn Advice, LinkedIn Strategy, LinkedIn Tips, Optimise your Profile
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Quality versus quantity in your LinkedIn network

August 30, 2011 by Mark White, LinkedIn trainer

Quantity versus QualityThere’s long been an (often) animated debate as to the “right” way to approach networking and particularly to building your network.

In the red corner: there are advocates of a quality based approach where you only connect with people you either know well or who are directly relevant to you and what you do;

In the blue corner: over here, the watchword is ‘quantity’ and so the aim is to connect with all and sundry and rely on the idea of serendipity, that’s to say that these people are bound to know someone (who knows someone) who will be interested in what you do or offer.

LinkedIn of course supports both approaches and seemingly takes no sides in this.

However, there is a caveat to this because of the way that LinkedIn structures and displays its search results, which may influence your thoughts on this. This is particularly relevant if you are looking at this as a (new) business development tool (more…)

Article Categories: B2B Advice for LinkedIn, LinkedIn Advice, LinkedIn Strategy, Using LinkedIn
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Using LinkedIn to listen

July 28, 2011 by Mark White, LinkedIn trainer

Listen on LinkedInA lot of what people do on LinkedIn is talk – they share their own information (or other people’s), publicise what they are doing, demonstrate their expertise etc. And that’s great, because LinkedIn has a number of great tools which allow you to do just that and, hopefully, you will have chosen topics that your network wants to hear about.

However, there’s the other side of networking … and of business … and that is listening. LinkedIn is also really good at that too. So, as you might imagine, there are also a number of different tools and places on LinkedIn which provide great ways for you to do just that.

Why listen?

Listening is really important – the much touted adage of (more…)

Article Categories: Groups on LinkedIn, LinkedIn Advice, LinkedIn Strategy, LinkedIn Tips, Using LinkedIn
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What is Openlink on LinkedIn?

June 24, 2011 by Mark White, LinkedIn trainer

Openlink - LinkedIn Openlink NetworkYou may have seen a much smaller version of the symbol to the right on some people’s profiles next to their name and, generally, next to a Premium account symbol too. While it’s not that obvious, what it signifies is that the member is part of the OpenLink network on LinkedIn.

OpenLink is something that is available exclusively to Premium account holders and indeed, in my opinion, is a key benefit of these paid for business accounts. Essentially, it lets people who are members to find and get in contact with other professionals who are interested in meeting new people. It also opens up the ability for anyone to contact you and makes certain that anyone can see your full details in the search results, whether the searcher is part of your network or not. Let me explain …

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Article Categories: Businesses using LinkedIn, LinkedIn Strategy, Networking supercharged, Using LinkedIn
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Are you James Bond on LinkedIn?

April 2, 2011 by Mark White, LinkedIn trainer

LinkedIn Anonymous userA question for you.

As you use LinkedIn and look at the profiles of other members, do you consider yourself more like:

a) James Bond on a covert mission to infiltrate enemy lines and weed out enemy spies where stealth and secrecy is paramount and anonymity is your watchword ; or

b) A business networker happy to let people know that you’ve found something of interest on their profile?

While I can see a certain attraction in the James Bond option, I’m not sure that I could quite live up to the billing. So for me, I’m happy for people to see that I have visited their profile – in fact, on a number of occasions, I’ve had people check my profile out in return and then contacted me. Invariably, we have connected up as a result.

There are others, however, who feel more comfortable (more…)

Article Categories: LinkedIn Strategy, Q & A on LinkedIn, Using LinkedIn
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