1. The Power of Personal
Connections:
Using LinkedIn to Market Your
Business and Yourself
Presented by:
Mary Bahr
6/08/10
2. How Small Businesses Use Social Media
Figure 19
The areas that users have been successful in are generally the same as expectations. However,
there is one notable gap: while 73 percent of users expect to identify and attract new customers
with social media, only 61 percent have accomplished this successfully. Thus, social media
performance is below expectations in bringing new business in the door, although it meets
expectations for building brand awareness and staying engaged with customers.
Figure 20 What do Small Businesses Hope to Accomplish with Social Media?
What Types of Social Media Do Small Businesses Use?
Most users of social media – 58 percent – find the medium just “met expectations” for success.
For the remainder, twice as many feel the medium fell short of expectations (26 percent) than
exceeded expectations (12 percent) for success.
The expectations small business owners have for social media are related to external marketing
and engagement, and include identifying and attracting new customers, building brand
awareness, and staying engaged with customers. Fewer small business owners expect social
media to help them with collaborating with external suppliers, partners and colleagues or with
staff internally. The external marketing is an obvious use of social media, but there may be a vast
untapped potential for using Small Business Report”,
Source: “The State of the medium to link members of the supply network, colleagues and
Network Solutions LLC, and the Center for
staff to gain advantages in creativity and productivity. Such internal uses are harder to imagine
Excellence in Business at the University of Maryland.
and in their infancy, but have the potential to unleash a vast reservoir of creativity and joint
problem solving as social media users grow exponentially. Examples of such uses are
developing a new product or service, finding low cost resources, teaming to pursue business
opportunities, or leveraging an expert source to solve a special problem.
Social media use is not without problems, the main one being the amount of time involved. Half
(50 percent) of small business users of social media have found that it has taken up more time
than they expected. A common concern about social media in a business context is that it gives
people a chance to criticize the business on the internet, but only 17 percent cite this as a
3.
4. Some Background on LinkedIn
• Founded in 2003
• Over 67 million members; 1 new member per
second; 50% outside US
• All Fortune 500 represented; over 4 million
small businesses
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5. Why embrace LinkedIn?
• Increase your visibility, improve your Google page rank and
search engine results
• Increase your connectability: locate people from your past,
present and future
• Research companies and people (staff movement, hiring
turnover, job descriptions)
• Give and get—ask questions, answer questions, write
recommendations
• Promote yourself and your business with added apps,
and website, blog visibility
• Scope our the competition, potential customers and
employers
• Keep track of job movement of your network
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6. How to do it…
• Strive for 100% complete profile (click on the button that
shows how complete your profile is: it will help you
complete it!)
• Use the “professional headline” for more than your current
title: use it to describe yourself (in Basic Information
section)
• Use “current status” field to raise your professional profile:
e.g.: what are you working on, what are you reading, what
are you attending…
• Make your profile and work experience as complete as
possible: it will bring more potential connections to your
attention
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7. How to do it…
• Remember your LinkedIn profile should complement
your resume, not duplicate it
• If you’re a business owner, create a business page for
your business
• Change your public profile URL to your name; add
this URL as a hyperlink to your email signature
• Add your websites and blogs to website listings: you
can list up to three (could also list causes that you are
involved in)
• Summary: is NOT a resume: use it to explain who
you are and what you are passionate about
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8. How to do it…
• Applications add functionality and visibility to your profile:
select ones that you’ll use (I love Amazon Reading Lists,
SlideShare and Blog Link, but choose what works for you)
• Give and get recommendations strategically: do not give
recommendations that you would not give in “real life”
• Look for groups that will complement both your
professional and personal interests
• Ask questions when you are trying to solve a problem or
find a solution: particularly if you are looking for something
specific
• Track companies
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9. How to do it…
• Use LinkedIn proactively: research someone before you
meet them, if you are going on an interview or business
pitch, request to LinkIn BEFORE your meeting, so that they
can review your profile
• Events: promote professional events you are involved in,
invite your network
• Create your own special interest group: create additional
credibility for your expertise
• To learn more: Guy Kawasaki’s article on LinkedIn (http://
tinyurl.com/2fbver)
• Check out LinkedIn movie:(http://press.linkedin.com/about)
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