No matter what size of organisation we work for, a local market is going to be important to us. Our individual versions of “local” will vary of course – it may be a town, a county or even a whole country, but it is our home market and one that needs to be considered. For many smaller organisations, it can often be their only market or, at the very least, the mainstay of their business and hence a key area to nurture and develop.
With LinkedIn, perhaps more so than any of the other major social networks whose scope are after all global in nature, we have the chance to tap directly into our local marketplace, so it’s important to make sure we know how to use the tools at our disposal to do just that. Making ourselves visible and easy to refer is one half of the equation, the other is to use the facilities on LinkedIn to proactively identify, approach and market to this key group of people.
Here are 10 ways in which we can use LinkedIn to do just that:
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Most 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 
Keyword 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.
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There’s long been an (often) animated debate as to the “right” way to approach networking and particularly to building your network.
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