Get linked up to your Company Page

One of the things that I always check for when getting ready for a training session are the profiles of the people who will be attending – I look at a number of elements that we can then look at during the session. Most of which are very much outward facing and designed to communicate with their desired audience, the readers of their profile page.

There is one element, however, that is very simple yet also impactful that I check and that is whether they are successfully connected to their Company Page.

Connecting to the Company page may sound natural but it is in fact something in most cases that you have to actively do. LinkedIn did used to try to connect you automatically but there were so many mismatches that they no longer bother, so we have to.

Why connect?

There are a number of reasons why you might want to do so. Continue reading

Article Categories: B2B Advice for LinkedIn, Business Development on LinkedIn, Company Pages, LinkedIn Company Pages
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Getting the most from LinkedIn in 2019

While it is the start of the year, it’s true – oh, and Happy New Year by the way! – checking and confirming that we are using LinkedIn in a focused and targeted way is something that we should ideally be doing on a continual basis.

Sounds all a bit harsh, but if we are doing to get the best return on the time that we put into our time on LinkedIn, then it’s important that we have all of the elements working together for us.

So, almost without further ado, here’s a few things to bear in mind as you do so:

1) Be clear what you want to achieve on LinkedIn

This, for me, underpins everything else. I consider LinkedIn to be a tool to achieve a goal, not a “place to hang out” – though there are clearly benefits in interacting with your target audience on here.

Nevertheless, most of us are using LinkedIn to achieve something and have our “day jobs” to fit in as well – therefore, we need to clear in our own minds what are our goals for being on LinkedIn – effectively, why are we spending time on there in the first place?

It might be to develop new business, recruit new staff, market your company or services, find a new role or simply network and use it as a personal branding opportunity. Whatever it is, make sure that you are clear about your aims and focus your efforts behind that – without an objective, you will in all probability be wasting your time on LinkedIn. Continue reading

Article Categories: Advanced LinkedIn, B2B Advice for LinkedIn, Business Development on LinkedIn, Content Marketing, LinkedIn Strategy, Using LinkedIn
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Dress Appropriately – LinkedIn Advent Calendar (Day 2)



In the real world, when we meet someone face to face but before we have the opportunity to speak, they are already starting to build a mental image and first impression of us. They create a back story, imagine what we sound like and even how the conversation would start. It’s instant, it’s automatic & it’s based on what they see.

The same thing happens on LinkedIn … except there, all of this is conjured up by and based on our Profile.

In particular, the top part of our Profile – the Introduction Card – serves exactly that purpose and creates this first impression. Above all, it has two very visual parts that we need to use to influence and, to an extent, direct that first impression.

Those elements are the banner & our photo.

Let’s take the banner first. This is “prime real estate” Continue reading

Article Categories: LinkedIn Advice, LinkedIn Tips, New LinkedIn Profile, Optimise your Profile
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Winning the LinkedIn Glitterball
(or how we are all sometimes like Ashley)

Let me quickly set the scene of my analogy today and identify a couple of the main protagonists. We are talking “Strictly Come Dancing” here – “Dancing with the Stars” for colleagues across the Pond.

As you might imagine, Strictly is ostensiously a dance competition – you dance well, the judges mark you highly, you stay in to dance again the following week, and the person who comes last is voted out of the competition after a dance off.

Except that it isn’t.

Granted, it is partly a dance competition … but it is also part popularity contest. Why so? Because it is not just the well informed judges voting on who stays or goes, but also us, the general “armchair experts” public. And while we do partly judge it on the dancing, we also bestow our voting favours on what we enjoyed and, crucially, on who we like.

And on occasions, it is the mix between these two elements which is crucial. Continue reading

Article Categories: Business Development on LinkedIn, Content Marketing, LinkedIn Strategy, Using LinkedIn
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Using hashtags on LinkedIn

linkedin-hashtagYou may have noticed a resurgence of hashtags on LinkedIn over the past few months and you may also have seen some extra areas popping up around the site as well to help their usage.

It seemed appropriate therefore to have a delve into just how we might use them effectively on LinkedIn, both from a publisher’s perspective and also as a reader / consumer of content.

And if you think “Nah, hashtags aren’t for me” then you might be right but, on the other hand, you might find that there’s some real business use built in and that it’s not all just #hashtaghypebutnotreallyuseful

Using hashtags as an Author / Publisher

So why bother with hashtags when you publish on LinkedIn? As you may have noticed, LinkedIn has started to encourage us to use hashtags every time we post, whether that is an update or an article, giving us some suggested initial selections which are based on your past usage and also on the text you have inserted.


Continue reading

Article Categories: Content Marketing, LinkedIn Marketing, LinkedIn Site Changes, LinkedIn Updates
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Do you want Followers or Connections on LinkedIn?

There was an interesting addition to the site functionality that LinkedIn has just announced and which I spotted a couple of weeks ago in the Settings area. It’s all about the difference between “connecting” with and “following” someone – you see, you can do both (which is the norm) or either (‘follow but not connect’ or ‘connect but not follow’) or neither of course.

Confused? Well, let me help. Continue reading

Article Categories: Advanced LinkedIn, LinkedIn Advice, LinkedIn Updates, Using LinkedIn
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