Alterra Business Consulting Ltd helps companies get up and running on LinkedIn in a fraction of the time it would take them to do themselves.

1. Alterra Business Consulting Ltd – Getting you up and running on LinkedIn in a fraction of the time it would take you to do yourself
Reasons for using LinkedIn as part of Corporate Social Media Marketing
There are over 6 million LinkedIn members in the UK with half in London and the SE. To use LinkedIn
effectively it is important to have a well thought out strategy and to ensure it complements your
overall marketing plan.
1. Creating the perfect profile
If someone meets you at a networking event and can remember your name but not where you work,
they may type your name into Google. If you have an unusual name, it is likely that your LinkedIn
profile will come up very high on the first page. That's one of the reasons it's so important to have a
complete profile which truly represents your expertise. Your public profile should be full of keywords
and it should really show your potential clients and customers exactly what you have to offer i.e.
your value proposition.
So my first tip is to make sure you make your
summary is as interesting as possible. Your
headline should really tell your potential client
or customer exactly what you offer.
LinkedIn gives you the opportunity to put in
three webpages. Take the opportunity to put
in the three most important pages on your
website. You may think it is more appropriate
to send people to your blog as this will give
them much more information about what you
are currently talking about.
Don't forget you can also put in a twitter feed
and finally, you can rename your public profile
url with something that reflects your real
name.
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2. Alterra Business Consulting Ltd – Getting you up and running on LinkedIn in a fraction of the time it would take you to do yourself
2. Finding new connections
From the main navigation bar, choose the word Contacts which is the third one in from the left.
Hover over the word Contacts and you will see a drop-down menu - select ‘Add Connections’ and
this will take you to another screen where you have a range of choices.
LinkedIn allows you to provide an old e-mail address such as a Hotmail, Google mail or Yahoo
address and then it will read your contacts file and you can go through and choose people that you
would like to invite to be your connections on LinkedIn. Alternatively, you can allow LinkedIn to read
your Outlook, Apple mail or other e-mail application. On the Add Connections page there is an
instruction which asks if you wish to import your desktop e-mail contacts. It will then prompt you to
find your contacts file; for example, your Outlook folder where all your contacts e-mail addresses are
kept. Browse for that file and LinkedIn will find all the e-mail addresses in your address book.
Alternatively, you can type in e-mail addresses
one by one in the right-hand box and send
invitations.
Once you have used LinkedIn for a while, a
great way of finding people to connect with is
from the screen called People you may Know
which is found on in the Add Connections
section. LinkedIn becomes quite adept at
finding people that are linked to your
connections so these will be people who you
have something in common with usually
another connection. Just click connect and
you will be able to add a personal message to
people before you send them the invitation.
3. Advanced People Search
One of the most useful things that you can do with LinkedIn is look for people who you don't know
yet in industry groups which are useful to you. This is done by using the Advanced People Search
functionality. At the top of the screen on the right-hand side you will see a search box. To the right
of the search box you will see the word Advanced in blue letters. Click on Advanced and up will come
a screen called Advanced People Search. This allows you to look for people on LinkedIn by keyword,
first name, last name, title, company name and also location.
So if I am interested in accountants located within 10 miles of my office postcode area, LinkedIn will
allow me to search with those criteria. Once you have done this you can use the filters to further
specify exactly who you may be looking for. The filters are industries, groups, relationship, language,
etc. I use this function all the time to find the right people to connect to.
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3. Alterra Business Consulting Ltd – Getting you up and running on LinkedIn in a fraction of the time it would take you to do yourself
4. Using Company Pages
Recently LinkedIn introduced the ability to update as a company. This means you will see updates
from companies you follow as well as individuals you are connected to.
How then do you go about finding all about the company on LinkedIn? From the main navigation bar
there is a tab called companies. Hover over that and you will see a drop-down menu which gives you
a list of the companies you have worked for and then underneath a dotted blue line you will see the
list of companies that you are following. Very quickly you can see information about companies you
are interested in. Once you click on a company name you will be taken to the overview page which
gives you a short introduction to the services the company provides. Underneath that you will see
the employees who are in your network and on the right-hand side further details including their
websites and, on occasions, a map showing the location of their head office.
Some companies have included services giving more details of the various products and services
they offer. This is a much underused part of LinkedIn and really people who are not using this
missing out on a great way of having extra web presence. For each product and service there is
summary information and if people click on the heading it will take them through to a page which
allows you to provide much more detail including who are the best people to contact about that
particular service and also promotional videos and special promotions available at a particular time.
In addition companies can obtain recommendations for specific services and products in their
company rather than just testimonials for individuals.
5. Organising your connections
Hover over the word Contacts on the main navigation bar and click on the word Connections. You
will then see a page with three columns. In the centre of the screen you will see all your connections
in alphabetical order. With their picture are their name, where they work and the number of
connections. On the left-hand side of the screen you are able to search for connections either by
keyword or by part of or their entire name.
Your connections can also be sorted by company, location, industry and recent activity. If you click
on one of your connections in the centre more information will come up about them. This is where
you can edit details and send them a message. This means that LinkedIn becomes the modern day
Rolodex. I like to tag my connections so that it makes it easier to send messages to groups of people.
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4. Alterra Business Consulting Ltd – Getting you up and running on LinkedIn in a fraction of the time it would take you to do yourself
6. What makes a good update?
If we go back to our Home page by selecting Home on the top left-hand side of the screen, we will
see the updates going back in time from the latest one backwards in a stream. Towards the top of
the screen you will see your picture and a box which says share an update. You can type an update
in the box and attach a link by clicking the blue Attach a Link instruction at the bottom of the box.
In addition, you can share your update on twitter if you have a twitter account. Always make sure
that you should attach a link as often as possible because this makes your update more interesting
for your followers and also it takes up much more of the update screen.
Some people have their LinkedIn and their twitter accounts synchronised; it is very important to
remember that your twitter followers may be very different from your LinkedIn connections. This
means that some tweets are not suitable for LinkedIn and vice versa.
In my opinion, it is a mistake to have your LinkedIn and twitter accounts connected. You can always
choose to selectively post your tweets to LinkedIn and you can always choose whether your LinkedIn
updates are posted to twitter.
7. Searching for groups
Groups are a great way to connect with like-minded people and to join in discussions on topics of
interest to you. There are over 1 million groups on LinkedIn. Groups can be found on the fourth tab
on the main navigation bar. Hover over the word Groups and select Groups directory. You will be
taken to a list of all the groups. On the left-hand side of the next screen you will see a box which
allows you to type in a keyword. This might be a location, an industry you are interested in, or a
particular profession.
Be careful to ensure if you select a town that is in the correct country. This is particularly true in the
UK as many towns have the same name in the US. It takes quite a long time to find the right groups
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5. Alterra Business Consulting Ltd – Getting you up and running on LinkedIn in a fraction of the time it would take you to do yourself
in the right locations, but it is worth persisting. Once you have found a group that interests you can
click on the icon and find out more about the profile of the group. You will see the discussions which
are most popular, the latest updates; the top influencers for week and the manager's choice.
To find out further information about the group, click on the word More and you will get the choice
of group profile this will give you more information about group members who are in your network
as well as when the group was created, what sort of group it is and the number of members.
If you wish to join a group you click on the yellow box which are says Join Group; some groups are
open and some are closed. Open groups allow you to join without approval whereas closed groups
require approval before they allow new people to join.
8. Combine LinkedIn with face-to-face Events
We all like to find new events to attend, particularly if they're free. From the main navigation bar
hover over the word more and from the drop-down menu you will see a list of applications. The first
one is events; click on this word and you will be taken to the events homepage.
The events application has been completely revised in the past week and allows you to search by
industry group and location. This is a great way of extending your networking or finding trade shows
and conferences in your field of interest.
9. Asking for those all important recommendations
I don't know about you, but I am often a bit sceptical about the testimonials which I read on
websites. Some of them sound as though they have been made up or even written by the company
or business owner. On LinkedIn it is pretty difficult to falsify testimonials. You can ask people you
have done work for or worked with to write you a testimonial and it will then appear on your profile.
This gives potential clients or customers who are thinking of working with you an opportunity to
check out the quality of your work or product. If they are connected to the people who have given
the recommendations they can, of course, contact that person for further information.
It's important to remember to ask for recommendations as soon as you have done a piece of work
for somebody and usually most people are happy to oblige. Tit-for-tat recommendations look a bit
contrived as they will appear on your update stream simultaneously. I would always leave a few days
in between mutual testimonials.
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6. Alterra Business Consulting Ltd – Getting you up and running on LinkedIn in a fraction of the time it would take you to do yourself
10. Interact with your connections
There are lots of opportunities to interact with your connections on LinkedIn. From a simple Like
which acknowledges that you have read somebody's update and appreciated what they have
written, or you can comment on someone's post. This means that people who are looking at your
activity will build a picture of the things you are most interested in. If you see an update which is of
particular interest to your network you can share it by posting it as an update or even posting it to
groups or sending it to individuals.
LinkedIn is not just about a profile and
updates it is about communicating with an
audience and creating a dialogue.
Amanda Brown
Managing Director of Alterra Business Consulting Ltd
__________________________________________________________________________________
If you would like further information about using LinkedIn as part of your social media marketing
strategy then please take a look at our website at www.alterra-consulting.co.uk or by calling
Amanda Brown on 01707 373138 or 07947 502760. You can e-mail us with your questions to
info@alterra-consulting.co.uk
We run open courses at two levels; LinkedIn Essentials and LinkedIn Masterclass, one-to-one
training, in-house courses and we manage LinkedIn on companies’ behalf.
Getting you up and running on LinkedIn
in a fraction of the time it would take you to do yourself!
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