LinkedIn is a unique business-oriented social network. In fact, even describing LinkedIn as a social network may be inapt. It’s a professional network, as has it always has been since inception. LinkedIn is meant to attract exclusive businesses and self-employed individuals.
LinkedIn is not where you share amusing videos intended to entertain. It is also too impersonal a platform for organizing parties, creating profiles for your favorite pets or wishing someone a happy birthday.
LinkedIn is the professional network for professional people to know one another. As a member of LinkedIn, you represent a particular profession. If you are a social media marketing professional and blogger, then those are obviously the professions around which you are supposed to build your profile and make connections on LinkedIn.
Through LinkedIn, you can make connections to peers in your field and all those engaged in associated industries.
Whereas Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, Instagram, Vine and other social sites may be described as networks for developing friends and enlarging contacts, LinkedIn is the premier social network that you should turn to for lead generation, boosting sales, etc.
Since LinkedIn is too much of a niche environment, the social media strategy that you use for the likes of Facebook and Twitter will just not work in the most professional realms of LinkedIn marketing.
Those amusing posts that attract many on Facebook will be a damp squib on LinkedIn. This means your content and your strategy have to be different for LinkedIn.
There are a plethora of blog posts available on the internet that give you a good starting point to make your presence felt on LinkedIn. For your LinkedIn page to be taken seriously by your fellow professionals and prospects, then you will need to do a few things exclusively.
Firstly, craft a very impactful company page on LinkedIn. This page you ought to be treated nearly as if it were your prime website itself.
Since LinkedIn is a professional social network, you can create it as elaborated as you can, a complete list of all of your products/services, and a list of job opportunities. Thereafter invite all your employees as well as your customers and related industry professionals to follow your page.
Make it a point to create a LinkedIn Group to share and discuss topics specifically associated with your business. Check that you select an acceptable name for the group. Use keywords in the title as also in the group’s description to attract as many relevant people as possible.
Now all you’ve got to try and do is make sure that you lead your group, and all feel your importance. Being a professional network for professional people, create serious, informative, intelligent, well-researched, and provocative articles on LinkedIn and ignite some enlightening debate in your LinkedIn group.
Content on LinkedIn should be aimed at nurturing key professional relationships, which will benefit your future business deals.