LinkedIn has over 100+ million users, but somehow never gets the attention (or at least hype) that the other big social media platforms get.

When I talk to other business people, they often say they’re “on” LinkedIn, meaning they set up an account there and occasionally accept networking requests, but that’s about it.

Well I say, NO MORE! Let’s all take LinkedIn to the next level by sharing some of our power tips. (Or, if you don’t have any power tips, ask your questions here, too. No question is too silly or obvious!)

Here’s my tip to get us started: Did you know you could upload your current database of contacts to see who’s already on LinkedIn and then request to connect with them? It’s an incredibly fast and powerful way to build your LinkedIn Network.

Now it’s your turn…how do you use LinkedIn to help grow your small business?

Make sure to use your target keywords on the following sections:

• past and current experience
• summary
• specialties

@widianothman

You can send me a private message if you’d rather not share it here. If you need to send an attachment I’ll give you my direct email through that.

@rich-brooks I try to participate in groups, and set aside time a minimum of once per week to expand connections. It is the one place where I sync my Twitter posts most of the time. I find it keeps my name on the feeds for my contacts who are regular users, or scanners. While it may not be the best engagement, I am also not a stranger when I send out messages.

I also will “like” or follow other contact’s postings, and use it to find others I want to follow on Twitter for deeper engagement.

@rich-brooks Great topic Rich. I have been using LinkedIn for about 7 years and it keeps getting better and better each year. The biggest problem seems to be that LinkedIn doesn’t always do a good job promoting new features and tools. That has improved over the last year or so.

Two of my favorite, and often overlooked, areas are the Question & Answer section and company profiles. You can get to the Q & A section from the top navigation bar under ‘More” and then click on the tab named ‘Answers’ – I would have named it Questions & Answers but they didn’t ask me. 

You can ask questions within specific business categories and functional areas (lots of choices in the right hand side-bar menu). But even better than asking questions is you can answer questions that have been posted and demonstrate your expertise in a given area. Here’s where it gets really good. If the person posting the question picks your answer as the best one you get Expert status for that category. Your Expert status can then be on your main personal profile page. How’s that for some added street cred?

The other section that everyone who has their own company should do right away is set up your company profile. It’s like having another free website and you can publish updates from it and list products and specials there – FREE! Why would you not use it?

Click on the ‘Companies’ tab on the navigation bar and when you get there on the right side under the search bar there is a link called ‘Add a Company’, click on that and starting adding your info. Be sure and take advantage of each area and add graphics and photos to make it look nice. I did a blog post on this a few months ago and you can find it here - Linked In Company Profile Set Up

I agree with Rich about Linked In being often ignored. Spend some time exploring all it has to offer and you will see how it can greatly help with networking and business growth. 

@russellallert I read your post, it was a great help. I am stuck on creating a Company page, step 1, with basic info. I do not see an “admin” Link to edit my info? I must be missing it? Please help to clarify. Thanks sooooo much.

@russellallert under the Companies option I only have “find companies” and “companies you follow”. So my question is do I need to be on the upgraded Linkedin? I am on the basic free option.

@russellallert WOW, I really did miss it! Thanks so much! I laughed once I saw the big red HERE! You have been a big help! Wish me luck!

For anyone that has been following the discussion on creating a business page above. You can not add a business page if you do not have a unique business domain email address. Example: I am a glass craft business and I don’t have an email domain with my business, I use an aol account. The information from the help pages states you can not create a business page using a yahoo, gmail , aol etc. You can however create group with your company information. Do not know if creating a group is the answer? I will try it and find out? Thank you Russell for all your patience and help @russellallert

@designeddecor

A little off topic, but I notice you have your own domain name. As one small business owner to another, I’d strongly recommend you have your web developer setup an email at that domain.

Even if you’re not ready to give up your AOL address–we’ll talk later about that –you can set up this business email for LinkedIn and a number of other reasons as well.

Just my .02!

Great tips. I too use the Q&A section frequently, participate in several groups and comment on my contacts updates if I have something to add. My updates tend to be a mix of links to articles within my industry (sometimes via Twitter) and announcements related to workshops/seminars/webinars that I think my contacts would appreciate.

Might I add a few things Not to do?
1.Don’t copy-and-paste the same discussion topic into >3 groups, particularly if the groups are somehow related.
2. Don’t just drop in links, self-promoting or otherwise, without providing commentary or perspective. It’s lazy and looks spammy.
3. Don’t value the quantity of your connections over the quality. You have a better chance of achieving the latter if you’re transparent on why you want to connect.

@donnagilliland

What is this Contacts field you speak of? I’m not sure I’m familiar with it.

Folks, keep in mind that a presence on LinkedIn is a business asset. Part of that asset starts with your LinkedIn Profile because it provides those who are looking for your services and skills with an in-depth view of you and your accomplishments. 

Remember, while other platforms give us an opportunity to create a profile, like Google for example, it is not as full featured as the LinkedIn Profile is. There is much more you can add and feature about you from within the LinkedIn Profile. 

When businesses are looking to do business with you and/or your company they will most likely start their peer into the details about your and/or your company through LinkedIn. 

LinkedIn is full featured platform with tools that provide you with greater visibility, if used and used correctly. 

To everyone’s success in 2012! Cheers, Donna

Great tips from everyone! LinkedIn is a great source of business connections, website traffic, and more for me, so I would recommend any business owner start using it!

Just to chime in on the page/email address conversation above, it amazes me how many people are still using a hotmail/yahoo/aol/other free e-mail service as their business e-mail. Not only does this look unprofessional, you are missing a marketing opportunity for people to be reminded of your website address every time they e-mail you. Getting an e-mail address is not expensive and very worth it. And you do not have to give up your other e-mail.

One trick I use is to use Gmail. It allows you to manage e-mail addresses (both receive to and send from) in one program. I can check and reply to all my e-mail with one log in, can set filters for various types of messages and priorities, set up a unique signature for each e-mail address to save time, link with my Google calendar and more. One of the free tools that makes the most impact on my day to day productivity!

@dawnboyer

Great tip! I should add all the websites, blogs, ezines, etc. that we design to my profile.

Um, actually, since I can’t design squat,  maybe I’ll just pass this along to my graphic designer.

You guys have given me some great tips. I like to use linkein to see what others in my field of animation, graphics and content creation are doing. I have actually been inspired by great work from other painters and model makers.

I have found Linked In has been a very valuable tool for my business which is background screening and is HR related.  I used to schedule my posts to multiple groups via Hootsuite but this no longer works.  Does anyone have any suggestions on how to do this without manually posting to all the groups?