Social Media 101: LinkedIn
Beland.
Even if you think you are a social media dullard, if you're on LinkedIn that's simply not true. LinkedIn is a social media site just like Facebook, but it's focused exclusively on business contacts and networking. The website was launched in 2003 and had about 4,500 members by the end of the first month of operation. Today there are more than 100 million members in 200 countries and territories.
What is it good for?
Everything and anything having to do with business. On a personal level, LinkedIn allows you to reinforce existing connections with business associates. It also helps you make new connections. With expanded or premium-level memberships (that cost some money) you can dig into prospecting tools or perform powerful HR-related searches.
How can it work for your business?
If your business has any business-to-business marketing functions, then it should be on LinkedIn. At a minimum, all staff members should be on LinkedIn, making contacts. You can also set up groups around your industry to foster ties with new prospects. And it's also a distribution platform, just like Facebook or Twitter, for news about your company. For example, every time you have a blog post, you'll want to promote that through your LinkedIn status update.n
Success stories
Rob Beland of Apex Properties in Leominster is a moderately active LinkedIn user with 99 connections. But that small circle of contacts has served him well. In fact, at deadline for this publication, he was closing a lease deal that came as a result of a question he posed on the site asking whether there were companies looking to expand in 2011.
"I received three responses and am presently working with one company to relocate their business to Leominster," he said.
Jay Garee, executive director of the Mohegan Council of the Boy Scouts of America, sees LinkedIn as a valuable research and recruiting tool. He can use LinkedIn to research where their members work and what possible links to other community partners and corporate supporters they may have. For example, through LinkedIn, Garee was able to recruit the parent of a scout with IT expertise to serve on the organization's technology committee.
WBJ Web Partners
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