Social Media - Are you LinkedIn?

Social Media will continue to be big news in 2012.  As more people get to grips with their online presence and more businesses realise the potential for a new string to their marketing bow the battle for dominance in the social media marketplace will heighten.

There are over 200 social media platforms in existence and their individual customer bases are hard fought and hard won.  Many business professionals use LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com) to profile themselves, their experience and expertise as well as that of their businesses.  LinkedIn is sometimes referred to as the “FaceBook for business” which is a point of view, not necessarily one I would subscribe to, but it certainly has similar aims and allows users to have a similar experience.  With over 10 million users, (I don't know how many property professionals are on!) it is certainly worth considering your usage of this medium.

Many come to LinkedIn from a fairly low start point in terms of familiarity with social media, and “tweaking” the application and your profile can make all the difference to your experience.  Here are my top 5 tips for improving your profile:

  

1. Profile picture: no matter how camera shy you may be, having your picture on your profile does make all the difference!  It should be appropriate to what you do and should also reflect who you are and, who you are now.  A 20 year old photo of you might look good and be your personal favourite, but isn’t going to hit the spot when someone meets you face to face!
2. Connection strategy: A tough one! Some people take the view that more is better, some becoming a LION (LinkedIn Open Networker) connecting with as many people as possible (some have 1,000s of connections) with a view that, at some point in the future there may be a useful contact in there somewhere.  Bit of a needle in a haystack approach.  Others prefer to make solid contacts with people they have met, already know have been recommended to or by and build a smaller base of known connections.  It comes down to personal preference, but leveraging your connection base is a key LinkedIn functionality.
3. Testimonials: A key descriptor of your worth to potential clients is the strength of testimonials on your profile.  You can ask for these, either specifically or reciprocally, and the way you approach this is dependant upon your relationship with the individual.
4. Headline: Your headline is the first thing that a potential client, contact or referrer will see.  LinkedIn will automatically default to your last job title, which might be fine, but does that say what you would want to say about yourself?  A concise strapline describing your skills and attributes would be far better.
5. Public Profile: LinkedIn sets an automatic name for your public profile, usually a less than helpful one!  Using your Profile Edit section you can replace this with one that more accurately reflects your name.  I reset mine to http://uk.linkedin.com/in/paulwyoungman

Feel free to get in touch for further thoughts and advice on this or any of our other Bog topics.