How to effectively utilize LinkedIn for your business

LinkedIn is the social networking website for professionals and has been a great success for the past 5 years. Unlike Facebook, this is a professional network that can be used to greatly enhance your business credibility and find new customers and partners. In this post we will cover on 9 ways to effectively utilize LinkedIn for your business.

Build credibility with a great profile. Focus on building a profile with a professional profile pic and summary of the roles you held to previously. A professional profile can go a long way in helping your potential targets in LinkedIn see you as a serious player.
Spend some time to look for your past contacts – people you have studied or worked with and add them to your network.
Write testimonials for your previous classmates and coworkers and also solicit the same from them. A bunch of well written testimonials from important people will convey the right message to your prospective partners.
Add your skillsets to your profile that others could search or browse upon. This way people can stumble upon your profile and engage with you on a professional relationship that could lead to great sales or bigger partnerships.
Create a company page to build visibility. LinkedIn’s company page option is a great way to showcase your business for your job applicants, media, clients and prospective customers. You can use this to show the profile of the founders and key people involved, the products and services the company is doing and testimonials of clients. The testimonial option in the company page that is linked to actual people profiles is considered more credible than the static testimonial text you put in your website. Go to the create company link to get started. Download this company page guide from LinkedIn.
Connect to your customers and followers with status updates. There are two places for you to post status updates. One in your profile and other as your company from your company page. Use them to talk about conferences you attended/organized, products you liked, new features you are launching etc. Unlike Facebook, you are talking to a professional audience and make it count.
Discover talent for your company. You can use the premium job feature to post jobs in your company profile and also use talent finder tools to filter candidates & profile matching.
Use the Answers feature to get support and clarifications from others and also add answers in the areas you are good at. This is a great way to show your expertise and build a power network.
Join the groups. LinkedIn allows you to join existing groups or create your own. Group participation can help you extend your network and become recognized as an expert in your field. It also lets you stay in touch with the happenings in your field – including conferences and meetings.