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How to avoid the 7 Mistakes of LinkedIn and succeed with the worlds biggest online Business Community “The Most Cutting Edge Information Available on Using LinkedIn To Grow Your Business” A Free Report by The Biz Links

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LinkedIn Tips to Get the Most Out of Your Social Exposure

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Page 1: Linkedin   7 Mistakes To Avoid 0512

How to avoid the 7 Mistakes of LinkedIn and succeed with the world’s biggest online

Business Community

“The Most Cutting Edge Information Available on Using LinkedIn To Grow Your Business”

A Free Report by The Biz Links

Page 2: Linkedin   7 Mistakes To Avoid 0512

1. Ticking the box

The number one mistake with LinkedIn is to create your profile, connect to a small

number of people you know and then do nothing else. In common with other social

networking sites, simply opening an account and ticking the boxes misses the really

powerful business features. LinkedIn users need a clear objective and a plan

otherwise its enormous potential will be lost and it reverts to being a way of keeping

business contacts online.

You cannot expect to grow your business by sitting in your office all day; you have to

get out there and attend lots of events, build relationships and become involved. The

same applies to LinkedIn. If you just set up a profile and wait for people to come to

you very little will happen. You need to reach out to the LinkedIn community and

become actively involved.

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2. No Goal or Clear Plan of Action Unless you have a clear plan of action Linkedin will be very proficient at wasting your

time! Write out exactly what you want to achieve on Linkedin, the messages you want

to deliver and the people you want to engage. Once you have done this you can then

figure the best People searches, Groups to join and how to take part in the community.

A specific plan of action may be:

“I want to develop working relationships with 2 new Accountants in the Midlands area

every month”

After setting your goal develop a plan in writing that will get you there - like this:

Dedicate 45mins per day for LinkedIn and mark it as a core networking activity

Write a free guide that will help accountants in some way

Create 3 advanced searches for accountants and work though the list each day

Set up 4 phone conversations with new accountants each week

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3. Not completing your Profile

Many profiles remain incomplete. Even on 95% your chances of rising to the top of

LinkedIn searches are diminished. Here is what you need to have a 100% complete

profile.

A current position

Two past positions

Education

Profile summary

A profile photo

Specialities

At least three recommendations

Your Profile Picture

Crucial – make sure you have a great professional looking picture

of yourself. If you don’t have one invest a small amount in a

professional photographer to take some for you. It will be worth it.

We can certainly recommend the following photographers who will offer you a great service

Midlands Area James Crockford www.jamescrockford.com 0121 680 0110

London Area Chris Holt www.christopherholt.com 07881 950 709

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Your Professional Headline

Your professional headline is what sits directly below your name on your profile. It

follows you everywhere on LinkedIn and it is your first chance to get people to notice

you, so make it compelling – remember that people only care about their own

problems so ask yourself what problems do you solve?

Example of headline

Create some sentences that best describe what you do and how it helps others. This is

your professional headline – your one chance to make people want to connect with

you so make it compelling, inspiring and value driven. LinkedIn by default will add in

your most recent job title which looks unimaginative and gives very little information

about what you do, so be more creative.

When writing you headline make sure you cover the following 3 key areas:

Description ► you job title

Value ► what you actually offer

Keywords► 1-3 descriptive keywords

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Summary

Rewrite your summary in a draft format, keep it to around 250-300 words. Your

headline might bring people in but it will only take you so far. This section needs to be

rich and equally compelling, great summaries include:

What you’re passionate about – people want to know what drives you

Why you are doing what you are doing – again tell people who you really are

The best examples of who you have helped this year – everyone helps people in

some way or another

You as a person – if you have children say you have and how great they are

The vast majority of the summaries on LinkedIn read like CVs with lots of factual

information, which does little to inspire people, remember when you are out face to

face networking it’s all about you and how you help people – treat your LinkedIn

summary in a similar way.

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Example:

I am a highly passionate, creative & hardworking professional who loves to help

people discover the huge potential of LinkedIn and overcome the frustrations of

modern day technology……

Websites

Adding in your company website is essential and we assume that you have all done

this. Google rates very highly links from LinkedIn so this will increase you Google

ranking and also give new connections a chance to view your website.

What is often missed here is the opportunity to add in two more websites. If you have

two other company websites then great if not then you still have a number of ways

you can add value

Add in your Facebook or YouTube pages or any other social media that you may be

using to promote you and your business.

Page 8: Linkedin   7 Mistakes To Avoid 0512

Pick out two useful free / factual websites that will provide good information around

what you do and add them. This will give extra value to people who view your profile

and also give you a reason to send people to your profile.

When you add in your websites select the other “option” and add in a description of

the site in the field.

Specialities

The section should contain a summary that covers all of your services and products,

very much like a list of keywords for your website. Don’t leave anything out and be as

descriptive as possible. If you do Public Speaking then add it in here also as people will

find you when searching for speakers.

Don’t reinvent the wheel!

Use Google to find the top ranked websites of your competitors when you find the top

sites do a “Right Click” on your mouse and select “view source” this will open up a

second window showing to code of the homepage – at the top you will see there

Keywords use this as a guide to create your keywords!

Page 9: Linkedin   7 Mistakes To Avoid 0512

Applications

LinkedIn offer a number of applications to enhance your profile. Out of the 19 that are

currently available the following add the most value:

Events – great for marketing your own events, also finding ones in your market and

checking out who will be attending

SlideShare Presentations – great for displaying a quick summary of the value you can

offer and also recently you can now upload videos. The maximum upload limit is

100MB so keep your video down to 60-90 secs

Box.net Files – this is a really great application that is rarely used on LinkedIn profiles.

If you have free material which you offer then use this application to get it up on your

profile and add real value to those who connect with you

Reading List by Amazon – this is also very useful as it can help with your credibility

with others, because they can see what you are interested it and that you are reading

good books.

A true football legend!

Page 10: Linkedin   7 Mistakes To Avoid 0512

Recommendations

These are critical to the overall success of your LinkedIn strategy. In today’s business

economy it’s not enough to say you are a great accountant or sales trainer, you need

to show evidence to support this. Social Media is one of the most powerful ways to

provide this and it has even been given its own term, known as “Social Proof”.

Think about it when you view other profiles that have just a handful of

recommendations, what is your impression of them? You might think OK – but OK is

not OK. Profiles with 35-40 detailed recommendations really stand out and that is

what you need to aim for. Who would you rather do business with, someone with 1

recommendation or someone with 38!

Need more recommendations? Then make some yourself. The first rule of networking

in general is – give first, receive second

Giving a recommendation is one of the biggest compliments someone can receive. Do

not wait for someone to ask you for a recommendation take the initiative and write a

compelling recommendation for a fellow connection and watch them come back

tenfold!

Page 11: Linkedin   7 Mistakes To Avoid 0512

4. Using the Generic Messages

As a general rule always personalise your messages when you connect with people

and request recommendations. The Linkedin Coaches are not big fans of that standard

message that LinkedIn provides, which gives no information at all

“I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.”

You are much more likely to get a better response if you add in the reason why you

wish to connect, for example

Networking Follow up message

Afternoon Bob,

It was a pleasure to meet with you at the BNI Breakfast event yesterday morning, I

would like to add you to my professional network and look forward to helping you with

your business over the next few months

Speak soon

Page 12: Linkedin   7 Mistakes To Avoid 0512

Adding in a new contact message – may look like this

Morning Phil,

I noticed that we are both members of the business marketing group and I also noticed

on your profile that you work with Solicitors. I also work with them and wondered if we

could help each other by sharing our contacts as our businesses do not compete with

each other. I would like to add you to my network and contact you for an initial

discussion

Speak soon,

Think about how you can add value to the people you want to connect with.

The same applies when you ask for recommendations. Be specific – by asking to be

recommended for the work you did 6 months ago when you helped the company out

of a difficult situation with their accounts will yield you a much richer and more

descriptive recommendation than just saying

“I'm sending this to ask you for a brief recommendation of my work that I can include

in my LinkedIn profile. If you have any questions, let me know.

Page 13: Linkedin   7 Mistakes To Avoid 0512

5. Small number of connections

Connections lead to opportunities and opportunities lead to the need for more

connections – in short the bigger your network the more people you can reach and the

greater the likelihood that it will create your next big opportunity.

The ability to see and be seen though the LinkedIn network is directly proportional to

the number of connections you have

The big mistake with LinkedIn is connecting with just the people you know – you need

to expand your network of contacts, and here are some great ways

Page 14: Linkedin   7 Mistakes To Avoid 0512

Following up from Network events

Get into the habit of connecting with the people you meet when out networking face

to face and preferably very soon after the event, take their business card and send

them a personal invite to connect message.

Advanced Searching

The advance searching feature can be used to target certain contacts and ideal

prospects

Page 15: Linkedin   7 Mistakes To Avoid 0512

Target your ideal prospects with a combination of the following filters.

Geographic (2 digit post codes)

Specific Industry Codes (SIC)

Size of Business, (By turnover, number of staff and fleet size)

Key Decision Makers (CEO, Sales Director, Marketing Director, IT Director, Senior

Management)

LinkedIn then provides you with a list of the contacts that match the criteria; LinkedIn

is very clever in how it presents this list to you. The more relevant they are to the

search and your profile the higher they appear on the list

Page 16: Linkedin   7 Mistakes To Avoid 0512

Contacts with 2nd next to their name mean that a contact in your network is directly

connected to them, the 3rd means that someone in your network in connected to them

though a member of their network.

What this means is that you can look at their profiles, identify the best contacts for

your needs, then ask the contact in your network for an introduction – fantastic way to

get to key decision makers in your market and grow your network of contacts.

Page 17: Linkedin   7 Mistakes To Avoid 0512

Connecting Directly

If there is no one in your network that is connected to a potential contact then you can

try to connect with them directly. This can be a little risky as officially LinkedIn only

allows you to connect with people you already know in some way.

In our experience as long as you write a personal message with value and reason to

connect you will be ok. You may have come across the term (LION) next to the names

of certain contacts. (LION) means LinkedIn Open Networker – this is an open

statement declaring that they will happily connect with anyone.

The value of connecting with anyone is open to discussion, our advice is to

concentrate on finding people that you can help and are of value. There are also

various websites where you can download huge lists of LinkedIn open contacts that

will give you a huge network over night – again the value of doing this yet to be proven.

Page 18: Linkedin   7 Mistakes To Avoid 0512

Using the Add Connections option

The add connections option is a very useful way to increase your network. It allows

you to import your Outlook contacts and Apple Mail. You can also upload a contacts

file from a spreadsheet, which gives lot more options to import contacts from various

sources.

Once the contacts have been uploaded LinkedIn sends a generic invitation out which is

non invasive and accepted by most. There are also various other options to find people

within the Add connections feature.

The most important action when growing your network is consistency, by committing

to spending 25mins per day looking for new contacts you will be past the 500 mark in

just a few months.

Page 19: Linkedin   7 Mistakes To Avoid 0512

6. Not doing anything with your Contacts

Now you have committed to growing your network of contacts massively you need to

actually do something with them otherwise it will be a waste of time and effort. Our

advice is to give as much value to your network of contacts as you can, remembering

the golden rule of networking, give first, Receive second. Ask yourself, “What ways can

I be more giving on LinkedIn?”

One very effective way to give value is to view all of your contacts and find the top 5

that are or will be of most value to you. Use the information that LinkedIn gives you on

their profiles, look to see who they are connected with etc. When you have your 5 key

contacts plan a strategy for developing your business relationships with them.

One very successful method if you are a service based business is to offer 2 free hours

of your services as a thank you for all they have done for you. After you have given

them your time don’t ask for anything back apart from a good LinkedIn

recommendation.

Provide them with quality introductions. Go out of your way to recommend that they

get in touch with key contacts that you have

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Build the know, like and trust rule of networking in general by staying connected with

them. Send updates once a week, send them a personal message. Give them value -

send them quality people you know in your network that will help them, post updates

that promote their websites.

Don’t SPAM them, not ever! Save that for your less important contacts (If I now get

lots of SPAM, yes I will take it personally!)

This may seem like a lot of work and giving, but what you are doing here is creating the

“boomerang effect” most people have a hard time receiving and not giving back. It is

human nature, they will feel they owe you in return and will soon realise you are

worth helping more often.

For the rest of your contacts similar rules apply. Try to add value to them as much as

you can but always give priority to your Key Contacts first, you can seldom do both.

Page 21: Linkedin   7 Mistakes To Avoid 0512

7. Not Persisting

“Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who

have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all” Dale Carnegie

Ok I’m not going to lecture you here! Just remember that LinkedIn is no different from

face to face networking, which is about building life-long contacts that you can draw

upon and contribute to for assistance. It’s all about building solid relationships, which

takes time and cannot be rushed.

It takes time to build your LinkedIn network. It is important to persist patiently and not

be concerned with what others are doing.

To be a success on LinkedIn you need the ABBs of networking: Always Be Building your

Network and commit to doing so on a consistent basis.

Final Tip!

It is important that you make your actions and activities on LinkedIn consistent with

what you practice, or should be practising when networking in the real world. They

need to work together to form an overall business networking plan

We hope you found this introductory guide use and we would like to thank you for

taking the time to read it.

Page 22: Linkedin   7 Mistakes To Avoid 0512

Martin Haworth Linkedin Training & Support

Martin Haworth is a business and management coach

and trainer, with a strong interest in using social

media as a tool to develop value-creating

opportunities online.

Following a successful corporate management career,

since 2001, Martin has worked worldwide with a

wide range of organizations helping individuals and

teams make the best of the opportunities they have

before them.

Over the past 3 years, he has built a sizeable Twitter following for himself, and a

number of businesses, managing over 38,000 followers on their behalf and creating

business opportunities across the globe.

At LinkedIn, Martin became aware of the opportunities during 2011 and took the time

to grow a personal contact list to over 400, leveraging a number of business

opportunities from there. The next obvious leap was to combine training, business and

social media and he is proud to have been an associate with TheBizLinks since April

2012."

Martin provides Linkedin training to businesses and professions in

Gloucester and Surrounding Areas.

To find out more about my training services please contact me on 0121 371 9427 or send an email to [email protected]