LinkedIn is a professional networking site focusing primarily on business. It allows one to grow business contacts by enhancing network connections with the people exhibiting similar interests. LinkedIn is basically designed to meet professional needs like - connecting with similar business partners, increasing sales lead rather than simply providing a tool for uploading pictures, sharing multimedia content and making friends.

 

Why LinkedIn

• Allows professional people in a particular field to remain in contact to discuss things and remain updated.
• All of the Fortune 500 companies are listed on LinkedIn.
  
  

Latest LinkedIn Facts (Source: LinkedIn)

• LinkedIn has over 43 million members in over 200 countries and territories around the world
• A new member joins LinkedIn approximately every second, and about half of our members are outside the U.S.
• Executives from all Fortune 500 companies are LinkedIn members.
  
  

Three levels of connections
In contrast to other networking sites where personal details like email, contact info is hidden from you unless you are connected to that person, LinkedIn allows you to grow your connection network exponentially.

1st Level: Friends you are connected to
2nd Level: Friends of friends
3rd Level: Friends of your friend's connections

Advantages of LinkedIn over other Social Networking Sites

• Connects directly with similar businesses and gets traffic to your site
• Marks your presence within your competitive and target business
• Increase your product's visibility by creating a profile that retaliates your professional expertise and experiences

Advantages of LinkedIn over other Social Networking Sites
According to statistics from statbrain, LinkedIn receives an estimated 5,467,394 visits per day. Moreover, the company itself states that it is more mature than Facebook because it values - "business" unlike Facebook, whose main focus is college graduates.




How to promote your business through LinkedIn

Gain visibility: Make a well-framed profile so that people want to connect with you. Remember that connecting with more profiles means easy search of your profile(business). Join business related groups and participate in the discussions. Give suggestions and get recommendations. Giving advice states that you have a professional expertise in your domain. If you have a well-framed profile on LinkedIn, you can get connected to many people and hence promote your product.

Participate in joined groups: Get alive in the joined groups by posting content in those groups, responding to the posts, connecting with different members of the group etc. This will help you make new connections. Join LinkedIn Groups which provide an opportunity to network with people from same background.

Contribute value-oriented content: Actively participate in groups, forums etc. and provide educative content to the users. The people are more likely to remember you for providing them with valuable information and would want to use your services. A business can get going only if it is done in a "smart" manner.

Select relevant keywords for your profile: While updating your profile, use relevant keywords to describe yourself because your LinkedIn profile appears on Google search, hence making your approachability easy.

Get your business known: In order to promote your business, add your blog site to the profile page. Also adding presentations to your profile would help you and your business get introduced in a professional manner.

Add applications to your profile: The best way to get traffic to your blog is by adding up different applications like - "Wordpress" or "BlogLin" that would directly link your blog posts to your LinkedIn profile and make people aware of your knowledge and experiences.

Points to consider when working with LinkedIny

Trust-factor within the network: Social sites like LinkedIn are not only about networking but also deal with trust. It is possible to send mails to people outside your contact(one / two at a time). Your friends, however allow you to send them mails because they trust you. So, always send some value-added mail to them so that they do not feel betrayed.

Show modifications on "update status" rather than "emails": People generally prefer looking at updates (blog posts, events, profile settings etc.) to know about the recent changes inculcated by their friends. Sending email states urgency and sending promotional links to your friends would count you as a marketer and they can block you from their friend's list.

Participate smartly in group discussions: After joining related groups, do not post link of your targeted site abruptly. Start with some meaningful posts that would help others. Create groups to encourage sharing of market-intelligence and increases your web presence.

Give & receive recommendations: We generally read reviews of a movie before watching it. Similarly, people tend to see your past client's experiences before they accept your services. So, ask your friends and trusted companies to give you good recommendations so that people are interested in your services. Give recommendations to your friends too.

Enable feeds for network updates: LinkedIn provides network updates feed that publishes your personal Network updates in RSS format to help you know about your friend's new connections or latest news.