Online Business Success: Leveraging LinkedIn

LinkedIn is an effective tool that can help you increase you referral-based leads, establish yourself as an expert and increase your visibility among decision-makers and industry leaders.   The power of this tool is most evident when it is used to leverage your connections and then your connection's connections.

You can experience LinkedIn's magic when you:

• reconnect with friends, colleagues and classmates with whom you have not been in contact;
• are introduced to those you want to meet through your connections' connections  from a simple "request for introduction"; and
• are noticed and connected by influences and prospective contacts though your active participation with LinkedIn groups and LinkedIn Answers.

Let's get started with 9 things you can do now to build a "magnetic" profile:

1. Pictures are important. Use a professional photo that conveys the energy of your company or personal brand.  Pay attention to colors and formality (e.g., casual, business casual, formal).
2. Create a custom URL.   This makes it easy to share the web address for your profile and adds to your Google currency.   A custom URL should contain your name or your company name.
3. Do not neglect the summary.  Use your summary to paint a vivid pictures of the results and transformation that occurs when clients work with your company.   The summary presents a fantastic opportunity to be engaging and focusing on the clients, not your business.
4. Pay attention to keywords.  Include key words that are common to your industry and are the likely search terms that prospective clients will use when searching for the programs, products, services and solutions provided by your business.
5. Include all current and past companies, charitable organizations and educational institutions for which you would like to be associated.    LinkedIn will do the heavy lifting in matching you with your "long lost" friends and colleagues, but you have to help by completing your profile.   This is an important step as once you enter an entity into your profile, the system will provide a list of LinkedIn users who have listed the same organization.   This is an amazing way to reconnect with former colleagues and old friends.
6. Ask for endorsements and recommendations.  The best time to ask for an endorsement is as soon as you have completed a project, assignment or presentation.    People will be much more gracious in their reflections on working with you on the heels of a successful experience.
7. Use the Slideshare.com application to share PowerPoint presentations.  This is a great way to increase the impact of free speeches and presentations made to industry groups.
8. If you have a blog, use the relevant application to connect your blog with your profile.   Connecting your blog to your LinkedIn account is a great way to automatically update your profile with relevant information that will attract clients to you.  This is important because it builds your credibility and maintains your visibility with your target audience.
9. Connect your company website and blogs ("virtual real estate) to your account.  Create custom titles for your virtual real estate by changing the default titles "company" and "blogs" to your company and blog names.    This is done by typing the relevant names into the "other" box that appears on the "edit profile" page on your account.