I have already received a message from one of my groups that they will no longer accept “news” posts. The reason, and it is a valid one, is that they muck up the discussions with all kinds of non relevant stuff.

If the groups allow these posts they will significantly dilute the discussion board. I believe this is not a good decision on LinkedIn’s part as it will put the group owners and managers in the position of either allowing the discussions to be polluted or doing as my group did simply refusing news posts.

If LinkedIn holds to this policy your profile is going to become a lot more important.

Why?

Because attracting customers clients and opportunities will be much more difficult without the availability of the news sections.

Not that you shouldn’t constantly review your profile and tune it to be more effective but now it may be necessary.

To help out here I have put together a collection of 7 great articles on empowering your profile.  The final PDF file is still being formatted but should be available in the next couple of days.

If you’d like a copy of this free collection of articles please add your name and email below. You will be notified by email as soon as the report is ready:

Searches

The first number you can look at is how many times you are coming up in the searches. You need not compare this number to others, but you can watch it carefully based on your activities to see how many times you’re appearing.

Then you can try different things to see how you can improve your search results. If you are able to put yourself in more searches you will obviously have more opportunities to get business.

This number is a reflection of the “keywords” you have used to describe yourself in your profile. Consider not only using those terms specific to your profession but terms that will capture other viewers as well.

Profile Views

Another number you can look at for great information about your profile’s effectiveness is how many people are viewing your profile. Obviously, as above the more people that read your profile the better off you are.

Besides the searches your profile is probably getting viewed by people who’ve been referred to you and more often based on your Mini Header which shows up next to your posts in the question and answer forums, discussions or news posts in the groups.

Your mini header is literally an advertisement for you or your company and there are many things you can do with it to improve your results. Don’t limit your thinking, this is just as important, if not more so, for the job seeker.

That’s Not All

Taking this to the next level occurs when you use your profile to effectively move readers to your website. This requires the website have the proper components to leverage this traffic.

With these things in place you can now see an additional level of results from your profile – how effective it is at driving people to your site.

Summary

Don’t underestimate what can be done with just the simplest data discussed here. You have the ability using these numbers to increase both the amount and quality of visibility you’re getting on LinkedIn.

From Flyn

If you haven’t gotten my FREE “LinkedIn Power Networking Mini Course,” you should seriously consider doing so. The information you’ll get will help you to immediately improve your results on LinkedIn. Click Here

However, there are different levels of quality of visibility. One of the biggest advantages LinkedIn has over a website or a resume is social proof. Social proof is where we use what others think to be correct or good to make our decisions.

The question and answer and group discussion forums gives you the chance to show your level of expertise and business savvy. This happens when you give high quality answers and others start to agree and complement you on what you’ve said.

In networking you will find that people like to attach themselves to “bright” people. More importantly they like to be connected to people who appear to be “valuable” in some way.

The point is that as a salesperson you should be participating in questions that give you a chance to show your expertise or general business wisdom. If there aren’t questions on subjects you think your prospects would be interested in, you should post such questions.

One note about posting the questions; make sure they don’t sound like a prospecting lead in such as – What problems are you having with your manufacturing…?” or “What kind of help do you need with your marketing?” These types of questions tend scare participants away where opinion questions are far more popular.

These kinds of activity will attract connections. Not all of them will be prospective clients, but they will all increase your visibility and help to establish you as a knowledgeable and valuable connection.

From Flyn

Another key way to attract and help yourself get business is by having a powerful profile. You still have time to register for my upcoming free webinar “LinkedIn Profile Strategies” coming this Wednesday at 1PM PST.  Click here to register

With the link feature you have more room in the status field for copy and the link feature allows you additional copy as well.

To start you must have some sort of a value offer on your site. This could be an educational or informative video, an article, white paper, or even a useful resource such as an educational quiz.

Once you have created or picked the resource (make sure it’s NOT sales oriented) simply put some information about its value and the link in the “Activity Status” section of your header. This can be edited from your Home page.

Since the link has its own text you could potentially change your “Activity Status” message and leave the link to stand on its own. The fact that the status is posted to the updates means you will get continual visibility from this activity and for your value offer.

From Flyn

One of the things that will make all of this more successful is to have a powerful profile. I invite you to register and and attend my free webinar “LinkedIn Profile Strategies” coming Wednesday 4/27 at 1PM PST 3PM EST. Click here to register.

Your “Network Status Update” in your profile now contains the ability to add a link. This saves you characters for a better message and delivers all kinds of possibilities to point people at your content.

This is something you can use regularly to stay visible and now it has the extra power of having a link and connection to Twitter — great stuff.

See my profile for an example and get the scoop on my newest LinkedIn seminar.

I define a “LinkedIn power user” as someone who is generating opportunities and business successfully.

Participate Very Actively

Participation is the first and most important key to becoming a “LinkedIn power user” and getting more business from networking efforts..

If you are not participating and engaging others, you will not likely be a success. Since LinkedIn is a “networking” site and prospecting methods do work as well as building relationships, you need to be engaging others and creating valued relationships.

What to do:

• Ask and answer questions in the question and answer forum
• Participate in group discussions taking the opportunity when you can to engage others in conversations.

Be Very Visible

LinkedIn is in many ways an advertising media. Thus as I advertising being visible is one of the keys to generating opportunities. This is another reason participation is so important. Being a power user on LinkedIn is just as much about being active as about understanding the tactics and strategies that make things happen.

What to do:

• Update your profile and rotate your picture regularly – at least once a month.
• Make sure you are regularly getting connected to new people
• Use your “network activity update” regularly.

Continuously Export Value

You should be seen as the source of value everywhere you go on LinkedIn. Your profile should contain something of value for the reader, you should give value in your participation efforts, and you should provide value as the first communication with a new connection.

What to do:

• Answer questions with your best stuff – act like you were getting paid to answer (and you will),
• Send new connections something of value such as another connection or a resource and don’t try to sell anything. When you come across things in your connection’s profiles that allow you to make suggestions forward those to them – such as typos or things that don’t read well, or things that might be missing.

If you do these things regularly you will be a power user. You can then up your power by increasing your knowledge of how to apply networking and marketing strategies to the resources LinkedIn provides. My blog and courses will help you here.

From Flyn

If you are looking for more success on LinkedIn — your profile is key. Attend my “LinkedIn Profile Strategy” seminar — it’s FREE and you get a great report on promoting yourself for attending. The seminar is being held on 4/28 — Click Here for info.

]]> http://onlinebusinessnetworker.net/blog/2010/04/how-to-be-a-linkedin-power-user/feed/ 0 http://onlinebusinessnetworker.net/blog/2010/04/monetizing-linkedin-do-not-just-look-for-clients/ http://onlinebusinessnetworker.net/blog/2010/04/monetizing-linkedin-do-not-just-look-for-clients/#comments Mon, 12 Apr 2010 15:57:57 +0000 Flyn http://onlinebusinessnetworker.net/blog/?p=589 There is on opportunity most LinkedIners have not even considered and it can be one of the most profitable of all – co-marketing with your connections.

If you really make yourself invaluable your connections will take the opportunities they get to tell others about you. But you can get that done proactively yourself.

This is an approach one would only use with their closer connections.

Find a non competing connection and invite them to join a relationship where you promote each other. Here are some of the things you can do for each other.

• Comment on each others blogs
• Tweet or otherwise promote their content on the social media sites
• Give out their name to specific types of individuals as a “valuable connection”
• Exchange profile content ideas
• Participate in each others discussions

Just one note to the last entry, if they notify you of the question being posted you can be the first to answer which represents much higher visibility. You can even check your questions off of each other.

This co-marketing approach can be a very powerful asset to your own networking environment.

From Flyn

I have been holding on to an article for the last number of days as I have been trying to decide if it should just go to my paid members. I have decided to release it either tomorrow or Wednesday. Don’t miss it. I think it’s one of the most important articles I have published.

One other thing, I have completely updated my SuccessKit now known as “The LinkedIn Power Networking Mini Course.” I have enhanced and redone all of the reports and videos. If you want to lean some things about using LinkedIn you’ll love this course with it’s 7 videos (actually 8 there’s a bonus video as well) and 4 power-packed reports.

It will be release in the next 2 days and you can learn a bit more about it in the following video:

http://www.onlinebusinessnetworker.net/minicourse/LPNMC_intro_movie.html

His point is that if you make the “better” decision, say; to have the salad instead of the burger, you put yourself on an upward curve.

Many people complain that they don’t have time to spend working their LinkedIn account hours each day. However you can have significant success in far less time by just doing some little things each day.

Here’s a simple little schedule that over time really adds up.

1. Start by asking one question each week. The question should be related to your expertise or the business you are looking for. If you can pick a more controversial topic you will get more respondents. Remember to ask an opinion question and not one that could be mistaken for a prospecting effort. You can add to this by posting the same question to one of your group’s discussion boards.

2. Invite respondents to your question to connect.

3. Engage respondents in a discussion replying to their answer.

4. Track the one or two top question topics and check them whenever you get into your LinkedIn account. Try to answer at least 2 questions a week. Don’t forget to ask the questioner to connect.

5. Get together some quotes, resource or article links (including your own articles or blog posts) and put at least one in your header update each day.

6. Reach out to at least one person each week with an offer to see how you can help each other on LinkedIn.

7. Don’t forget to create a “connection email” that offers thanks and value to those who invite you to connect.

8. Try to take a look at your profile at least twice during the month and find something simple you can up date – rotate your picture if nothing else.

All of this is probably less than two hours of work per week.

However doing these simple things will probably cause you to engage at least 25 new people each week. You will reach out to 4 people per month to advance your relationship, and you will have 25 or so exposures in the Q&A and via your updates. And you will probably end up with 10-15 new connections if not more.

You will be surprised how much activity this simple course generates over time.

]]> http://onlinebusinessnetworker.net/blog/2010/03/help-i-don%e2%80%99t-have-time-to-work-linkedin/feed/ 3 http://onlinebusinessnetworker.net/blog/2010/03/monetizing-linkedin-another-way-to-be-invaluable/ http://onlinebusinessnetworker.net/blog/2010/03/monetizing-linkedin-another-way-to-be-invaluable/#comments Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:06:26 +0000 Flyn http://onlinebusinessnetworker.net/blog/?p=555 Having valuable resources to share with your connections is a great way to become invaluable and monetize LinkedIn.

You should of course have such an item connected with your website so visitors to your profile have a reason to visit. But you can provide yourself with lots of potential value items very easily by using the “Google Alerts” feature.

Search Google for “Google Alerts” and then fill in the form for the alert. Whatever your area of expertise; then simply enter a keyword phrase and select the various options. Google will send you email alerts as to that subject showing up on the web.

I suggest that when you find alerts that are useful, that you save them in a document with their links. Organize them in whatever way you can so that when you get a new connection or are surfing your own you can connect the two.

Sending people regular links to resources is a great way to increase the communication and affinity between you as well as to monetize LinkedIn.

One of the most interesting things in the universe is the interesting relationship between the best and the worst, the good and the bad, the incredibly smart and the unbelievably dumb.

In a recent forum discussion one of the posters made some very outrageous statements along with some excellent points. Many of the other participants in the discussion started in on this person trying to rip him limb from limb for making some very audacious statements.

What most of the group didn’t realize is that such a post is one of the best opportunities you can get in either a Q and A or discussion. The reason is the tremendously high contrast you will achieve from the poster or the group if you slam-dunk a great answer and response.

It’s sort of like two ugly cars. If one of them is really bad the other might not look so bad it its light. Put it next to a great looking car and it becomes really ugly again. The contrast makes all the difference.

Often when you get an off the road or audacious post, the crowd tends to focus on what’s wrong with the post or the person who wrote, it instead of the subject at hand. In the case above the question or discussion was a good one.

Take advantage of these types of posts, if for no other reason they get tons of readers, by giving a solid answer, case, and debate against the “foolish” answer. Doing an exemplarily job here will stand out to other readers much more than the question that has lots of great answers.

This means you will likely get a very high readership to your answer and thus more visibility than you might normally receive.

In every failure or disaster there are great opportunities, look for them and take advantage of the situation. Don’t beat up the person, beat up the subject and others will be impressed.