“World’s largest professional network” — LinkedIn and small business

By Monica W. Wamsley

As of January 2012, LinkedIn was adding an average of two new accounts per second, according to The Boston Globe, and closer to the end of 2012, LinkedIn reached 187 million users.

LinkedIn is indexed by major search engines Google and Bing, so all of that SEO stuff you’ve been reading about comes into play with the keywords you use in your LinkedIn information. In fact, LinkedIn has a very high ranking authority on Google — odds are good your LinkedIn profile will appear on the first page of results if you search for your own name.

Often referred to as “Facebook for professionals” and utilized as an online résumé, LinkedIn bridges the gap between socializing and displaying work achievements.

Getting started

An important distinction to make about LinkedIn as a network is that it tends to be more business-to-business and less business-to-customer, Small Business Computing reminds us.

In fact, Dr. Witzig is working on a paper about LinkedIn as a business-to-professional function: Small businesses can use the network to support employee morale and find and assess potential employees, clients, and donors.

For being free exposure, LinkedIn provides great resources for those looking for clients and for those who are jobseekers. Dun & Bradstreet — yes, that same D&B — recognizes the potential and did its own writeup.

Like Facebook’s business pages, LinkedIn’s company pages function much the same way and aid small businesses: information about the owner, employees who might also be on LinkedIn, skills and services, the logo, and the website. You don’t need to write yet another business profile for this network, but you shouldn’t skimp, either.

“The worst thing you can do as a small business owner is set up a LinkedIn Company Page without a robust description or overview of what your company does, then wonder why nothing is happening for you,” Krista Canfield, of LinkedIn, told Jason Keith of The Boston Globe.

Etiquette

Page-related conversation is not as robust on LinkedIn as it is on other networks — because that’s not the point of LinkedIn. Updates and posts should be industry-related and professional.

Don’t be idle, either, though. Answer messages in your inbox, join relevant groups, and participate in group forums.

Blank profiles also result in a poor impression, says Constant Contact. Make sure you fill out all sections of the profile and add a photo: Incomplete pages come across as spammy, irresponsible, and inactive, and users with a photo are seven times more likely to be contacted on the network.

On top of being professional and polite, updated and customized company and personal pages also help vendors find you in keyword searches, according to the American Express Open Forum. Wouldn’t you want to make it easier on everyone to find your business?

Those groups we mentioned earlier? Don’t try to sell yourself all the time. Use the group discussions as opportunities to help others and display your expertise. …Besides, shameless and excessive promotion will get you kicked out, and swiftly.

Two old adages come into play with recommendations: “Don’t ask, don’t get” and “What goes around comes around.” Want an endorsement? Ask for one! Writing a good review of a business partner brings you that much closer to getting one from her, too.

Engagement

Certainly, making connections is the biggest reason to spend time on LinkedIn; it is a virtual networking event.

You can connect with alumni by adding college to your personal page, with current and former coworkers by including positions, and friends and family by searching e-mails.

Join relevant groups, and participate in the discussions. It can be all too easy to join and then never even click on the link again. However, other professionals will take note of your activity, especially if it is insightful or helps others with job or internship searches. Word of mouth is just as important for professionals and, by extension, the small businesses they represent.

Sometimes, groups do require admin approval for your admission. Plenty of groups have local chapters that meet in person, too, e.g., a lot of young professionals groups. The Small Business Online Community, among the first “small business” results in a group search, boasts 21,586 members at the time of this writing.

You can stay in the loop on industry news with LinkedIn Today and the “News” tab on the mobile app, and making your own posts weekly is a great way to be connected with and exposed to your contacts. You can set up your various other feeds to automatically post to LinkedIn, but be wary of how frivolous posts appear to your customers and clients. Blog entries and press releases are the ticket to build your brand; save the personal updates for Facebook.

Many companies list job openings on LinkedIn and even encourage applicants to use LinkedIn for the process. Not only does it cut down on e-mails and paper résumés, but it takes a mere instant to click the link that leads to a profile.

There are, of course, upgraded accounts (with monthly fees) that allow access to more search results and display all users who viewed your profile, aiding in hunting, recruiting, and marketing.

Measuring

As this blog tends to recommend, track your website traffic via Google Analytics and Bitly. Was LinkedIn the source for any hits?

Lots ofWeb articles have the LinkedIn “share” button on the top or side of the page — easy to post to users’ own LinkedIn pages and share with their networks — and if you’re a business with share-able items, why not add the HTML for the button and do some tracking?

Perhaps you can measure your return on investment via the number of connections you have, the messages you receive, or how many business deals are initiated via LinkedIn. ROI for LinkedIn seems to be a bit harder to determine than for other networks, but it’s never an overnight outcome.

Conclusion

As we’ve said in the past, it is important to always have clear goals and a strategy for your social media presence. Are you looking to connect with others in your field? Find new clients? Find talent to add to your team? It is easy to fill in a few fields and lose interest, or to assume the requests to connect will come to you. If you’re clear about your goals, it’s fairly easy to get started on LinkedIn, “the world’s largest professional network.”

If you’re unsure of what to do next, contact us at Ideen for a free consultation.