How to make the most of LinkedIn CIM Spring Marketing Mashup

How to make the most of LinkedIn
CIM Spring Marketing Mashup
Rob Hurst
April 2013
What we do
Omobono is the
digital agency for
business brands.
We help complex,
global businesses
manage their
digital presence
both internally
and externally –
with customers,
employees and
stakeholders.
What’s your goal?
•
Looking for a job
•
Increased notoriety
•
Want to stay in touch with industry
news
•
Curious what colleagues are working
on
•
Thinking about a new job
•
Want to look good in front of clients
•
Want to keep tabs on ‘the competition’
•
Want to look good in front of your peers
•
Don’t really know…
•
Have I missed something?
We all want to be ‘Influencers’ (I think)
Make your profile public
Or at least your status updates - What
have you really got to hide?
What are you going to say?
What’s your personal ‘brand’ going to be
about? One topic, or many? Regularly or
occasionally?
Staying on top of it
Understand the implications of contributing
‘content’ – you need to keep posting.
Market yourself
Set your own KPIs
• Appearances in search
• Keywords causing you to appear in
search
• Views of your profile
• ‘Likes’ of your posts
• Traffic to other sites from LinkedIn.
• Clicks on your links
Recommendations vs. endorsements
Both are valuable, but one is much harder
to get than the other…
Who has been looking at your profile?
And who hasn’t? Why not go and look at
them?
InMails
These can be a great way to contact
people – LinkedIn guarantee this, in fact.
SEO – for yourself
Everything has a purpose
LinkedIn is always trying to get you to
‘improve your profile’ for a reason - Even if
we don’t know what it is yet.
Google pulls the same tricks
Google + is already starting to show
importance in search.
How are people finding you?
Gold/Pro membership helps you
understand the keywords that are bringing
people to your profile. Think about the
terms you want people to find you for and
optimise your profile to incorporate these
terms.
Groups
What groups should you join?
You can search for groups based on
popularity and popularity amongst your
network. Look at the group stats – is there
a lot happening?
Who’s in your groups?
Groups now have ‘top influencers’ – those
contributing the ‘best’ (and most) content
to the groups. Becoming a top influencer
is a great way to increase visibility.
What’s happening in your groups?
You can ‘follow’ almost anything on
LinkedIn, but tracking the top influencers
in a group and new and existing
discussions within groups will help you
stay on top of things.
Think about what you’re saying
Jargon doesn’t help your cause
People want your opinion because you
can help them make sense of things they
can’t.
‘Projects’
Another good way to tell people about
what you’re doing and what you’ve done in
the past.
Be consistent & helpful
What do you want to sound like?
Put your content on third-party
platforms
Platforms such as Slideshare, Scribd,
Prezi, YouTube, Vimeo and more will soon
be embeddable on your profiles (Trust me,
I’m part of a ‘limited roll out’).
Say what you like
This is your opportunity to speak as you’d
like to be heard – no one can hear you.
Who to be online
‘LinkedIn is “just for work stuff”…’
Most of us have more than one web
presence nowadays – this means we need
to be careful about how we manage these
different presences.
Remember that usernames carry – both
for you and others.
Look at your LinkedIn page and chances
are that you’ve chosen a profile URL
(www.linkedin.com/in/username)
The majority of people don’t think twice
about this, and just use the same thing as
they do on every other site. If you’ve done
this and you’re trying to separate those
accounts from your professional presence,
you’ve just failed.
Automate your life
LinkedIn, but somewhere else – RSS
Feeds
You can have some ‘updates’ delivered via
RSS, allowing you to read them in
whatever application you prefer.
Email notifications
They drive some people mad, but if you do
all your work from your inbox, they might
be a real time saver for you.
Think back to your ‘reasons’ – looking
to stay on top of industry news and
affairs? There are email digests for that
too…
IFTTT.com – If this, then that.
This website is your new best friend. I use
it to post status updates for me, based on
various trigger actions.
Automate your life
Update everyone at once - Hootsuite
You can post updates across all your
social networks from one place - you can
even schedule posts for later.
When there aren’t enough hours in the
working day – take things home
Instapaper & Pocket are applications that
allow you to send a piece of content
somewhere to read later, when you have
time – you can even send content to your
Kindle or create print-friendly versions, if
you’re so inclined.
Do things while they’re fresh in your
mind
This is good advice full stop, so why not
employ it elsewhere and ask colleagues
and clients for recommendations as you
finish projects, people will be more likely to
endorse you for something while they can
still remember what it was! Obviously offer
to recommend them in return too…