LinkedIn SMM - A complete guide for everyone

The following are some important guide or best practices for getting more professional connection in LinkedIn as well as to develop a stronger network. These tips are helpful for individuals as well as for brands.

1. Complete profile  

This is the foremost important part in LinkedIn marketing. A complete profile is like a boon to get more connections in LinkedIn. Remember social networking is mostly about linking connections. The more you connect, the more your business receive traffic - in other words you are marketing very well.  

a. About me and skills (keywords) 

Make it just like a detailed resume, ensure that you include all of your functional areas or any other services (that you offer) in brief. If you have any personal/official blog, then do include blog links in the about me section. Don't forget to include major keywords wherever necessary. For example; if you are an internet market, then do include some of the keywords like SMM, SEO, strategist, marketer, expert, adviser, consultant etc in between the sentences. That will attract the viewers and help them find your skills easily, thus enabling them to connect with you.

b. Showcase your skills by using Links and media in profile

LinkedIn allows one to add media (pictures, videos or links) in the profile page.  Make use of this feature and include four to six screenshots of your professional works (that can be even some of your famous blog links with images) or any of your other works; most importantly relating to your area of expertise .

Below pictures shows - how I included some of the media as reference. As you can see, I have included some of the technical works (screenshot of software usage), my creative works and even image links of my blogs ! You might be knowing that an image is more powerful in communicating anything; at a faster rate than ordinary words. So, choose the most appropriate media to be included and club them in your profile page.

2. Key skills

Having a bunch of skill set in your profile page is equally important. Your professional skills would take you to greater heights. The more you include selected keywords in skill set and the more it gets endorsed by fellow users, the more will be your success in LinkedIn. People usually search for fellow minded professionals (having similar skill set and being active in a desired area) and if found, they try to view their 'about me' and most importantly 'skills list'. If they find some of your skills matching their own, then they will definitely connect with you. 

a. Updated skills

One way of getting highlighted is to update your skills frequently. Update in the sense not adding skill tags; that you are not good at !. You really need to grow professionally in this digital world by upgrading your current skills - by catching up with the latest trends, in order to showcase the same to the people. Everyone should develop in one way or another. Seems like those - whom always stay in the same skill level doesn't succeed or get highlighted. If you are say an online marketer, then extend you capabilities to wider platforms like email marketing, mobile marketing etc. This is just an example, and this holds good in almost all scenario.

b. Endorse skills of others

One more important thing is to endorse others skills. Endorsing mean you are accepting the fact that  the fellow professional had that skill and so you recommend to others. It's like 'sharing and get shared' funda of twitter or any other social media. But be truthful while endrosing others ! Endorse only when you are confident - that your fellow mate had that particular skill. 

In this regard, your 'about me' page and the so called 'media links' (that we discussed above) will be helping others (to a greater extent) to identify your skills easily and so, they will endorse you for sure. Therefore, make use of the 'Media' links !

3. More connections

Connect with as many professionals as possible and importantly keep connecting with new people, regardless of whether you know them or not. Invite those professionals whom deliver more or less the same service like you do, I mean same functional area (niche). In fact you may connect with other niche groups also, only to expose your presence as well as to study/analyze how they are professionally behaving. Connecting with many holds many direct cum indirect advantageous.

VIEW as many profiles as possible - just viewing others profiles (without even inviting them to connect !) helps many to find you - 

1. What you are
2. What you do
3. How much useful you are to them
4. Can you be an asset to their requirements or do you meet their demands etc. 

Connect, connect and keep connecting. Always use search option to find as many people as you can.

4. Active in Groups/community 

The most important feature of LinkedIn are Groups. Groups are the places where equal minded people gather together to share their knowledge or check others knowledge. It's the fastest approach to find people related to your niche. Make sure that you do the following while in groups -

• Active member - Try to post self questions and polls. Raise questions or deliver some news/trends to your fellow mates
• Respond to community members for their queries
• Sometimes maintaining your own group have added advantage
• Don't always post direct links every time. That will look like spam ! Include links only when it's absolutely needed by some fellow group mate.
• Use your blog/business links in comments as a guide to their query). 

5. Study others profiles

Going through others profiles and doing the following analysis will help you tune/mold your own profile

1. Keywords in skills
2. Structure of the profile - arrangement, sentence, wordings, specialties
3. Kind of media included

These things might help you frame your own profile. Remember; there is no need for us to create everything, all we need to do is to INVENT from the existing ! and in fact the existing things will teach us how to create . This applies well to even content marketing.

6. Allow others to recommend you

Recommendations works like a gem. If you had worked in a team or any projects or if you have some trusted colleagues, then ask them to recommend you. As a two way process, you too recommend your fellow mates. 

7. Behave professionally 

The most important requirement for a professional person to get success in a professional platform (like LinkedIn) is to behave 'Professionally'. This is not a place to share some funny pictures or something like content sensitive materials (adult or any related media) like most does in Facebook. Remember friends, same funda or attitude won't work in all social networks, we have to act differently in different social networks ! So, be wise/attentive while working in this platform.

Other than the above seven important strategies, the following tips might also do great for your LinkedIn success

1. Keep active in LinkedIn - Let people know that you appear frequently in LinkedIn. Else, if you appear after some months, then they might ask you - 'who are you ?'  instead of 'how are you ?'
2. Post publicly - share content and suggestions publicly. Let others know your helping nature.
3. Link back to other profiles. Invite as many people as possible. Get your connections from gmail, outlook etc.
4. Drag twitter and FB users to LinkedIn - By sending welcome invite through direct messages or tweets !
5. Watch who is viewing your profile - what kind and area of their activities
6. LinkedIn social share buttons in your business blog - Including LinkedIn social share buttons will help the visitors easily find your LinkedIn profile and hence they might connect with you.
7. If possible, obtain membership from LinkedIn - use Analytics tools to monitor your LinkedIn profile behavior.
8. Use twitter and Facebook to promote your LinkedIn profile - At times post a tweet/update like 'Find us on LinkedIn' to help more followers connect with you.
9. Thank people if they invite you to connect through direct messages. Acknowledge those who connect with you.
10. Connect with previous company colleagues or someone like clients whom know more about you so as to allow them endorse you as well as recommend.
11. Post your companies career opportunities in groups as well as public for more exposure.
12. Creating customer page. Check who is viewing your customer's page
13. Update volunteer experience and causes to show your social responsibility 

Finally, you may connect with my personal LinkedIn profile here !

Over to you

What do you feel is the best way of getting success in LinkedIn. Do you think that something other than the above mentioned points could be done. If so please share and let the world know about it.

Also see

Interview with Ashley Faulkes - Bloggers success story
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