Business Social Media: Maximizing LinkedIn

LinkedIn can be a powerful tool for prospecting and increasing your marketing reach.  Most people are only using a small portion of the capabilities offered for free as part of a basic LinkedIn membership.  I strongly believe that Social Media and in particular, LinkedIn should be a standard part of a Multi-Channel Marketing effort.  Its a great way to stay connected with business contacts and find opportunities for new relationships. The article below has 7 Ways to Get the Most Out of LinkedIn.  Here’s the first tip, the others can be found at the link at the bottom of the page. ~Rob

PS.  Here is a link to my LinkedIn profile.  Click to Connect!

– – – – – – – – – – – <Article Exceprt> – – – – – – – – – – – By Brian Carter @ SocialMedia Examiner Does your company sell to other businesses? Are you looking for leads? There’s likely more new business for you on LinkedIn than you’re currently tapping. LinkedIn now boasts 161 million members, including executives from each of the Fortune 500. No matter the job title of your best prospects, you can find them on LinkedIn. Here are seven ways to find new customers with LinkedIn.

#1: Develop Connections and Meet Second-Degree Connections

The people you’ve connected to directly on LinkedIn are called first-degree connections. This is your immediate network. You can increase your network by clicking on “Add Connections” and giving LinkedIn temporary access to your email or by pasting your emails in.   Below is an example of how your LinkedIn network can help your business: Bill Waterhouse, a regional director for Technical Innovation, was the first person in the company to use LinkedIn. It paid off almost immediately. Shortly after using his email contact database to grow LinkedIn connections, he was messaged on LinkedIn by someone he’d tried—and failed—to prospect before. The person invited his response to a new RFP (request for proposal), which led to a $450,000 contract. Bill was only considered because he popped up on LinkedIn. One employee simply joining LinkedIn was a half-million-dollar payday for his company. The warmer your first-degree connections are, the more you can do with them. Here are some ways to progressively improve your LinkedIn connections:

• Message them whenever you can (but don’t waste their time)
• Ask them an expertise-request question via InMail
• Create a LinkedIn Answers question and direct it to a number of the first-degree connections you want to develop relationships with
• Connect with them and interact with them on Twitter
• Meet up with them in person for lunch, coffee or drinks
• Get close enough to friend them on Facebook

The people connected to your first-degree connections are your second-degree connections. For example, you may have a coworker in human resources who is your first-degree connection on LinkedIn, and he or she has a first-degree connection that might make a good prospect. But because you have not directly connected with that prospect on LinkedIn, that person is a second-degree connection to you. After you warm up first-degree connections, you can turn their second-degree connections into first-degree connections via introductions, or simply by emailing or phoning them and mentioning the first-degree connection. Tip: You can get many people’s emails from Data.com.  > > > Read the Next 6 Tips Here > > >