LinkedIN: create your business!

INTRODUCTION

This report will take you through the process of setting up your LinkedInCorporation® account and creating your profile. From here we will showyou several ways that you can use LinkedIn Corporation® to expand andgrow your business.Did you know that even a freelancer can add their own company toLinkedIn Corporation®’s huge directory? Or that you can add your ownproducts and services along with special discounts and coupons? No, thenyou are going to be in for a great journey while reading this report.As with anything remember to take what you learn and apply as much aspossible to your business. With so much competition today every smallthing you do can help push your company higher into the public profile.Enjoy!

GETTING STARTED WITH LINKEDIN CORPORATION

All that you need for your LinkedIn Corporation® account is the freeversion. This is perfectly fine for developing good business connectionswithin your market. Most likely you already have an account set up, if notjust follow the basic directions to get one ready and then come back andfollow the rest of this report.Setting Up Your ProfileYour profile on LinkedIn Corporation® is extremely important. The wordsyou use to describe your services and clients are used by LinkedInCorporation® as keywords. So by applying the correct terms in your profileyou can show up high in the search results.Please note that the search results for LinkedIn Corporation® are basedupon your connections. So while it is important to get a good number ofconnections, you don’t want to start spamming people. This will not lookgood and only serve to get you into trouble with LinkedIn Corporation®.You want to take the time to fill out the specialities area of your profile. Ifyou are a graphic designer then use additional terms to describe your job.This would include using terms such as:• Graphic designer• Minisite design• Banner design• E book cover creation

• Kindle Covers•

If you were a writer then add:

• Freelance writer

• Ghostwriting

• E book author

• Article writer

Under the Experience section you want to list your current clients. Youwould just include their name and the date you started working for them,just don’t include the finish date or their website URL unless you wish tolink to them.Using LinkedIn Corporation® ApplicationsThere are certain applications in LinkedIn Corporation® that you want totake advantage of. The following are just a sample of ones that you coulduse:• Box Net – to share reports• WordPress – Adds the latest posts from your box• Google Presentation – allows you to add a PowerPointpresentation or video to your profile page• Portfolio Display – allows you to display samples of yourworkAll of these applications have the potential to become a lead generationsource. For example you can upload a report that links to a squeeze orlanding page. Then the person submits their email address to receive moreinformation or to join your mailing list, and presto! You are building your list.

NETWORKING WITH LINKEDIN CORPORATION

How to Grow Your NetworkYour first goal is to grow your connection list. One easy way is to join someGroups within LinkedIn Corporation®. You can easily find groups withinyour industry to join along with local groups. Also think about joining groupsthat could potentially use your services. If you offer coaching or graphicdesigns then look for groups that need these types of services.Be sure to connect your Twitter and LinkedIn Corporation® accountstogether. This way when you update your status it will automatically beTweeted for you. It is a good idea to use the status feature as much aspossible. You can simply state that you are working on a clients website, orcreating a new product or writing a new article or report. It just showspeople that you are actively using your profile.HOW TO POSITION YOURSELF IN YOUR INDUSTRYYour main objective is to position yourself as a leader within your businessor niche. You should also consider what your goal is as well. Is it to findcustomers and/or potential business partners? Or is your primary goal leadgeneration?By determining who your target audience is you can then provide them withsuitable content. This can be in the form of reports, articles, e books andeven videos.Remember that you should target your competition as well as otherbusiness associates. By sharing your information in this manner you will beseen as a force to be reckoned with. You could very easily have knowledgeon one certain key aspect that even your competitor appreciates!Other content that you could share with these people are the current andupcoming trends for your industry. Just writing a blog post on your thoughtsand expectations and then sharing it with your connections.The content that you share doesn’t necessarily have to be yours 100% ofthe time. It is a great idea to share content from others in your industry,along with notes on your thoughts of how this service or product mightaffect your business.The result of this over time will be that you are looked at as a leader in yourindustry. This is exactly what you want to have happen!If you find that you are receiving good feedback from your connections thenyou should act on this and provide them with a free webinar or seminar.This can easily be set up online or offline depending upon your market.As you become recognized as a leader you may wish to separate yourwebsite so that you have two focused sites. One site would be focused onyour customers and their needs and wishes. While the other would defineyou as a business leader and can possibly lead to speaking engagementsor coaching clients.

LINKEDIN CORPORATION ANSWERS

Using this feature in LinkedIn Corporation® is the perfect way to positionyourself as a leader in your industry or niche. It would only take a fewminutes each day to go into this section and start answering somequestions. The great feature about this is that LinkedIn Corporation®promotes the top responses each week. If you make the top list then yourname will appear under the Top Experts list each week. This is a great wayto get recognition.To save time each day you can quickly do a search and tick the box so thatonly unanswered questions appear. Then it is just a matter of going througheach one and giving a helpful response.Make use of this section by looking at the typical questions asked in yourindustry each day or week. This could spark ideas for producing a newproduct or report that you could sell or give away to build your list.LINKEDIN CORPORATION® GROUPSThe Group feature in LinkedIn Corporation® can be extremely powerful foryour business. Just click on the group directory and you will see a huge listof possible groups that you can join.Because this list is so large LinkedIn Corporation® actually recommendsGroups You May Like. This is based upon the information you provided inyour profile. These would be the groups that are closely related to yourindustry and most beneficial to your business.Once you find a group that you would like to join you simply click on the joingroup button. You will then see the message: Your membership is pendingapproval. Once you are approved you will receive notification in your emailaccount. You can then start participating in the group.Once you have been active for a while you can ask other members if theyare interested in doing blog posts or have articles, reports or otherinformation that you can use on your site. Many industry leaders will jumpat the chance of writing a blog post or article for you. This provides you withunique content and gives you both additional exposure.Remember LinkedIn Corporation® is a social site so sharing and beingactive are good ways to get yourself noticed.You can also create your own LinkedIn Corporation® group but you mustbe prepared to monitor and lead the group on a daily basis. This could beanother great way to show people how to use your product or service toenhance their business. You don’t want to just sell yourself in this group.Give out advice and be helpful to others, this will again help strengthenyour position as a leader within your industry.The one huge benefit of creating a group is that it gives you access to anemail broadcast tool for free. If used correctly this could be invaluable toyour business.HOW TO FIND JV PARTNERSFinding JV Partners on LinkedIn Corporation® can be done in a variety ofways.1. By establishing yourself as a Leader2. By searching companies for specific industry leaders3. Joining similar groups for your industry4. Using the LinkedIn Corporation® advanced search featureMaking use of the search feature is what you should use after you havepositioned yourself within your industry. People are more likely to acceptyour JV request if you are seen as an authority figure.LinkedIn Corporation® provides you with an easy way to search forLinkedIn Corporation® Partners and I will explain in easy steps how to usethis feature below:1. Go to the search box next to the word People at the top of thepage.2. Click on the word Advanced.3. Now you will see a list of fields which you can search by.4. You can use keywords to search by or specific job titles. You canuse the variables NOT and OR to define exactly what you arelooking for:For example:Fitness Trainer NOT coachSelf Employed OR Company CEOIf you are looking for a local person or someone who sharescertain interests these can all be specified in your search terms.5. Once you have your search criteria set you can save these results.This will then be placed under your saved results tab in youraccount. You can then re-run this as often as you wish. Or yourother option is to set it up so that your search automatically runseach week or month and then LinkedIn Corporation® will email theresults to you.This is a great method to use for finding partners and once set up will runon its own. Using tools like this is a great way to automate certain aspectsof your business, and ones that you should take advantage of.

HOW TO DO MARKET RESEARCH

An easy way to perform market research on LinkedIn Corporation® is byutilizing their Answer section, which we covered in more detail earlier in thisreport.The search feature can also provide you with a list of potential customers,clients and other companies in the same industry. You may just discover abig business name that your product or service would be perfect for.Collect DataWhat you can do here is utilize the Question and Answer section to yourown benefit. Simply ask several questions on a topic that you would like topublish a report about. Then you can use the answers as a basis for thereport. You may wish to give credit to any exceptional information that youhave received.This would give you enough data to publish your own authoritative report orwhite paper. Or spark ideas for a new product to create!Finding Experts to InterviewYou can use the advanced search feature to find out who the experts are inyour industry and then request an interview with them. You could then usethis interview and create a recording of it to share with your readers or forother promotional ideas.By clicking on a certain company you can view all their details. Over on theright side you can view the Insightful Statistics area on each company. Thiscan provide you with tons of information on the business. This section willallow you to see how many employees are leaving or coming into thecompany.

HOW TO PROMOTE EVENTS

You can promote different types of events on LinkedIn Corporation® andthis can be done by looking for connections in your industry. You shouldtarget associations, conference organizers, event planners and any othergroups that could use your services or product.If one of your goals is to get media attention then strive to connect withbloggers, journalists and press release companies.To promote your events you can simply send details to all of yourconnections. Another way is to add the Event application to your profilepage. This allows you to advertise all your upcoming events for everyone tosee.This application also allows you to search for similar events in yourindustry. This can be a great way to see how they advertise each event.You can get some great promotional ideas this way.Once you click on add an event a new screen pops up where you can listall the relevant details. You can even state whether this is a virtual event ornot. You can add your location, the time, if you are the organizer and if youare actually attending the event or name the person who is attending asyour representative.By clicking on the add more details button you can provide a descriptionof the event. In this section you can include up to 20 keywords and 20 jobtitles for recommendations for who should attend the event. This will helpyou show up in the search feature for anyone looking for an event toattend.Once you are happy with your details you can publish the event and allyour connections will have the ability to view the details.

LINKEDIN CORPORATION COMPANIES

Under the companies tab in LinkedIn Corporation® you will see a list of allthe companies in this directory. You can easily search the companies tofind business associates and possible future partners.Adding Your Own CompanyThis is a neat way to get your own company name listed in LinkedInCorporation®’s huge directory. Simply click on the Add Company tab andfill out your details. The only requirement is that you are a current employeeof this company. So for anyone with a home based business you can easilyget listed. This will provide you with more exposure for your company.Once you have confirmed your company you are now ready to customizeyour listing. You will be sent an email that you have to confirm. You shouldadd the following on your page:• Company Logo• Company Description• Special Offers• Number of employees if applicable• Website address• Industry Category• Year company was created• Location• Twitter ID• RSS FeedYou then want to visit the Products and Services tab. This allows you toadd your products and/or services to your company profile. You can addand explain the key features of this product. You can include a YouTubevideo. Another great feature is that you can offer a special promotion forthis product or service if you wish. This way you can offer some type ofincentive to people who found you via your LinkedIn Corporation® page.Your company page also includes an analytics page that allows you to seewho is visiting your company profile.

USING LINKEDIN CORPORATION ADVERTISING

As long as you have a free account with LinkedIn Corporation® you canuse their advertising feature. The only other requirement is a credit card topay for your ad. When placing your ad you have the ability to select yourtarget audience and your advertising budget. The ad system works on apay per click or impression system. You only pay for the clicks that youreceive.It takes about 24 hours for your Ad to be approved and it must meet certainguidelines. A quick overview follows:• Do not lie or deceive people in your ad• Use standard grammar and punctuation and do not repeatwords in your ad• Only English ads are accepted and they must containacceptable language• Your display URL must match your destination URL• No mention of LinkedIn Corporation® is allowed in your ad• No affiliate ads of any kind are allowedLinkedIn Corporation® also has an extensive list of topics which you arenot allowed to use. To see the entire list just visit the advertising guidelinespage for complete details.When writing your ad it will need to be made of up of the followingelements:• Headline – up to 25 characters of text• Description – up to 75 characters of text• From – your company name• Image – a 50 x 50 pixel is allowed• URL – link to your websiteYour ad will be displayed in a variety of places on LinkedIn Corporation®.This could include all or some of the following:• Profile Page• Home Page• Inbox• Search Results Page• GroupsYou must target who you want to see your ad and this can be done by thefollowing criteria:• Job Title• Job Function• Industry• Geography• Company Size• Company Name• Seniority• Age• Gender• LinkedIn Corporation® GroupNote: Once you start creating an ad LinkedIn Corporation® will advise youon whom your target market is and they will estimate the size of youraudience. They will also advise you on the cost of your campaign.There is a onetime activation fee for using LinkedIn Corporation® ads andthat is currently set at $5. You will be billed on your credit card for your adand this depends on how many clicks you receive. So potentially you couldsee daily or weekly charges.There is no long term commitment or requirements for running your ad. Toturn your ad off you simply log into your LinkedIn Corporation® AdsDashboard. You have complete control over everything.

YOUR LINKEDIN CORPORATION PROFILE BADGE

Now that you have taken the time and effort to set up your LinkedInCorporation® account you want to make use of your Profile Badge. Thiscan be found by clicking on the edit your profile button and then scrollingdown to the end of the page. On the right hand side you will see a link forProfile Badges. Click on this and then select which type of badge youwould like to use.You can then add the code into your website or blog and make it very easyfor your readers and customers to connect with you on LinkedInCorporation®.You can also add this image to your email account if you wish.First copy the code for the image you wish to use and save it to a notepadfile.You only want to use the actual image address so copy from the http://section to the end of png. This is the URL you will add to your signature.For Gmail users simply go to your account setting and then click on thesignature settings box.1. Click on insert image2. Insert the URL from your notepad file3. If it is correct the image will automatically appear in the box below.4. Then click okay5. Click on the image and then the hyperlink button6. Add your LinkedIn Corporation® profile address7. Test the link and it should open directly to your profile page8. Save changes and your LinkedIn Corporation® badge nowappears in your signature fileNow each time you send an email you are getting exposure to yourLinkedIn Corporation® account.

CONCLUSION

Hopefully this report will have given you some great ideas on how to useLinkedIn Corporation® to build your business. You may be surprised to findadditional features that you didn’t know LinkedIn Corporation® offered.Just remember that LinkedIn Corporation® is a social site and it includes allthe members from the Fortune 500 companies! This just goes to show youhow much they value their LinkedIn Corporation® profiles.Get into the habit of using LinkedIn Corporation® on a regular basis, as youoffer new products or services list them on your profile.In your profile area click on the News tab and keep up to date with all thenew happenings at LinkedIn Corporation®. The signal tab shows you whichof your connections are keep busy and posting content for their followers.The face of LinkedIn Corporation® is changing, don’t think that it is only forhigh end businesses anymore. In March of 2011 LinkedIn Corporation® hit100 million members! That alone should be more than enough reason tomake good use of your LinkedIn Corporation® profile.So take a couple of hours today or tomorrow and create your profile, addyour company and list all your products and services. You don’t know whojust might be looking for what you have to offer.Good Luck!