LinkedIn is often either overlooked or underused as a tool to build value. These simple five tips will help you create additional value personally, through your company or in the products and services that you sell.
- Show credibility and expertise
- Have a company page
- Share important and useful information
- Recommendations
- Connections and what you do with them
Show credibility and expertise
Have an up to date profile that shows what you do and how you can help others. Highlight all of your professional and commercial experience. Don’t forget all of your professional qualifications and achievements that highlight you as the credible “go to” person in your industry. Spend time thinking about how you present yourself on LinkedIn and how this looks to your potential customers.
Have a company page
You can set up a company page that highlights what products and services that you offer. Ask for recommendations for those products and services (this is a powerful endorsement of your offering). Take time to make sure that your company pages reflects your general marketing and position of your business. It needs to use the same language and approach as your website, leaflets and face to face discussion use.
Share important and useful information
Nothing shouts out “expert” more than sharing key important information to potential customers. You are helping them before you approach them for a meeting or try to sell them. For example, imagine you are in property rentals targeting landlords as customers. There is a huge range of activity that will put you in the forefront of landlord’s minds. This might include creating a stream of information on changes in tenancy laws, useful checklists for new tenants, links to regional and national events and signposting support and help for new landlords.
Recommendations
Not just the ones you get, but the ones you give! Think about those that you recommend on LinkedIn. It is a reflection of your professional approach. Well thought out recommendations for others help to establish you as someone who wants to build great relationships and understand the power of effective networking. Getting recommendations is vitally important. You can tell people all day long about how great you are, but when your biggest most influential customers say great things about you, it really comes to life and builds massive credibility and value for you.
Connections and what you do with them
This is the back to front approach – look at your current connections on LinkedIn, what can you do to help them? Who could you introduce them to? What information could you pass them? What events could you point out to them? All of these things show that you are adding value to your connections and whether you call it Karma or the law of reciprocity the value you add and invest in will come back to you many times over.
Think about these five areas on how you can create value in what you do on LinkedIn. Creating value in your brand (personal or company) will help you position your products, sell more and sell more at a higher price.
If you want more than this, come and have a look at our one day LinkedIn courses here
And finally please connect on LinkedIn and say hello – we like talking to new and interesting people!
Nevil – http://uk.linkedin.com/in/neviltynemouth/
Images sourced from Pixabay
