One of my main projects at the moment is helping a blue-chip technology company’s resellers get to grips with Social Media. I can’t really talk about the project, but what I can do is share some of the fruits of the work.
One of the main questions I get asked at the moment is what companies should be doing about Social Media. I’ll answer that in a future article (it’s a biggie), but for most businessess that sell to other businesses (B2B), we feel that the most important Social Media tool is LinkedIn. Though as ever in marketing (and life), what you do should reflect your objectives,and in some cases, other tools may be more important.
Why is LinkedIn so important?
- Because it contains potentially very useful information about individuals, be they current or potential clients, suppliers or competitors.
- Because LinkedIn is somewhere others will look for information about your company and employees.
- Because you can find a great deal of useful information and potential sales leads.
- Because it can help you build closer relationships with existing contacts.
- Because it can also be very useful as a recruitment tool.
Don’t worry if you’re not familiar with LinkedIn, many organisations we’ve worked with over the last few months were new to it too. Here’s a quick primer for the uninitiated.
LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking tool based around a website. It is mainly used for professional networking. The basic version of the service is free, though there is a premium version with extra features.
The purpose of LinkedIn is to allow registered users to maintain a list of contact details of people they know and trust in business. The people in the list are called Connections. Users create a profile for themselves, including details of their job, employer, professional interests and a photograph (for identification). They can then invite anyone (whether a LinkedIn user or not) to become a connection.
This list of connections can be used in a number of ways:
- A contact network is built up consisting of their direct connections, the connections of each of their connections (second-degree connections) and also the connections of second-degree connections (third-degree connections). This can be used to gain an introduction to someone a person wishes to know through a mutual, trusted contact.
- The contact network can then be used to find people and business opportunities. (Unless you subscribe to the professional version, you’ll only see extended details for third-degree connections and higher)
- Users can broadcast short messages to their contact network by updating their status and details of status updates from their network in a similar way to Facebook.
- Users can recommend other users, providing short professional references.
LinkedIn also allows companies to create profiles for themselves. Company profiles also contain details of employees and allow you to post job listings. Company profiles are useful to people looking for further information about your company, who would like to work for you or who want to find a suitable contact person.
Another feature is LinkedIn Answers, which allows users to ask questions for the community to answer. This feature is free and is similar to Yahoo Answers, though the main difference from the latter is that questions are generally more business-oriented, and the identity of the people asking and answering questions is known. This can be a useful source of business opportunities.
Finally, the searchable LinkedIn Groups feature allows users to establish new business relationships by joining industry, professional, alumni and other relevant groups. These groups then enable news, discussions and job vacancies to be shared between members. LinkedIn groups can be open or closed-membership and created in any subject and by any member of LinkedIn. Some groups are specialised groups dealing with a narrow interest or industry whereas others are very broad and generic in nature.
So how should LinkedIn best be used? In most cases your company should:
- Create a company profile
This should include a logo, description, specialties, locations, statistics and contact details. It only needs to be updated if major changes (such as a takeover) occur.
- Post job vacancies on the company profile
Job postings on LinkedIn are free, so can be a useful way of attracting additional candidates.
- Encourage employees to create a full profile (including a connection to the company), develop a list of connections, request recommendations and regularly update their status
This should include a good quality photograph, summary, employment and education history and a link to the company’s website. It’s possible to add large amounts of personal information, such as reading lists, blog entries and Twitter posts, but this isn’t really necessary.
Employees should be encouraged to develop their list of connections, though quality is better than quantity. A good rule of thumb is to only request a connection with someone that you would exchange business cards with and create a professional relationship.
Employees should also be encouraged to ask for recommendations from their connections, basically short references that can be seen as part of their profile, though again, quality is better than quantity.
Finally, employees should be encouraged to regularly update their status, and keep track of their connections’ status updates. This will help them develop closer relationships with their connections, and may well be a source of business opportunities. Updates should be kept short and relate to business. New business wins, project completion and upcoming events are all good subjects. Personal subjects are acceptable, but it’s better if they relate to business in some way, such as an ‘out of office’ before a forthcoming holiday, or are momentous announcements, such as news of a birth or a marriage.
- Use LinkedIn to research companies and individuals
LinkedIn profiles can tell you a lot about a person – their employment history, who they are connected to, their status updates and via what groups they are a member of, their professional interests. This information can be help you tailor your approach to the company and the individual.
- Make use of LinkedIn Groups
Joining LinkedIn Groups can be an excellent way to develop business relationships and develop contacts. It can sometimes be worthwhile to create your own group, for example, for your resellers, employees or end users, but only if you are sure that it doesn’t duplicate an existing group and that the members will make it a vibrant community.
- Make use of LinkedIn Answers
LinkedIn answers is an excellent way to get answers to professional queries, for example, how to get a French phone number without having a physical presence in France. It can be worthwhile using both to ask questions, and to look for questions relating to your company’s specialties that you can answer. Answering questions can not only be a source of business opportunities, but can build general goodwill and word-of-mouth about your company.
- Consider advertising on LinkedIn
Whilst it’s not cheap, advertising on LinkedIn offers an almost unique opportunity way to get your message in front of a highly targeted audience.
- Integrate LinkedIn with other media
Wherever you currently display company and employee contact details (for example, on your website, promotional material and business cards), add links to relevant pages on LinkedIn. This will make it easier for others to find details of the company or an individual.
LinkedIn supports profiles in multiple languages, so the company profile should be written in the major languages that the company does business in, whilst individual profiles are written in the languages the individual uses for business.
Whilst LinkedIn is the dominant business social networking tool in much of the English-speaking (and non-English-speaking) world, there are also networks that dominate particular countries and regions, particularly China, Russia and Brazil, so if you do business there then you should make sure you have a presence there.
Hopefully you’re now full of enthusiasm for LinkedIn, if you’d like a bit of help in embracing it (such as producing guidelines for employees, advertising on it, or monitoring activity) then give me a call on +44 7956 326656.
