Top 2 Ways Entrepreneurs Should Leverage LinkedIn

Top 2 Ways Entrepreneurs Should Leverage LinkedIn - Karen Albert

“To me LinkedIn is useless!” is a statement I hear quite often by entrepreneurs and small business owners when I start to discuss the importance of being active on LinkedIn. A statement founded on the fact that many LinkedIn users don’t know what to do with all the LinkedIn connection requests they receive and/or why they should even be on LinkedIn since they are not looking for employment.

My response to this statement is this; over 65 million professionals use LinkedIn to cultivate their careers and businesses and unlike other social networks in which you might become “friends” with anyone and everyone, LinkedIn is about building strategic relationships. Thus, the number of connections is less important than the type of connections. In fact, LinkedIn stops showing your actual number of connections once you have 500 because it’s about quality, not quantity.

Here are the top 2 ways Entrepreneurs user should utilize LinkedIn and why…

1. BE FOUND BY THE RIGHT PEOPLE... LinkedIn is a search engine just like Google except that the search results LinkedIn produces is limited to that which is contained within LinkedIn. In fact, users search more on LinkedIn than any other social media platform. So, in order to take advantage of this, your LinkedIn contact page needs to be fully optimized.

Here are a few things you can do to optimize your page and increase your position in LinkedIn search results:

1. Name and Headline - Ensure your name and headline are populated with very descriptive keywords that will help the search engine, as well as LinkedIn users, understand what it is you do, who you do it for and where you do it (i.e. your geographical area if that is relevant to your service)

2. Your About Section - Ensure your About section is full of the keywords that best describe your service(s) and also clarifies who your services are best suited for (i.e. “The clients I typically work with are..”). Make it less about you (don’t just copy/paste your bio or resume) but rather help the users understand who you specialize working with and how it will benefit them.

3. Skills and Endorsements - Create a concise list of Skills/ Endorsements. If you have skills listed that are not that relevant to your actual profession, get rid of them. For example, if you are a Real Estate professional and you list skills such as Sales-force or Microsoft Word your reducing the chance of your LinkedIn profile appearing in search results from your desired LinkedIn user/ community. Skills should be relevant to your profession.

4. Recommendations - Not only is it important for your LinkedIn profile to be fully optimized for search engine results, it’s also important for your LinkedIn profile to communicate to users viewing your profile that you are a seasoned LinkedIn user and professional. Having received recommendations, and given recommendations helps with both.

Note: feel free to review my LinkedIn profile as a best practice example: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ socialmediawithkarenlizalbert/

2. FIND THE RIGHT PEOPLE...

Working much like the “Six Degrees of Separation” concept, you start by connecting with those you know and who know you, and through them build a larger network for the purpose of gaining resources, finding freelance work or clients, and building alliances and partnership.

Here are a few strategic ways to enhance your LinkedIn connections:

1. Using LinkedIn Search - LinkedIn has a fairly advanced search functionality that allows searching for people by name, title, company and even profession. Consider searching for a profession that caters to the same customers as you (i.e. a mortgage lender is a great professional connection for a real estate professional). If you narrow your search to your geographical area, it will give you a list of those professionals in your area that you can connect with. When connecting with unfamiliar users, consider sending a note at the same time you send the connection request. A note that indicates your interest in learning more about them and their services as you believe your customers may benefit from their services (Be sincere! Don’t give them this impression and then only sell yourself). Once connected, make an effort to take that connection off-line, such as a phone call or, if they are in your geographical area, for coffee or lunch. We all know that the real connections happen when done in person.

2. LinkedIn Saved Searches - Once you have found a resourceful list of professions you can save them as a “Saved Search” which will then send you email alerts whenever a new user falls into that search criteria.

3. LinkedIn Hashtags - LinkedIn now offers the ability for users to follow specific hashtags. The benefit of following hashtags that are relevant to your industry and/or niche market, is it allows you to filter your news feed to see only the LinkedIn posts that contain that hashtag. Unlike the traditional news feed, where you see only posts from the LinkedIn users are you connected with, the news feed of a followed hashtags displays posts of anyone on LinkedIn (regardless of your connection). Therefore, giving you visibility into LinkedIn users you may want to connect with as well as content you may want to share as one of your own posts.

Watch this video on YouTube to learn more on using hashtags: “How To Easily Follow & Use Hashtags In LinkedIn”

About the author:

Karen Liz Albert is the founder of Behind Your Curtain and has 20+ years marketing experience providing impactful social media marketing consulting, training and services to hundreds of business owners, real estate professionals and authors. She is the host of her WomenOnTV.tv show, “Behind Your Curtain” and is a regular guest on some of the top radio & podcast shows for entrepreneurs.

Download her free guide “10 Ways To Boost Your Business Using Social Media”Want to chat with Karen on how she can help you maximize your use of Social Media: Schedule A Call Here