Category Archives: LinkedIn Strategy

LinkedIn Tip: Saved searches save you time

June 25, 2012 by

LinkedIn Tips and AdviceHere’s a quick way to keep up to date with any new people who fit certain profiles you’re interested in, without lifting a finger. Essentially, new business prospects delivered to your inbox every week … automatically. Sounds interesting? Then read on …

When I’m using LinkedIn for targeted business development, perhaps the key element I use is the advanced search function – being able to target the type of person I’m looking to approach using a combination of job title, company, location, industry or any of the other filters that LinkedIn offers is an absolute godsend. That’s also why it always takes up an important slot in the “LinkedIn for Sales” workshops that I run.

Anyway, once I have my targeted search in place (more…)

Article Categories: LinkedIn Advice, LinkedIn Strategy, LinkedIn Tips, Using LinkedIn
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LinkedIn Tip: Planning makes perfect

May 2, 2012 by

LinkedIn Tips and AdviceHaving hesitated for a while about adding a LinkedIn tip which has the word “Planning” in the title – it does seem to scare people – I’ve decided to finally take the plunge, although I haven’t quite plucked up the courage to add one with “Strategy” in just yet. :)

However, planning is hugely important because, like all of the social media channels, LinkedIn is essentially a tool for you to use in the way that best suits your needs. I am constantly reminded of this when I see people advise newly joined members of LinkedIn to first of all get their profile up to date. Hugely important I agree … but a close second after first deciding why you want to be on LinkedIn and what you want to get from the time you’ll be spending on it.

It’s therefore key to work out from the start what (more…)

Article Categories: LinkedIn Advice, LinkedIn Strategy, LinkedIn Tips, Using LinkedIn
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Get your Business Card contacts onto LinkedIn

February 17, 2012 by

LinkedIn Business CardI seem to accumulate piles of them. Many sit sadly on my desk or in drawers gathering dust, unused yet only occasionally unwanted. Finally, when I do manage to file them, they are replaced by a new set after the next show, exhibition or networking event, often to suffer the same fate.

I am of course talking about business cards.

I’ve always known that I really ought to get more organised and productive with them, perhaps sorting and filing them by level of interest or speciality or even by event.
The trouble is that it would be impossible to manually keep in contact and up to date with what they are doing even for a consummately organised networker – and I’m really not one of those.

So, to be brutally honest, in the vast majority of cases they are stored away for a rainy day only to be forgotten about or, when I do think “Yes, I remember talking to someone who did that!”, all too often I find the details are no longer accurate anyway.

No longer the case. LinkedIn to the rescue. (more…)

Article Categories: B2B Advice for LinkedIn, LinkedIn Strategy, Networking supercharged
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LinkedIn Tip: Get your Current Roles in Order

November 21, 2011 by

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.
(more…)

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

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

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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