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Guide to LinkedIn

LinkedIn is more than a social media platform. It is a place for businesses to connect. It is the largest professional network where businesses can promote themselves and build relationships.

The Power of LinkedIn for Business

As the most useful social network for businesses and professionals, LinkedIn is powerful for connecting with former coworkers, old classmates and potential clients. But the real power comes from the lead generation, market research and global marketing that comes from this tool.

By increasing your participation on the network by as little as 30 minutes a day you can get more out of your LinkedIn account. Begin by focusing on specific areas, such as expanding your network, promoting your business or publishing content around your expertise and passion, and to build followers.

For example, as an owner of a floral shop, you spend 30 minutes publishing a short article about the different flowers available during a certain season and how this can save the consumer money. This article showcases your expertise on the floral industry. This, in turn, brings in potential affiliates, partnerships and builds your network among the commerce community.

LinkedIn’s power lies in its networking power. It works the same way on this site as it would in real life.

Leads and tips are created organically with networking connections. The social media site provides businesses and professionals with the opportunity to grow their reach and join or “link to” a wide community of other professionals in a vast array of fields.

You can use the LinkedIn platform to:

• Connect with and join groups
• Gather information
• Find events happening in your area
• Share your own content
• Add your own professional expertise to a conversation

Everyone on LinkedIn is there for the same reason: to create and build their business network.

How to Grow Your Following

You have a LinkedIn account, so now you need to grow your following (and keep them dedicated). LinkedIn is a large platform of businesses to network with. People will follow those they know, admire, are recommended to them and people they find engaging. To grow your followers, you need to create an engaging profile summary, connect with people you know and write informative or entertaining articles, among other things.

Grow your following by implementing some of these suggestions…

Create an optimized profile with relevant keywords, company profile picture and a background photo. People like to see who they are doing business with. Your profile needs to highlight your professional story. Describe why followers should trust you and your company.

Completely fill out your company profile including:

• Your Logo
• Company description
• Website URL
• Company size
• Industry
• Company type
• Location

Ask your employees to join LinkedIn, listing your business as their place of employment. Their friends and associates will see your link and often follow you.

Follow your current clients and business associates. They will likely follow you in return. Ask existing and potential clients to connect with you on LinkedIn. Adding a personal note when you click connect can remind them of how you met or show them the value your business offers.

Create a LinkedIn company page that showcases your company’s unique story that includes its history, mission and culture.

Add your LinkedIn Follow button to your website, blog and newsletter.

Create showcase pages specifically to draw customers to individual pages for different products, services or events.

Add your LinkedIn link to your email signature. Email is still one of the best ways to connect with your customers. Having your LinkedIn link in front of them when they read your newsletter encourages them to click through and follow you.

Create and follow a consistent posting schedule of good content.

Invite your current followers on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter to follow your LinkedIn Page.

Send personalized invitations to people you want to connect with. Replace the default invitation LinkedIn provides with one that is personalized. It shows them you are actually a valuable professional connection.

How to Engage Your Following to Grow Your Business

Now that you have those followers, you want them to engage with you. Engagement is one of the main reasons businesses are on social media. Providing engaging content that’s entertaining or inspiring is one way. Here are several other ways.

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Essential List Building Guide

Building a prospective customer list is one of the most important business activities every entrepreneur should make a priority. As soon as they launch their business, they should start to grow their list, and then try to grow that list a little every day or week in a number of ways.

The benefits of list building

List building is important because it gives you the chance to get to know your prospects better, and for them to get to know you. One of the most common mistakes business owners make these days is in focusing more on social media marketing than on email marketing list building. They’ve heard, “Email is dead,” and so they don’t spend the time on list building that they should.

Nothing could be further from the truth. People still spend about 2 minutes of every 5 on their Smartphones reading and acting upon emails.

Email list building opens the door to more effective relationship building than you could ever manage on something as fleeting as a social media post. Once they are on your list, you can send them helpful content that will hopefully be so useful, they will look forward to reading more and perhaps even pass the emails along to others.

Money-making opportunities

You can also earn money from every email if you provide a link to one of your products or services. The topic of the email can provide a logical context for the link and the product, such as, “If you would like to learn more, visit URL.”

Studies have shown that a prospect is around 75% more likely to buy a product that they have received an email about, rather than if they only see it online or at one of the popular social networks.

You can also send out promotional emails about a specific product, and/or a special deal you are offering. It could be a special seasonal sale, or a new product launch. Treating the people on your list as special is one of the best ways to keep them on your list, and one of the best ways to make them feel special is by offering them insider pricing. The deals should be so good, they would feel silly to pass them up, and might even be so excited, they share the deal with others.

Getting them on the list

In the early days of email marketing list building, offering a newsletter was enough. These days, it can be a harder sell. Now most people will expect a high-quality incentive to get them to part with their valuable email address.

The two best incentives for building your list are a free download such as an ebook or special report, or an ecourse of several lessons, such as 5 or 7. Both will work well provided the incentive focuses on a hot topic in your niche or industry. Think of some of the most common things people have trouble with in your niche. Also review your product line to see which would be the best ones to link to in order to make a sale once they signed up.

An ecourse is a better option for 2 reasons. The first is that the would-be prospect might register, grab the download, and then unsubscribe. The second is that the more emails in an ecourse, the more points of contact and chance to build a relationship, show what you have to offer, and perhaps even make sales.

The steps for setting up your list are:

1. Register with an email marketing platform.

MailChimp and Aweber are two popular choices. MailChimp is free up to the first 2,500 subscribers on your list. Aweber is a paid service that runs at about $20 per month. It is pretty much the industry standard for small online businesses and offers a range of attractive templates and a step-by-step process for setting up each new list.

2. Create your incentive. It can be just about anything; report, checklist, ecourse, etc. But it must be informative, inspiring and valuable in your readers eye.

3. Organize your promotional links. These include links for each product you are planning to sell within the context of each email. Any resources (free or paid) you plan to discuss in your emails. Any affiliate links you may be adding to your emails and so forth.

4. Create a new list in your email marketing platform. Follow the instructions given by the service provider you choose to go with.

5. Create or edit the confirmation email. This email will be automatically sent when potential subscribers sign up. They will be asked to click the link in the email to confirm they really do want to be on the list. This is known as a double-opt in and helps avoid accusations that you are a spammer.

6. Create the confirmation page. This is where new subscribers will be redirected to once they confirm they want to join your list. It should thank them for signing up. It might tell them to check their inbox for further information. It might contain a download link or other information that they may need to know.

7. Create the welcome email for the list. This will be in the Follow Up or Autoresponder messages area and will:

a. Thank them again for joining.
b. If you are offering an ecourse, introduce it and start your first lesson.
c. If you are giving a free download, give the link here.
d. If you are offering a download, create the page where they can get it and use that email in Step 7a.

8. Create the sign-up form they will use to subscribe. You will need a minimum of their first name and email address. You might wish to ask them for their last name or other details you require. Short and simple works best though.

9. Paste the sign-up form code into your website page. Add details about the incentive, paste the form code in, and save. Then publish to your site and start driving traffic to that page, which is known as a squeeze page because you are squeezing the information from them.

10. Upload follow up messages to your autoresponder. These might be additional lessons, if you're offering an ecourse. It might be follow-up emails to try to sell subscribers your products or services.