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LinkedIn Introduction

Since its inception, LinkedIn has grown to include more than 55 million users in 200 countries world-wide. This is no accident. LinkedIn is based on the principle that every person is connected to one another by no more than six degrees of separation from everybody else. In other words, individuals can connect with one another simply by utilizing their network of contacts. And this is where LinkedIn can help business owners and their employees. The website keeps track of who knows whom and provides a means to connect people based on professional expertise, needs, and interests.

So, What Type off Contracts Do All of Us Have?

There are two kinds of contacts every person has – strong and weak. “Strong” contacts are family members, friends, and close business associates; “weak” contacts are those people we work with, and have done business with, but may not know very well. It is the “strong” contacts whom most people go to when they need something, and it is from “strong” contacts that, at least initially, a LinkedIn network is built.

According to Joseph Bartling of Spiderware.com, however, it is not our “strong” contacts that prove to be the most valuable when utilizing LinkedIn. It is more often than not our “weak” contacts who are able to help us achieve goals. Bartling’s argument is that our close friends and colleagues are usually of little or no help in finding a new job, new employee, or new business opportunity because they belong to the same professional and social circles that we do and are therefore not in a position to recommend a person or business outside this network. Instead, it is our “weak” contacts that can open up new doors and introduce us to new people, information, and experiences.

LinkedIn helps business owners and professionals take advantage of these “weak” contacts to increase their sphere of influence. LinkedIn is specifically designed to help business professionals connect with each other easily and effectively.

LinkedIn, when used properly, can help business professionals generate leads, increase their credibility and visibility within their marketplace, communicate more effectively with their network of connections, and manage their brand’s reputation.

The Importance of a LinkedIn Strategy

Simply having a LinkedIn account is not enough to add value to a business. A business professional must also have a strategy to effectively network with other professionals on the site. This is where many business owners and professionals fail to utilize the system and maximize their potential for increased brand awareness and, ultimately, sales.

According to Lon Safko, social media expert and co-author of The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools, and Strategies for Business Success, it is very important to “take some time and really analyze what your existing social media strategy is.”

In order to make the most of the opportunities available on LinkedIn, business owners must ask themselves (at the bare minimum) the following questions before jumping online and creating a profile:

• What are the needs of my business?
• What do I want to accomplish by using the site?
• Who am I trying to reach?

Knowing the answers to these questions can help business owners develop and maintain their profiles in a way that will most effectively attract the kind of contacts who will be most beneficial to them. Like any good marketing strategy, a LinkedIn presence should be managed with specific and measurable goals in mind. Keeping up a presence entails weekly, if not daily, action on a profile. In short, it requires time. Although time is generally considered a soft-cost for many business owners, even ten minutes a day is hard to find. So to maximize the efforts necessary to run a LinkedIn network, having a clear vision of what they would like to accomplish is of the utmost importance.

Once business owners have clearly defined goals, they can utilize all of the tools provided by the service to take advantage of opportunities that would not otherwise be afforded to them. In the following sections, this series of articles will outline how business owners can use their LinkedIn profiles to their advantage and solidify themselves within their marketplace.

Who Uses LinkedIn?

Before a LinkedIn strategy can be put into place, it is important to be aware of who is using the service. LinkedIn did a study of their users and this is what they found:

• Average Age of Users: 41
• Average HH Income: $109,703
• 64% of users are male
• 95% of users are college graduates
• 37% of users hold graduate degrees
• 49% of users are business decision-makers
• Over 2.5M users research or review products online
• Over 1.9M users looked for or gave advice last month

Understanding who uses LinkedIn allows users to leverage themselves among their network and use the available tools more effectively.