LinkedIn

You’ve set up a profile for yourself on LinkedIn, and hopefully your employees have also.  You are connecting and engaging with others to build your personal and professional network.  Now it’s time to draw some of the focus to your current business and not just on individuals. It’s time to set up a company page.

You have become comfortable commenting in response to LinkedIn group discussions and are now poised to do more.  The next logical step is to start your own discussion in one of your groups.  But just trying to see your name online or get noticed is not the way to begin.  You’ll want to think about why you want to start your own discussion.

Hopefully you have already joined groups on LinkedIn that are relevant to you and your business interests.  After a few weeks of receiving notices of new discussions for the different organizations, you may decide that some of the groups are more a source of SPAM than viable and valuable information, and choosing to leave a few groups is perfectly normal.  But once you have found some groups that appear to have key players in your industry, pr

Sure, you are an expert in your line of business, and getting more clients is a top priority.  But no man (or woman) is an island, and those complementary connections can make you better in your field.  You wouldn’t think twice about joining associations and other industry-related groups as a member, so why not use LinkedIn to also connect with these and other groups online to broaden your expertise.

Just in the past week, I have been asked the following questions by Partners from two different accounting firms: “Is all of this social media stuff really necessary?  If so, how can I possibly be productive?”  This is quite a dilemma especially in the world of professional services where time equals money.  Both of these Partners bill their time at $350 per hour.  The opportunity cost of a three minute tweet becomes over $17.00.  When time is limited and you think in terms of dollars and cents, what social media commitment level makes sense?

It feels like fall is finally here, and so is our B2B Marketing Roundup. This summer we began sharing a weekly summary of our favorite articles and posts covering B2B marketing topics and we plan to keep the interesting content coming well into the cold autumn months! This week’s posts include copywriting tips and design rules for B2B, an all-encompassing Google+ guide and others. What are you reading up on this fall? We’d love to hear!

LinkedIn is constantly updating and improving their offerings.  Here’s a look at the latest changes that I find to be key for the B2B professional:

Mobile App

First and foremost, LinkedIn has a new and improved mobile app for iPhone and Android that makes keeping up to date on connections and industry news a snap.  You can check industry news and your connections’ status updates on the go.  You can also search for people and companies, update your status, send messages and read and contribute to Group discussions.

This week’s B2B Marketing Roundup is here! Enjoy our favorite posts on B2B marketing topics including tips for creating a successful LinkedIn Group and getting media coverage using social networking, plus impressive stats on Google+ and more. What were your favorite posts from the week? Be sure to let us know in the comments. See you next week!

Many of your colleagues and people you have met through networking are on LinkedIn.  Do you have a company event coming up and are looking for people to come?  Why not promote it on LinkedIn to attract potential attendees?

CREATING AN EVENT:

On your LinkedIn home page, roll over the “More” button at the top, then click “Events”.