Social media marketing is one of the best ways to connect with clientele, but it is also one of the most efficient means to network professionally as well. LinkedIn continues to be a premier social networking platform and is constantly expanding the members that make up their professional network. Of course, there are tips to get started with LinkedIn; this article is more meant for people (and businesses) that are looking to take their LinkedIn experience to the next level. Here are 5 advanced techniques to leverage your LinkedIn membership:

Consistent, Frequent, & Quality Status Updates

While this is a piece involved with the basics of LinkedIn, I want to emphasize the consistency, frequency, and quality of content for updating your status. First, make sure that when you post your status updates that you maintain a planned marketing campaign. In other words, you are not just updating randomly, but you are sending out news on a regular (timely) basis. This doesn’t have to be every hour, but I like to say once every 3 to 4 hours is good. If you want to do more then, by all means, go right ahead!  As a quick tip for those of you that want to step up even more, most of your audience will not be able to read each of your updates — if you post outstanding content and you want to make sure it gets read then repost that update a few hours after the original update.

With regard to the consistency of the posting, remember that you are establishing your reputation to help the audience reading your updates. Your be-all and end-all goal is to improve their quality of life. So, if you take a (business) day off from updating your status then you are showing that you truly do not care about your network. This is taking it to an extreme, yes, but a lot of people rely on the things that you do (whether you want to believe it or not). Be consistent and maintain your consistency.

Finally, take your status updates to the next level avoid fluff publications. These are shorter posts, but they need to be high-quality and meant to help your audience. Keep in mind that your updates are streamed to your connections, and quality content is key to build an online reputation. Include content that will inspire your audience to comment on your updates, share your status updates, or visit your website to find out more about you.

Optimize Your Summaries

Take every opportunity possible to deliver the highest quality of information to people visiting your profile. Yes, it’s important to optimize the content for search engines, but think about writing a content-rich description with as few “filler” words as possible. Each summary should take around 30 seconds to read. It should be developed with a conscious effort to outline your (and your company’s) benefits. In other words, why are you the best in your industry?  Be sure that you don’t spam them with products/services, but flood them with features (how will doing business with you improve their quality of life).

Avoid Generic Site Titles

This is one of the best options through LinkedIn, and it is one of the ways that I can truly tell if someone wants to make the most out of their LinkedIn profile. We have shared with you how to cook up a great blog title, and this is the perfect opportunity for you to utilize that information. While the sites that you can list are not necessarily blog posts, they are titles. The title of the site shouldn’t be your generic company name, or the default “My Website” text. Instead, use a title that will seduce visitors into clicking on the link.

Personalize Your Requests and E-Mails

I love getting LinkedIn connection requests. However, what I don’t care for is the default message that I get in almost every single one of them: ” I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn”. Instead of just sending a request, take a few quick seconds and remind the future connection of where you met, how the conversation that you had went, what you do related to their field, or just a general message saying hello if you speak to the person regularely. The same holds true when you would like one of your connections to introduce you to one of their connections. Don’t just ask your connection to introduce you. Instead, outline why their connection would want to connect with you, what can you do to benefit their connection, and how can you improve your connection’s reputation throughout the networking process. Overall, it’s always a better idea to personalize everything you do on LinkedIn as it provides you and your audience with a better experience.

Create a Group, an Event, and Continue Discussions

The bottom line here is to utilize the full features of the LinkedIn platform. Take advantage of the tremendous professional network and create a group that emphasizes your industry. However, make sure you keep up with the group and direct conversations towards benefits and not products/services. Join a group and start to take a leadership role within that community. Create a networking event for professionals in your area, or create an online (free) training seminar for the LinkedIn community (and publicize it frequently). Lastly, just continue talking and networking. One of my mentors in the social media world has a key statement that if you can talk you can network. So…talk!

LinkedIn can truly be a great source of professional networking, but it can also be an outstanding source of business due to that same social networking. In order to take full advantage of your LinkedIn experence, it’s important for you to utilize advanced strategies like: quality of your status updates, content of your summaries, personalized site titles, customized e-mails and requests, and utilizing the LinkedIn features provided by the site. We are consistently trying to improve what you do online so please feel free to leave comments below or reply on on Twitter (@IMPACTbnd).

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