Before we jump right into LinkedIn, it's important to lay down a few ground rules

Transcription

1 Chapter 1: Social Media is Not Your Father's Marketing Before we jump right into LinkedIn, it's important to lay down a few ground rules about marketing yourself in social media. It will help you approach LinkedIn the right way and get the best results. I want to help you avoid being "that guy"...the one person who is shunned by people at networking events because he shows up and immediately starts tossing out his business cards like he's dealing Texas Hold 'em in a Vegas card room. You need to approach marketing on social media with some finesse and restraint. Let's start at the beginning: I've been in marketing well over 20 years, working in Silicon Valley as I mentioned and also for large corporations like Charles Schwab. I've been in the advertising game since I graduated from Tufts University in the Boston suburbs with a degree in English and got a job at an advertising agency as a copywriter. The changes that social media has brought to the world of advertising and marketing have been nothing short of earth-shattering. No longer are marketers held hostage to TV, radio and newspaper for presenting their wares to the world. With the push of a button and click of the mouse you can send your marketing message via video, post, tweet, update, blog entry and more around the world in an instant.

2 In short, marketing has been revolutionized. What does this have to do with you? Well, you are marketing a product called You, Inc. You will notice on LinkedIn that the site revolves primarily around people, not companies (there is a section for building a company profile which we'll discuss later). As you market You, Inc. on social media sites like LinkedIn, you need to pay heed to the new rules, because marketing today is a brave new world. We used to have traditional marketing, or interruption marketing, where marketers would break into your Steelers game or CSI episode and bark at you with some ridiculous commercial (this still happens but technology has invented so many ways like TIVO to avoid them). Now we have social media marketing, which is in essence a conversation. Specifically on LinkedIn, social media marketing is a dialog you have with the people you want to influence to: Hire you, Work for you, Invest in your company, Be your mentor, Partner with you, and so on. So you need to think soft sell not hard sell. You can equate marketing on social media sites like LinkedIn to a backyard barbeque. Now, you would never

3 walk up to a stranger at a barbeque and say, "Hi, can I sell you some insurance?" You get the point. Social media is all about engaging people in conversations, getting them interested in you first, and then seeing if there is some common ground for doing business as a next step. Honesty is King Essentially in social media it's just like a party where you let people get to know you and then invite them to learn more about you by visiting your site or blog where you provide more information on how you can help them. Marketing on social media sites like LinkedIn means being real, authentic, and honest. People buy from those they know, like and trust, and in social media you have the opportunity to let people see how much you know and let them make up their own minds that you're someone they need to do business with. The old saying (attributed to many people including Zig Ziglar, the granddaddy of sales training) is "People don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care." With social media marketing, you show people that you care about them by being interested in them, asking questions and offering help. Then you move on to creating a business relationship.

4 Fortunately, LinkedIn has extensive ways for you to create situations where people can get to know, like and trust you. It's a great place to become a valuable resource to people by expressing your expertise through group discussions, through Status Updates, and by presenting your knowledge in videos, blog posts, PowerPoint's, PDFs, presentations and more that you add to your profile. Social media is a "pull" medium as opposed to a "push" medium. You use LinkedIn's powerful features to show professionals from around the world your expertise and pull them into your sphere. It goes without saying that it's not the place for spam or trickery that sometimes is associated with a certain rogue element found in the internet marketing world (i.e. the folks who have you click on a link purporting to take you to a cool site but you wind up on a male enhancement drug advertisement). LinkedIn is a place where you can build your brand as an expert and have people knocking on your door...and what's simply amazing is that it's free! Yes, there are premium accounts which we'll cover, but I would say that 90% of the world can achieve their goals with the free basic account. With that disclaimer about marketing on social media out of the way (be nice, play fair, don't be pushy not too hard, right?) let's take a closer look at marketing You, Inc. on LinkedIn. LinkedIn: Your Personal Worldwide Database

5 There are plenty of social media sites to join, but none will have the immediate impact that LinkedIn will on your professional career. You can play Farmville and Mafia Wars on Facebook or watch Lady Gaga and silly cat videos on Youtube...but you can achieve tremendous success on LinkedIn and that's why it's growing at an astounding rate. It's at 259 million members right now in 200 countries and territories worldwide. The best thing about LinkedIn is that it has the most affluent, most wellconnected users of any social media site. Executives from all Fortune 500 Companies are registered on LinkedIn, and 66% of LinkedIn s members are decision makers or have influence in the purchase decisions for their companies. LinkedIn holds the record for the highest average household income over all other social networking sites at over $109,000 per member! While you can plant imaginary crops or wink at potential mates on other sites, LinkedIn is all business. There are no distractions. On LinkedIn you will find only professionals who are focused on one thing only: networking to create success for themselves and their businesses. LinkedIn is no longer a secret; with it's IPO in 2011 valuing it at over $6 billion everyone now knows about LinkedIn. Recently even America's president joined the LinkedIn phenomenon by holding on online town meeting to talk about his economic proposals.

6 Who's Having Success with LinkedIn? LinkedIn helps professionals across the board. Although many people at first considered it a job hunting site, it is so much more than that. The range of people that it helps is extensive: Consultants who want to connect with prospective clients and build up their brand equity as experts; Business to business marketers creating awareness of their new product launches or service offerings; Sales professionals who do research on prospects before contacting them, finding out personal interests, school affiliations, and who they might know in common in an effort to create better rapport; Job hunters expanding their circles of business contacts to create a better chance of finding that perfect job, and keeping themselves top of mind with potential employers; Small businesses staying in front of customers and reaching out to prospects; Entrepreneurs seeking funding who are getting the attention of investors in their ideas;

7 Recruiters looking to find staff for their companies and sorting through the world's largest pool of talent. Basically, anyone in business can get a boost from the global networking capabilities of LinkedIn. I tell my consulting clients flat out: If you are not on LinkedIn, you are not in business. LinkedIn offers you the platform to achieve all your business goals, including: Driving more traffic to your sites, Getting media attention, Promoting your events, Finding the perfect work, Interacting with professionals from around the globe you would never have been able to contact before, Obtaining free advice from top consultants on urgent business issues. Understanding the LinkedIn Levels

8 Any discussion on how to leverage LinkedIn should begin with its overall structure. Your connections on LinkedIn are made up of the people you invite to join your network and, by degrees, all the people in the networks of those directly linked to you. Say you invite Sally who works with you into your network. She becomes your first degree connection. You and Sally might have other first degree connections in common since you may both have invited other colleagues into your networks. Now Sally is in your network as a first level connection, and all first level connections can be contacted with a free, direct message. Your second degree connections include all the people who are first level connections with Sally. For example, if Sally worked with John at another company and they are first level connections, now John is your second level connection. (You can ask Sally for an introduction to John and send John an invitation to connect; if he accepts, he becomes a first level connection with you.) Let's say that you haven't yet invited John into your network. Sally is a first level connection, John is a second level connection. Your third level connections are all the first level connections of John, your second level connection. Say you wanted to meet Mike, a third level connection who is connected on a first level with John. The process is that you would send an introduction request through Sally to John to meet his connection Mike. You create a message asking Sally to

9 send it to John to send it on to Mike. In most cases, your first level connection Sally will be happy to forward the introduction request on to John and Mike. Why is that? It's because primarily because LinkedIn entirely exists for networking. People understand why you are there and will most often send on your requests. From personal experience, I know that I send on 100% of the introduction requests I get. I feel fine doing it because I know that the person getting the request has the complete right to accept it or ignore it. It's really up to them if they want to make the connection. So I and many others forward all requests. Now, as you will learn later, there many communications methods available to you on LinkedIn for you to reach other professionals with whom you are not first level connections. * * * Now you know the basic rules for marketing yourself on LinkedIn, and how the site is structured. The sky's the limit. Now is your opportunity to use the world's largest professional network. Starting with the next chapter you will learn how to build your foundation for success on LinkedIn: A powerful, user-friendly and customer-focused profile.

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