A LinkedIn Marketing Secret

The following demonstrates one of the most common LinkedIn marketing  mistakes.

Someone asked the following question in one of my groups:

Should you connect with your competitors?

  I found the question interesting because it reveals a common flaw in the thinking of entrepreneurs and small business owners when it comes to LINKEDIN® marketing.

The term “LinkedIn marketing” refers to the process of using LinkedIn to get business or generate opportunities.

At the heart of this question is the idea of sharing one’s connections. And one of the first answers to the question suggests that, if one hides one’s their first level connections, connecting could be a good idea.

The flaw in this thinking is that it assumes that one should only connect to one’s existing clients and prospects. However, this is not an effective LinkedIn marketing strategy.

In fact, if you only use LinkedIn in this way, like a Rolodex, you might actually be better off not using it at all. LinkedIn just adds “noise” to your conversation you don’t need. You would be better of simply using the phone, fax, and email to communicate with these folks.

This problem is automatically solved for the true networker who has built a large network.

Take myself for an example. If you were to connect to me because I share my connections and you were hoping to go through them and find good prospects you would be gravely disappointed.

With 8000+ connections you will have great difficulty identifying who I’m actually doing business with, or even who I might be interested in from a future opportunity basis.

I would suggest that your LinkedIn marketing efforts would be far more profitable if you simply availed yourself of LinkedIn’s advanced search feature.

Finally, you should remember that sharing your connections is one of the values you can bring your network.

Though it is not a very big value, it is a perceived value and any value you can add to your network will be useful in getting your network to help you on or off LinkedIn in the future.

That is what networking is all about.

You must remember that your LinkedIn marketing success comes from visibility and accessibility, both of which are dependent on how many connections you have. (LinkedIn marketing, about building your network)

The secret of LinkedIn marketing is making yourself invaluable and highly visible so that you attract those that might be your prospects and future customers. For more on LinkedIn marketing click here.

Read Your LinkedIn Profile Again

You really don need to re read your LINKEDIN^® profile. I just stumbled upon a great LinkedIn profile article I posted nearly two years ago. And as I read the first line, it occurred to me how much power it has to look at things in a new unit of time.

Shortly after I started the OBN website, I was on a webinar call with a very established internet marketer by the name of Brad Fallon. Brad just happens to be the founder of Stompernet, a company that teaches others how to market on the web.

That day Brad was doing website reviews, so I asked him to look at my newly created and activate homepage. As he started analyzing the page, I started having “Aha” moments one right after the other.

I knew and understood everything he was telling me about my site but somehow in the middle of working on it has just gone off in the wrong direction.

This was an amazing experience. It pointed out the value of looking at things a new. It also showed me how very difficult to see the flaws in our own creations. Sometimes we are just too close to the action and do not really see what is there as others see it.

Your LinkedIn Profile

Your profile is probably the most important piece of your LinkedIn effort. Because your profile that has the power to get people, prospects, and new customers to engage you.

It is time to re read your LinkedIn profile with new glasses

All that said I want you to go to your LinkedIn profile and re read it. This time read it as if you were meeting this person for the first time.

Read it with the mindset of those you are trying to attract. Assume for the moment that you are interested in this area of expertise for your own business.

The other day, one of my connections sent me a note re the updating of his profile. I would like to share with you my comments and some additional annotations, as they are very relevant to most of the profiles on LinkedIn.

My comments

Your profile is a very nice and clean version of the typical LinkedIn profile. However, my recommendation would be a different approach.

First: Write your profile for the reader

Re write your profile with the visitor in mind, and not about yourself. People, and especially suspects, prospects, and potential new customers are not interested in you UNTIL they see what value you can give.

When your profile discusses what you do or have done, it does not answer the reader’s question — “What’s in it for me?”

It becomes similar to reading an article in which you have no interest at all.  Remember high school and all the stuff you did not want to read.

It is unfortunate but the majority of LinkedIn profiles talk about the writer instead of reader.

Second: You need a call to action

A call to action is simply a statement that asks the reader to do something. It is the heart of any marketing piece and that includes your profile.

Remember the old saying “You don’t get what you don’t ask for.” If you doubt this, ask anyone who has spent some time selling for a living.

If your profile does not ask or even encourage the reader to engage you, they probably will not engage.

When you simply state facts about your company, products, and how great you think you are, you are not giving the reader a compelling reason to engage you.

The only way you succeed on LinkedIn is by getting others to engage you. If your LinkedIn profile does not  give you the chance to tell your story, you will not sell much of what you have to offer.

Your LinkedIn profile must at least ask the reader to connect with you on LinkedIn, and better yet move him or her to your website.

You can accomplish this by offering the reader value – by showing the reader that you will help them improve their current condition by providing something of value. If you do this, they will visit your website.

To learn a little more about calls to action read this article:

http://flynpenoyer.com/call-to-action/

Third: A website link is not enough

This of course relates to the concept of having a call to action.

If you have no offer or compelling reason for the reader to visit your website you will not get visitors. If all you talk about is yourself, you will not compel or interest them in your business.

Remember, that what you say about yourself is rarely taken very seriously by the prospect UNTIL they see the value you will provide them.

Your profile is an advertisement or marketing piece. It is the headline of your business. Thus, you should consider Eugene M. Schwartz description of the headline’s job as given in his remarkable book “Breakthrough Advertising:” I quote “Your headline has only one job–to stop your prospect and compel him to read the second sentence of your ad.”

For more information on the marketing aspects of LinkedIn sign up for the free course module offered in the right hand column.

If you re read your profile understanding and considering the above, you should get a new picture. This new picture should reveal ways you can improve your LinkedIn profile and thus your results.

From Flyn

For help with your profile consider having me help…

http://www.onlinebusinessnetworker.com/services/linkedin-profile-rewri te

The first thing everyone who is job hunting on LINKEDIN^® should know is that  job hunting is contact sport.

You will have no more success job hunting simply putting up a LinkedIn profile and waiting than sending resumes to HR people. You must take proactive steps both in and with your profile if you want to be successful.

Job Hunting and Recruiters

I am not a huge fan of recruiters because their focus is company driven. In other words, they are looking for specific people to fill specific jobs.

However, a recruiter’s LinkedIn profile and account work just like yours, so if you want them to find you need to be connected.

When they do a search, the listings that show up are the people in their network – that is why they have big networks. If you are not in their network, they may not see you at all.

This means one of the first things you should do is get connected to as many recruiters as possible targeting the ones that work in your industry.

Recruiters are motivated to have large networks so getting connected with them should not be difficult. This is especially true if you have been reading my stuff for any period.

The next thing to understand is that recruiters are searching on keywords relevant to the jobs they are trying to fill. This means in your job hunting efforts you need to do a good job getting those keywords into your profile.

How word clouds can help your job hunting efforts

The first trick with keywords is to find out which are the most important. One great way to do this is “word clouds.’’

A word cloud examines documents, like a resume or a webpage, to see the number of occurrences and importance given to certain words. It then displays the words in a graphic representation where the most important words are the largest.

This can help you target certain positions and keywords more effectively. I suggest that you go to Google and search “word cloud.”

Here is one site that will come up in the listings:

http://www.wordle.net/create

You can use this site to examine the text in your resume, your LinkedIn profile, or specific job descriptions you are interested in. It will tell you what is important thus allowing you to make adjustments in your profile or resume for better results.

I would suggest scanning the web for positions you are interested in and seeing the most common and important keywords that come up.

Next go to your profile and employ those words. Since the LinkedIn search algorithm counts the number of occurrences of a word and decides by frequency which keywords are most important, it is quite easy to improve your results in those searches by using the word throughout your profile.

Just remember when doing this not to force the word or words in. You must keep up a natural sounding content for the reader or you may lose more than you gain. However, if you’re job hunting you want to leverage the best keyword searches on LinkedIn to get more visibility.

Be proactive in your job hunting

As I said earlier, job hunting is a contact sport so do not stop and posting a profile. You need to make an active effort to seek out the primary hiring managers and get in front of them.

The hiring manager has the following piles in his scenario.

1. He has a job opening for a specific individual
2. He knows some people internally that may be viable
3. He has candidates he has interviewed
4. He has candidates he has talked to
5. He has resumes he has read
6. He has resumes that have been collected
7. He may have recruiters looking

If you are only sitting in piles five or six, the manager does not even know your name. If you are in pile 4, at least he has heard your name. But like everyone, the people he is most familiar with are those he has spoken to, piles 3 and 4.

It is to your advantage to get in any conversation with the decision maker. It makes you much more visible. Here is another useful article in reaching these key people: http://www.onlinebusinessnetworker.com/a-subtle-approach-for-connectin g-to-decision-makers

The advantage of using LinkedIn for job hunting is that it gives you ways to get in communication with people you do not know. Use it to find ways to communicate as directly as possible with the hiring manager.

Unfortunately, in such an article I simply cannot tell you how to do all of these things. However, if you are not trying to do them, if you are sitting and waiting, or sending resumes to the HR department, you are not going to be anywhere near as successful at securing interviews that bring jobs as if you get in and fight.

In this video I’m going to show you why you should change the focus of your LINKEDIN^® approach from selling to doing marketing. 

The cool thing, and you’ll see in the video, is that you can do both selling and LinkedIn marketing at the same time and really improve your results on LinkedIn.

Most people haven’t yet figured out that LinkedIn is far more about marketing than it is about selling.

Now that doesn’t mean you are not here to get business and sell, it just means there is a lot better way to get more business than you are getting now.

By taking a LinkedIn marketing oriented approach, you will expand the number of prospects you go after and make your selling efforts more efficient.

Your LinkedIn marketing efforts will add prospects and sales to your results.

The real benefit of marketing on LinkedIn is that it can reduce the time you spend on LinkedIn while increasing your success.

This is why LinkedIn marketing efforts are so valuable.

In my case I went from four hours per day to less than an hour and with far better results by changing to a more marketing oriented approach.

Enjoy the video.

LinkedIn Must Dos for Success

Many people talk about the mistakes you can make on LINKEDIN®, but it seems to me, that the more valuable discussion is about what will make you successful.

So in this post I’m going to share with you the 7 most important things you should do if you want to be successful on LinkedIn.

If you want to learn some of the reasons and basis for the items on this list, watch the first module of my mini course by Clicking Here.

After watching these videos you will have a better idea why I have listed many of these items.

The 7 MUST Dos of LinkedIn

#1: Build your network both automatically and strategically as network size equal visibility and accessibility and those equal more business or opportunity.

You build automatically to increase your network size more quickly. Then build strategically to get more suspects, prospects, and customers.

#2: Write your profile for the reader, something of value they can take with them. Don’t talk about yourself (except in the jobs you’ve listed), your company, or your products and services.

Make sure your profile ask the reader to take another step. Marketing is not effective without a call-to-action. That call may simply be to connect with you on LinkedIn. However, there must be a call.

#3: Establish your expertise by posting to the question and answer forum and group discussions valuable, useful, and workable answers that in no way promote or sell. Sell yourself through your wisdom, not promotion.

In my first two months on LinkedIn, I got two unsolicited contracts from my content alone – I didn’t make one pro-active effort to get any business during that time.

#4: Customize your links. Customize both your profile and website links. Use your name or some representation of you that as your profile link not the garbage that’s included in the default. In addition be descriptive in your company links,  do not use the default: “Company Website.”

It is much more compelling to click a link that say “Learn About Networking” than a link that says “Company Profile.” You put the links there to get them to the site. So make them attractive.

#5: Never use the default invitation when asking someone to connect on LinkedIn. Always provide a good reason for connecting that has nothing to do will selling them something. Remember LinkedIn is a networking site.

Default invitations are one of the best ways to accumulated IDKs. (People marking your invitation “I don’t know [you].”)

#6: ALWAYS make a great first impression. This is the reason you want to post “great” answers to the forums, as that may be the first time many LinkedIners see you. You should also be sending a great thank you for connecting message to everyone you connect with (Yes, even if they aren’t a potential prospect.)

You may wish to engage these people at some future date so that first impression is important. It may be the difference between success and failure when you need that person in the future.

#7: Become invaluable to others. What I mean is, do your best to be seen and perceived as an invaluable resource to every person on LinkedIn that engages you. Yes, that means going out of your way to do good things for others.

This can be as simple as providing them a valuable connection – you can even provide me if you like. Just invite me to connect and then include my name in your thank you emails as a “valued connection.” (The email for connecting is flyn@flynpenoyer.com.

You will see significant improvement in your LinkedIn results if you do these things.

BONUS TIP – follow the rules. Read the user agreement do’s and don’ts and become a “good citizen of LinkedIn. People will appreciate it.

Before I leave let me just give a link to one article in my blog which deals with the idea of “open networking” as I know many of you are concerned with the idea of connecting to a lot of people that aren’t “prospects,” live half way around the world, or aren’t prospects.

Please read The “Open Networker” Debate

Please leave your comments or questions below and feel free to share this post with others directly or using the social media buttons provided.

LINKEDIN^® The “Time” Consuming Black Whole?

LinkedIn^® can be a time-wasting and consuming monster. You may already feel like you’re spending way too much time on LinkedIn.

And it is very easy to consume many hours every day doing all kinds of things on LinkedIn and accomplish nothing.

When I started out on LinkedIn, I constantly had people ask me if all I did was LinkedIn?

The question was probably justified. In the beginning I spent 5-7 hours a day posting and answering questions.

Not that I think these hours were wasted, I don’t. I had some very clear goals – to learn LinkedIn, set up myself as an expert, and build my network. My first goal was to get at least 500 people in my network. And I accomplished all of this in about 60 days.

Despite the fact I did nothing to get any business, two companies came to me and gave me contracts to do work for them.

The funny part is they weren’t even connected to me on LinkedIn then. They had simply seen my contributions on LinkedIn and decided I was the “expert” they wanted.

You can see that spending time on LinkedIn to grow your network and prove yourself as an expert are very important goals.

So as you plan your time schedule for LinkedIn you should be sure that you focus on growing your network and establishing yourself as an expert.

Today, I spend far less time and get much more business from LinkedIn. I do this by substituting “marketing” myself on LinkedIn for other things.

Just as entrepreneurs or small business people can benefit from spending more time “marketing” than “selling,” you can do the same thing on LinkedIn.

Since marketing yourself on LinkedIn brings people to you, it is far less time-consuming than selling, which requires a one-to-one approach that isn’t as efficient.

The other benefit of depending more on marketing than sales, is the engagements that you end up with are much further down sales process than the ones you prospect.

In fact, most of them have already made the decision to buy! You just have to show they why to buy from you.

If you haven’t yet watched the first video of our new SuperPower LinkedIn® Mini Course you will find some powerful information that will help you in marketing yourself on LinkedIn.

(Click Here to watch the first video on our Facebook page.)

Actually, the entire mini course focuses on the marketing aspects of LinkedIn.

I can assure you, as marketing efforts have done for me, mastering the marketing side of LinkedIn can significantly reduce your time investment per dollar on LinkedIn.

This post ia about your LinkedIn company profile will probably generate some objections or questions.

What I’m going to suggest for your LINKEDIN^® company profile goes against the grain and is certainly not practiced by most.

You Are Doing Your LinkedIn Company Profile All Wrong

The first point we need to agree on is that LinkedIn is a “marketing channel” much like TV, radio, print media or a website.

If you aren’t convinced you should go watch the first module of our new SuperPower LinkedIn Networking Mini Course here.

Yes, it operates differently and gives one major advantage the other choices don’t—it’s interactive. I’ll deal with the interactivity part in another article.

For now I want to talk about the approach strategy for your LinkedIn company profile. Specifically I want to address the content.

Some Marketing Background

In today’s world the primary marketing philosophy or approach is called “brand advertising.”

Brand advertising is all about creating a “perception” for the market place and becoming known for that perception.

The best examples of this kind of advertising are the big companies like Ford, GM, Johnson & Johnson, McDonald’s, and others.

They flood the market with ads designed to get you to think about and remember them. And they spend millions doing it.

And the reason they spend millions is that it takes millions to get such a message our and make it a household name.

You may know Aflac but there are hundreds of great insurance companies you don’t know about because they don’t spend the bucks.

So what does that have to do with my LinkedIn company profile?

Everything if you happen to be following the crowd. Because the crowd is using the brand approach.

If you visit 10 LinkedIn company profiles you’ll find one common theme. They say who they are, what they do, and tell you they’re the best.

They try to come up with a catchy or important sounding phrase that describes their business and will hopefully make you think they are different.

That’s branding.

For the small to medium business this makes no sense whatsoever.

Why?

Because branding is not designed to get action. At least not in the short term.

As a small or medium size business, you need sales now. And you cannot afford to wait for months to get someone to remember your name.

Especially, because you can’t spend enough money to reach any significant number of prospects.

Your LinkedIn Company Profile

OK, you have probably been on LinkedIn for some time.

Are people flocking to your profile and asking to buy your products? Are thousands coming from LinkedIn to your website?

Unfortunately, probably not.

Same question… why?

The reason is obvious. That is not what you wrote your profile to do.

If you’re like most companies on LinkedIn, you wrote your profile to tell who you are, what your products and services are, and possibly you got real bold and told how good you think you are.

Sorry folks, but that’s branding.

People likely come through your personal profile to get to your company version.

Look at the stats for your profile and you’ll see that your lucky to get 100 viewers.

I can guarantee you that doing brand advertising 100 people at a time is going to be a very long road to success.

What you should be doing.

Since you are only getting visibility to a very small number of people (as would happen if you did direct mail or an email blast), you need to treat each like an immediate potential sales and get them to take action.

This method is called “direct response,” and its what the direct mail folks do.

They are sending to a smaller number of people and need to get a return for their efforts.

Thus, what they send is designed to get the reader to take action. And that is exactly what your profile needs to do.

In fact, as a small or medium business you should re-evaluate everything you are doing from the following perspective:

EVERY piece of marketing material you have, every brochure, every web page, every mailer, and every ad should have some ultimate purpose that leads to getting the prospect to buy.

If your materials don’t do this, you are wasting space, and worse yet likely boring the crap out of the reader.

Make your company profile about getting the reader to take action. Maybe that action is to follow you, maybe it is to get them to your website, or maybe you simply want to develop reciprocity that will bring them back or get them to engage.

Prospects do not want to know what you do. They came to you because you do it and don’t need to be told.

They, like you, also do not take much stock in what you say about how great you think your company or your products are.

What they really care about in fact is “What’s in it for me?”

If you change your mindset and approach to direct response, you will achieve far more success with your LinkedIn company profile.

How to use LinkedIn to create greater connections

I think one of the secretes of learning how to use LinkedIn is the use of what I call the LINKEDIN^® WOW factor. I’ve made a special effort to engage people on LinkedIn  in the most positive ways I can. And after getting a number of messages from new connections that started with “WOW” I decided this might be the beginnings of a great strategy.

Reciprocity a key feature of  the WOW factor

I have started to collect the most positive responses I get from my thank you for connecting letter. Not all of them start with WOW but I do get such emails regularly. So now I’m making a distinct effort in how to use LinkedIn to get WOWs. The LinkedIn WOW factor is really just the application of Dr. Cialdini’s principle of “reciprocity.” Reciprocity” simply put is the feeling of “owing” or “wishing to payback” good deeds.

This power is real as the Hare Krishna discovered in the sixties when they found that giving someone a flower first increased their collections of donations. The principle is very simple. If you make an effort to do something good for your new (or old) connections they will feel some extent of  “reciprocity” towards you. Doing this builds a network of connections that even though you don’t know them well you will have a huge leverage if you ever need help.

If you aren’t getting “WOWs” when you connect you are most certainly not doing something right. And it’s time to see if you can put others first. If you are getting “WOWs” or some similar type comments when you connect please tell me what you are doing to get them below. To learn more about “how to use LinkedIn” click here.

If you have found this post useful, please click the like button also please post a comment or question and don’t hesitate to share this post with your friends and associates. Thank you!

Many LINKEDIN^® users turn off the LinkedIn Groups updates for the groups they join.

Though I must admit when you are in a lot of  LinkedIn groups the update email messages can be annoying, but they do contain gold nuggets.

It is for this reason I recommend that you turn on the weekly updates. You can always make your primary LinkedIn email address a Hotmail or Gmail one so that the flurry of LinkedIn mail doesn’t overwhelm your company mailbox.

Here’s How I Use The Updates From the LinkedIn Groups

First of all don’t let them run your life.

I simply transfer them to their own folder in my mail account and review them when time permits.

I’m basically looking for opportunities to take part in the LinkedIn Groups or find new connections to build my network.

If you randomly scan the updates sent by your LinkedIn groups you will often find new discussions and questions that you can give to.

Often you’ll find real opportunities to gain business or other valuables as many people use the groups to seek help.

Sometimes they are even asking for vendors or products directly.

You should remember in such cases to post any response to engage that ask for help privately. I find putting information that is valuable to the decision in the public view gives me visibility if I can offer value.

I then send a private note re their request and my interest in helping.

Use The Updates to Find New Connections

Additionally, the group updates is a quick way to make valuable connections.

If you are an open networker and get the updates from the open networking LinkedIn groups you can quickly look at the profile pop-up and see if the person looking to connect would be a valuable addition to your network.

You can also do this with questions that you are participating in and often you can find great connections.

My experience has been that the value of the updates from the LinkedIn Groups is worth the hassle of dealing with the resulting emails.

After all, you only need one new client from this activity to pay you handsomely for a month’s effort and irritation.

Now if we could just go back to the current version of the group structure with the News Section as a separate page things would be great.

Please leave your comments and questions below.

LinkedIn Tips: LinkedIn Company Profile Cutting the Mustard

In this video about LinkedIn company pages I’m going to tell you some key things you need to know to make your page more successful.

LINKEDIN® Company pages just like regular LinkedIn profiles should be used as marketing devices to attract and engage prospects for your business or your career.

But that’s not what most people do!

Although this may be a little bit of a controversy but most people simply put up a company page that repeats the content of their website telling what they do and how great they think they are.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s a place for that message. But it’s not your LinkedIn Company page.

People don’t get this because they see everyone else doing exactly that – telling who they are and what they do.

The problem is that this model doesn’t do any of the things you really want to do – attract attention, get people to read and investigate, get people to engage, and most importantly give them a reason to go to your website.

The correct approach to your company profile is to create a powerful and compelling message that will help get business, not tell people who you are.

After all, you are on LinkedIn to get business, aren’t you?

Watch this LinkedIn company page video to learn more about this important concept and why you should use it.

And please if you feel that I’m wrong please tell me so. Leave your comments or questions below.