Most business people have a LinkedIn account, but underestimate the potential of LinkedIn for generating leads and new business and just see LinkedIn as a name gathering exercise. This eBook will gives a broad overview of the areas you should be concentrating on to change LinkedIn into a powerful marketing tool. If you would like to know more contact Paul on 07763942290 or 01905759196 or email on paul.sampson@seaforthmarketing.com

1. LinkedIn Essential Skills
Tips to get LinkedIn working

2. If you have been overlooking LinkedIn all
this time you had better hope your
competition has too
If you’ve never paid any attention to LinkedIn and
its potential benefits, you wouldn’t be alone. The
fact of the matter is that both Facebook and
Twitter have become woven into the fabric of
modern culture while LinkedIn has flown under
the radar.
“Tweets” and Facebook status updates have
become essential in the sharing of information as
well as networking as a whole.
But what if there was an even more direct way of
networking and promoting your business with
other professionals?
And what if you had been missing out on it this
whole time?
Well, don’t feel too bad. The truth is, LinkedIn has
a reputation for being overlooked, which is exactly
why now is the perfect time for you and your
company to get to grips with LinkedIn.

3. What is LinkedIn?
LinkedIn is a social network with over
240 million users that enables you to
network professionally, build thought
leadership, generate leads using
degrees of separation.
LinkedIn is different from other social
media platforms like Facebook and
Twitter in that it focuses specifically on
the world of work. The tone is serious,
and the social media marketing
potential is vast because people join to
network.
If you sell to a business audience of any
kind LinkedIn can offer you a great
focus group of interested members

4. What is your LinkedIn Strategy
If you don’t have an objective for using
LinkedIn you could be wasting a lot of
your time.
Too many people who join LinkedIn end
up as ‘connection collectors’.
When asked why they signed up they
say, ‘I don’t know. Somebody suggested
I do, but I don’t get the point’.
Suggested objectives:
• Find new customers
• Professional networking
• Personal branding
• Generate leads
• Promote my company
• Build website traffic
• Find a new job

5. Build Your Profile
It is easy to join LinkedIn. All you need
to sign up is an email address. Once
signed up the most important thing to
do is fully complete your personal
profile.
Make sure you complete ALL the
questions asked by LinkedIn. It is
important for you to be found.
• Use a professional photo
• Use the name people know you by
• Find your key words
• Weave the key words into your
heading, summary, experience
• Demonstrate your strengths in
what you do
• How do you add value for people?
• Complete the profile

6. Build Your Connections
Once you profile is set up, you now
want to start building your
connections. The more connections
you have the more people you will be
able to contact with using their
connections.
Make sure you only send an invitation
to connect to people you know or
people in the same Group as you or
you may find yourself with a restricted
account.
Send invites to:
• Colleagues (past & present)
• Clients
• Networkers (Old Business Cards)
• Trade association members
• Your Linked Groups

7. Get Recommendations
LinkedIn recommendations are very
powerful social proof.
They demonstrate through real people
your professional experience and value
This is where people who are
interested in using your professional
skills will get their comfort.
They will be able to refer directly to the
individual who recommended you.
• Givers get: why not send out
recommendations to people you
have worked with reports and
reports-to. They may reciprocate.
• Ask current/previous clients to
recommend for a service provided
• LinkedIn suggests 3 will complete
your profile but keep getting as
many as you can

8. Join Groups
Groups are one of the most powerful
elements of LinkedIn.
There are over 1 million groups on
LinkedIn. They allow you to share space
and ideas with likeminded
professionals and are akin to online
Industry Associations.
Most importantly they allow you to
invite fellow group members to
connect even if you do not know them.
An ideal networking environment
• You are allowed to join 50 groups.
Do it!!
• Join a mix of like interest groups
and target market groups
• Stick to getting weekly updates or
you can be overwhelmed
• Make sure you contribute to
conversations regularly

9. Use Advanced Search
If you want to benefit from LinkedIn in
your business, it is important that you
understand how to search for people,
companies and groups.
Searching works by filtering. The more
specific you are the better.
The trick is knowing how to find people
and the a way to connect with them.
• Search by keywords and phrases
• Search by job titles
• Search by geography
• Search by referral partners. People
who sell to the same market but
are not in competition
• Search by company page.
• Search by groups
• All searches are governed by
‘Boolean Strings’, get to know them

10. Categorise your Contacts by
Tagging them
The new version of LinkedIn Contacts
makes it easy to ‘tag; your contacts or
connections.
Each person you know on LinkedIn as a 1st
connection can be tagged, which means
you can put an identifier against each
connection to put them in a particular
category.
Once tagged into a category you can
communicate with these groups
depending on the message you wish to
convey.
You can tag by:
• Job title
• Clients
• Partners
• Leads
• Prospects
• Frequency of contact required

11. Create a Company Page
Linked has updated it Company Pages
in the last year. Why create another
profile?
1. Company Reach
Without putting any efforts into
building your company on LinkedIn the
chances are you employees are
updating their profile to show where
they work. Take advantage of this in
the hope that people connecting with
them will seek out your company page
thus promoting your company
2. Product Awareness
LinkedIn allows you to add multiple
products to your page so that each
stands out. Not only are potential
clients learning about your products or
services they are able to see
recommendations for them and who
recommended them.

12. Completing your Company Page
1. Include basic information by going to
Admintools-Edit. LinkedIn will prompt
you to fill out relevant information
2. Include products and services. As we
have already discussed LinkedIn can
showcase these very effectively Include
them by going to the page and then
edit.
3. Promote you company page. A LinkedIn
ad campaign could help spread the word
about your company as you build and
integrate you marketing campaign.
4. Post Jobs on the Careers tab. This allows
you to post openings at your company.
Let people know your looking for fresh
talent to help you build your company
5. Measure. The final tab on company
pages is an analytics tab which will allow
you to track page views and unique
visitors.

13. Final Word On LinkedIn
There are a lot of new tools being added
to the LinkedIn toolbox all the time. Keep
following its progress, through personal
use or follow me on Linked in at:
http://uk.linkedin.com/in/paulasampson/
For a free review of your LinkedIn strategy
and a critique of your profile or if you do
not use LinkedIn and would like to see its
potential for your business click on this
address and register:
www.seaforthmarketing.com
or call 07763 942290 and talk to Paul