SocialF5: Corporate Blog

When it comes to making a social media presence, many would vote for Twitter and Facebook, rather than LinkedIn, which is, in fact, purely a professional’s platform. This is probably because people can interact and connect well on platforms like Twitter and Facebook, while in LinkedIn the only way to communicate is via emails.

However, social media strategists have something different to say. According to them, the deeper relationships, which are encouraged by Facebook and Twitter, have often become hindrance for making business opportunities on these platforms. On the contrary, LinkedIn is designed as a core business platform, where you can forget about your personal relationships and exist only as a professional. This piece of trivia definitely gives LinkedIn a much-needed facelift.

To do it, you need to make a professional LinkedIn Profile with a picture. If you are done with your LinkedIn Profile Summery, we can start with some tips to welcome leads to your business via LinkedIn.

Networking at LinkedIn: LinkedIn is a permission-based social platform, where you need to seek permission from a person to connect with him/her. You can first start with people, you know personally like your friends and colleagues (1st degree connections). Next, look for Outlook contacts (1st degree connections). To check who all are there in your Outlook list, you can install Integrate LinkedIn With Outlook or LinkedIn Outlook Toolbar through social connector. After that, you can look into your friends’ contact lists to check if you want to get connected with any of your friend’s friend. If yes, try to connect with them through 2nd degree and 3rd degree connections. You can ask them for a brief introduction before connecting. Joining LinkedIn groups is another way to make your network. You can search for groups with specific keywords such as “Kolkata IT Professionals” to connect with the group members. There are two types of groups in LinkedIn: Open and Closed. You can search the open groups to take a tour through it, however, closed groups allow you join them blindly.

Share with your contacts: Update your LinkedIn connections with your current status. For example, if you have read an interacting article on PHP development, share it with your LinkedIn Group. This will show your commitment as a professional for your domain and industry.

Write and get LinkedIn Recommendations: Your LinkedIn recommendations reflect that you are respected and trusted by your colleagues and seniors. Asking for recommendations sounds little pushy. Instead what you can do is write a recommendation for your senior/colleague and then ask him/her to endorse you.

Making Referrals: LinkedIn connections should be used as a team, from where you can get business referrals and at the same time, can refer to them. For example, if you are searching for an organization, which can take care of your next big outsourcing project, you can refer to a business house in your network, since you are aware of their professional performances.

Linking in LinkedIn: You should link your blog, presentations, webinars, and ebooks with your LinkedIn profile so that your professional connections can take a look at your work. This is a self-promotional stair, from where you can get loads of comments, views, and ratings from your professional contacts.

LinkedIn Questions/Answer: LinkedIn Questions/Answer is a segment, where you can prove your credibility in a different way. You not only can boost your expertise on your domain, but also can use this platform as a learning tool. You can subscribe to RSS Feeds to a selective set of categories to take a quick look of all questions and dive to answer the questions quickly. This way, you can get your name appear first in an array.

LinkedIn is all about making an effective network without spamming. Join in group discussion, answer the questions, share useful articles, update your profile frequently, and increase your chances to become a valued LinkedIn user. As you will grow with your network, people will show interest to get connected with you, refer to you, or hire you.

 

 

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