linkedin personal branding and networking

Developing Your Personal Professional

Online Brand

In the good old days, marketing spread the word about how great your

company was and sales repeated the benefits.

But now your target customer has the power to search things out for themselves including your

competition…

The Rules of Marketing and Sales have Changed

Drastically

These new rules make it increasingly important for you to:

Have a personal professional brand. To promote yourself through on-line networks.

Now it is vitally important that you begin to brand yourself and begin to

use on-line networking as serious marketing and sales tool.

Review Your Competition and Benchmarks

Spend sometime and research your competition. See what they are doing.

Look at companies or other professionals that you admire. See how they are positioning themselves.

Think about how you want to position yourself and your company.

What is it about your personal professional brand that will make you stand out?

Setting Your Goals and IntentionsThe key reasons for creating your professional social

network profile. For example, my goals are:

1. To establish connections that will help further my business objectives.

2. Connect with groups and associations that will provide leads for new business and educational opportunities in my field.

To establish an online personal brand identity that enables me to follow up with leads gathered from other networking activities.

Stay connected to my professional network and provide for them meaningful leads and referrals.

Creating Your Personal Brand

Your professional personal brand starts with:

1. Your Profile Picture.

2. Your Complete Profile.

3. Connect to Your Company Page.

4. List the Organizations You Are Involved/Members With.

5. Make Your Profile Public.

6. Update/Create Your Personal URL.

Expand Your NetworkTo expand your network, you can do the following:

1. Upload Your Address Book. By uploading your address book, you can easily double your connections.

2. Search For Colleagues. Searching for your colleagues and previous customers will allow you to not only expand your network and connections, but attain beneficial recommendations.

3. Search For Members of Groups or Organizations You Belong To. In order to connect to these organizations, you must have them listed in your profile.

Join LinkedIn Groups. Join LinkedIn groups that fit your goals and objectives.

Ask for Recommendations. Third party recommendations are essential to building others confidence in you.

Once you begin to bring people into your network, look at who they areconnected to and ask for introductions to the people within their networks (1ST level connections) you are interested in familiarizing yourself with.

Managing Your ProfileDay - to - Day Commitment

Professional social networking is active marketing. It requires YOU to actively use it to be successful.

Devote 20 to 30 minutes each morning to updating you status, responding to messages, searching and developing your network and participating in LinkedIn Groups discussions.

Make sure your LinkedIn in-box is forwarding to your regular e-mail. That way you can respond to personal messages in a timely manner.

Don’t be shy about promoting yourself and your business objectives. After all, this is a business network. Don’t be obnoxious, but use the network as it is intended.

Using LinkedIn to Respond to Leads

After you have created your unique URL, you can send the link out to potential clients to learn more about you, read about your history and experience, and be comfortable with you.

• Put your Personal URL on your business card.

• When you follow-up on new contacts you have made, send them an e-mail inviting them to learn more about you by going to your LinkedIn Page.

• Having third-party recommendations on your page significantly helps increase people’s confidence in you.

The Essentials

At the very least you must have:

1. A Profile Picture

A Profile that includes: Objectives, Related Experience,

Personalized URL, Public Profile

3. Dedication to managing your online brand