Tamar’s extensive list of ‘Best Internet Marketing Blog Posts of 2007‘ shows two blog posts on Linkedin. How can this professional niche social networking site contribute to the marketing of Bemba.com? In this post I will quote pieces of others that I find relevant for an internet startup of our kind.

What is Linkedin?

Collis wrote ‘8 Things You Can Do to Get Work through Linkedin’ and introduced Linkedin as ‘the web 2.0 equivalent of networking. Where other social networks like Facebook are focused around your personal life, Linkedin is all about your professional life. It’s a great concept and one that has attracted more than 16 million users.’

Helen’s post ‘Effective Marketing on Linkedin’ says ‘Linkedin is not meant to be a mass market platform, and it is difficult to reach a wide variety of people on the site. However - Linkedin allows for very highly targeted - I say perhaps even elegantly targeted - marketing. Instead of reaching a few million people, the vast majority of whom may not be interested in your service, Linkedin allows you to reach the one influential person who is in need of your services. When you boil it right down - isn’t strategically reaching ‘the right people’ a big part of what marketing is all about, after all?’

Building Your Network

How do you build a wide enough network without sacrificing the overall quality of your network? Helen’s answer is quite simple, ‘if you are willing to compromise, just a little’. These are useful tips I came across.

• ‘It’s a good idea to fill out your public profile fairly completely and use the feature that lets you get a short URL as this will make your profile a lot more search friendly’. (Collis)
• ‘Some people search profiles for keywords, so make sure the words you hope people are seeking when they think of you exist inside your profile’ writes Sudhir on ‘How to get the most out of Linkedin’.‘Make an email signature with Linkedin It will help drive people to your network, help build it up and increase its power.’ (Collis)
• ‘Promote your profile elsewhere. Once you have a Linkedin profile you want to promote it as much as possible in order to build your network up.’ (Collis) That’s what we did on our ‘About us’ page. And if you’re wondering, Joost does not use Linkedin (yet).
• ‘Expand your network: Invite people, Look for people you know, already on Linkedin, request Introductions’. (Collis)
• ‘Invite a few of ‘power networkers’ to your network. There are a few ways that you can easily find these ‘open networkers’ on Linkedin. The first is simply to do a search on Linkedin for ‘LION’. This acronym stands for ‘Linkedin Open Networker’. (Helen)
• ‘Visit TopLinked.com. Here you can find who’s available as an open networker, and you can also frequently see how many people they are advertising as being in their network.’ (Helen)
• ‘Get involved with the tool ‘Answers’. If someone is looking for help on a topic where you have expert knowledge, your answer not only shows what you know, it also opens a conversation with someone in need of your expertise. At the same time, asking a question can also be helpful.‘ (Helen)
• ‘Join a Linkedin group. Everyone in the group basically becomes a connection. Anyone else who is also a member can see the group logo in your profile’ (Helen)
• ‘The best way to network is to help others succeed. They’ll never forget you, and you will be paid back tenfold some day. Use Linkedin to help others — promote them, link to them, connect with them, recommend them, answer their questions.’ (Sudhir)

Increase the visibility of your business with ‘Answers’

• ‘Announce your services to others in ‘Answers’. Simply answer a question that relates to your service, or ask a question looking for something you need.’ (Helen)
• ‘Drive readers to your blog posts with ‘Answers’. If someone asks a question to which you have blogged the answer, simply point people to your blog post - driving traffic and gaining a quality, relevant link at the same time. (Helen)
• Get recommended. The more recommendations you have, the better your business looks.’ (Helen)

Support your SEO

• ‘Linkedin allows you to make your profile information available for search engines to index. To increase your Search Engine ranking do this, create a public profile and select ‘Full View.’ Also, instead of using the default URL, customize your public profile’s URL to be your actual name. To strengthen the visibility of this page in search engines, use this link in various places on the web’. (Sudhir)
• ‘In order to make the link to your website viewable to search engines, it is important to add the ’show website’ feature to each profile that will link to your site. This can be done in each account by clicking on ‘Edit My Public Profile’, make sure ‘Full View’ is checked, and that also ‘Websites’ are also checked.’ (Helen)
• ‘Respond to service requests and other questions in Linkedin ‘Answers’, in which you can post a link to your website as a reference. Many ‘Answers’ pages are also indexed in search engine results pages.’ (Helen)

Get publicity from Linkedin

• ‘It can be hard to contact media or top bloggers. But many of them have a Linkedin profile, and you can contact them through the profile. I highly advise you not to spam them — but a press release or a polite email letting them know about a new launch, for example, might be appreciate or at least noticed. It shouldn’t be your whole marketing strategy, but it could help.’ (Sudhir)

Thanks!

Thanks a lot Helen, Collis and Sudhir! I’m going to try it out and see how it works. What are your experiences?