LinkedIn 101

A guide to LinkedIn April 2012

Compiled by @Etta_Howell for

@saidwotORM

LinkedIn: An Overview

What is LinkedIn?

• LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network, used by individuals

and businesses to connect with others, share content and promote

products and services.

• It has 135 million members and two more individuals join every

second.

• Your page on LinkedIn is a reputable source that showcases your

experience and capabilities.

LinkedIn: An Overview

LinkedIn is used by businesses to:

• Connect and network with their target audience

• Connect locally and internationally

• Promote products and services

• Build brand awareness and expand brand reach

• Share knowledge and establish thought-leadership

• Showcase credentials

• Improve Google CVs through SEO authority

• Find potential employees and promote job opportunities

LinkedIn: An Overview

LinkedIn is used by individuals to:

• Find jobs

• Prepare for interviews

• Connect with future and past business acquaintances

• Ask for advice

• Build their personal brand

• Keep informed about industry news and trends

LinkedIn as a HR tool.

Some brands or companies rely on LinkedIn as simply an HR tool, although

LinkedIn could be used effectively to:

• Generate leads

• Take advantage of speaking opportunities

• Build business connections

• Do market and competitor research

• Improve SERPs

• Keep informed about events and trends in your industry

• Establish your brand as a thought-leader.

• Promote and sell products and services

Organisations that are using LinkedIn purely from an HR perspective are missing out

on other great opportunities and functionalities.

Packages

• There are 4 types of LinkedIn Packages to choose from.

• A package should be chosen according to your business needs.

• Businesses that use LinkedIn on a daily basis to connect with clients or other

businesses (such as recruiting agencies) should consider investing in a

Business plus or Pro package.

Setting up a profile/page

• Before setting up your profile, ensure that you

have a well thought through social media

strategy and content plan.

• Be sure to have all the relevant content ready

before setting up you business page. This

includes your business description and

information, contact details, logo, tabs you

wish to create and creative for your banners.

• Once you page is complete, ensure that your

privacy settings are set to “public” to ensure

that your page is easy to find.

Employees

• Employees should be motivated to join LinkedIn (If they do not already have a profile),

update their profiles with the relevant business information and follow your brand.

• Employees are custodians for the brand and their personal profiles, achievements and

interaction with the brand will also have an impact on the brand’s image on LinkedIn.

Current and past employees and their profiles are a reflection of the strengths of your

organisation.

• Social media guidelines and an overall social media policy should be provided that

will assist employees in completing and customising their profiles.

• These guidelines include updating their personal profiles with the correct business name

and their designation as well as providing links to the business page.

Employees and Spokespeople

The way that employees and spokespeople use LinkedIn have a direct impact on a

company’s LinkedIn success.

Employees should:

• Be motivated to actively participate on LinkedIn: This will aid in building your company’s

presence.

• Update their profiles: Employee stats are available to view publically on LinkedIn. This

includes statistics regarding employees’ education, experience, job function and skill sets

and also compares this to competitor information.

• Update accomplishments and duties: This

can be light-hearted and focussed on current

projects, speaking engagements and upcoming

events.

Employees and Spokespeople

Employees should:

• Use the correct company name: This should be an exact match of you company name

on LinkedIn to ensure that the person is displayed as an employee.

• List skills: This is added in the form of

hyperlinks. These show up in your company

statistics and will lead to the company being

known for a specific set of skills if a number of

employees added a specific skill to their profile.

• Customise links: Default titles for links, like

“My Company Website” should be customised

to show the company name.

• Share content: If all employees share your

company’s content, the likelihood that this

content will appear on LinkedIn Today (the

most-shared articles) increases.

Ex-Employees

• Employees leaving the company should also be asked to remove the company as

their current employer from LinkedIn.

• This request should be raised during the exit interview.

• Details related to profiles owned by the company but managed by individuals should also

be handed over. This includes profiles for the company’s CEO or specific spokespeople.

• Ownership of these profiles should be agreed upon in legal documentation before the

profiles are created in order to avoid disputes.

Protecting your staff

• LinkedIn is often used by recruiters to find future employees.

• Unfortunately, these recruiters will be able to find your employees, whether they are on

LinkedIn or not. This is mainly due to employees registering their details on career

portals.

• The only way to protect employees from any kind of headhunting is to provide the ideal

working environment for them, communicating with them on a regular basis and

address their concerns when possible.

Building Connections

Building connections will allow your brand to connect with like-minded people, target

a specific audience, showcase your credentials and expand brand reach and

awareness.

Be proactive about making connections: Instead of waiting for others to connect with

you, rather invite them to become a contact. However, make sure the connection

adds value to them.

Build connections by:

• Including you profile on all communication, including your website, social

media sites, business cards and email signatures

• Connect with current and potential clients

• Motivate employees to follow your brand

• Connect with industry experts and acquaintances

• Join relevant groups

Recommendations

Why?

• Recommendations on LinkedIn are the equivalent of references on a CV and is

an easy way to display your strengths and accomplishments.

• Potential clients expect to read recommendations as proof of the quality of your

product or service.

Recommendations

How?

• Most recommendations are only written when asked for.

Therefore, ask clients to write a LinkedIn recommendation

when they compliment you on a job well done elsewhere.

• It is best to ask for a recommendation in a personal manner. Thus, rather contact the person telephonically or

via email instead of sending out the generic LinkedIn

message.

• It is important to only ask those who truly know your

work for a recommendation in order to ensure that

recommendations are true and obtained in an ethical manner.

• Explain clearly why you are looking for a recommendation.

Businesses should also write recommendations. This will

increase findability as it exposes your business to the

person you are recommending’s network and future network.

Best Practice: Do’s

• Ensure that your page is up to date and complete: This will increase your

findability. Remember to also create your business description and all content

with the reader in mind and make your page public.

• Update the content and creative on a regular basis.

• Be consistent in the creative and content used across platforms.

• Change you default URL: Set up your personalised URL. This will ensure that

your page is easy to find and appear more friendly and professional.

• Promote your page: LinkedIn provides buttons, HTML code and e-mail

signatures that will help you promote your presence on this platform.

*Note: there is no Spell Check or grammar capabilities in LinkedIn. Ensure that all content is proofed

before uploading. *

Best Practice: Do’s

• Cross-promote: Your LinkedIn page is just a

part of your total communication strategy. Ensure

that this platform is easily found by promoting it

on your other platforms and vice versa.

• Join groups: Joining relevant industry groups

will allow you to showcase thought-leadership,

target your communications, expand your

findability and keep in touch with industry trends,

issues and updates.

• Make sure to add value to the group by posting

content on a regular basis.

Best Practice: Do’s

• Create Content: Add value to your network by

uploading interesting information and articles

and showcasing your thought-leadership.

• Pay attention to LinkedIn messages:

Individuals regard LinkedIn messages to be a part

of essential business correspondence and

relevant messages should thus be responded to

soonest.

• Invite people to your network on a regular basis.

Best Practice: Do’s

• Use keywords: Use keywords and tag

content to increase your findability.

• Install applications: Apps will help your

brand to showcase your knowledge.

Install apps such as wordpress or a blog

link (that will automatically share your

most recent blog posts), Twitter (that will

automatically post all your tweets to your

LinkedIn page as well) and SlideShare or

Googl ePresentation (to automatically

share recent documents, presentations

and videos).

Best Practice: Don'ts

• Spam: Do not post content on irrelevant sections and groups on LinkedIn.

• Do not automatically subscribe your connections to your newsletter or invite

individuals that you do not know.

• Do not provide people with the

same content over and over

again.

• Do not send product and

service messages to people

that have not asked for them.

Best Practice: Don’ts

• Do not have multiple profiles: Ensure that you only set up one page for your

brand to avoid confusion. If it fits your brand to have more than one page, for

example pages for different countries,

ensure that these are properly named

and easy to differentiate.

• If multiple profiles make sense for you

brand, ensure that creative, tone, wording

and language is used consistently across

profiles.

• The audience should be able to identify

that the profiles belong to one brand, but

have different functions or are aimed at

different audiences.

Best Practice: Don'ts

• Use canned messages: Personalise invitations and messages instead of

using the default messages. This displays professionalism and attention to

detail.

• Share anything that you wouldn’t want a future or current client or employee or

competitors to read. Make sure all the content is appropriate for the general

public.

Best Practice: Who is doing it right?

Deloitte

• Deloitte makes great use of the Product and Service Spotlight as well as tabular

layout on their page.

Best Practice: Who is doing it right?

Google

• Google uses a banner

that draws attention to

their page.

• They also use provide

relevant and interesting

information in the form

of articles and videos.

Best Practice: Who is doing it right?

Microsoft

• Microsoft motivates the audience to follow the on LinkedIn and also make use

of the product and service spotlight effectively.

Measure

How do we measure success?

• Do not measure your success using metrics such as number of followers or

recommendations.

• Success on LinkedIn should be measured by:

• Leads generated

• Clients won

• Qualified job candidates gained

• Speaking opportunities

• Quality relationships built

• Responses to content

• Credible connections

More Information

If you require further information with regards to LinkedIn or need assistance in setting up your account, customising it and choosing the

correct package, please do not hesitate to contact us.

We are also eager to monitor and manage your online presence. Please contact us to set up a demo account for you.

South Africa: Tel: +27 11 021 8740 Email: infosa@saidwot.com Web: www.saidwot.com

United States: Tel: +00 (1) 704 450 2403 Email: infous@saidwot.com