The key to any successful business is gaining the visibility that you need in order to let people know who you are and what your business is all about. Social media has catapulted many businesses into the forefront of their target audiences. Case in point, my business was found by a Fortune 500 company on LinkedIn and I landed the contract. They found me all because of targeted social media marketing.

Ways to use LinkedIn to grow your visibility

While Facebook and Twitter are great social media platforms, LinkedIn is actually a great way to grow your visibility. There are a variety of ways in which this can be done. These include:

  • Participating in Groups – LinkedIn has several groups available to its users. These can be niche related groups, interest groups, etc. The value in joining in on one of these groups is that you can reach more people. This allows you the opportunity to grow the visibility of your business to a wider audience. In addition these groups are great ways to network and learn from others as well.
  • Optimizing Your Profile With Keywords – Your profile is very important because this is how people learn about you and your business. In order to maximize your exposure you want to optimize your profile with keywords that are tied to your brand. Much like optimizing your website; optimizing your profile can greatly increase your chances of being found on the internet.
  • Connecting With Others From Your Groups – While participating in groups is a great way to network, so is interacting individually with members of your group. Each person within a group has their own following; their own connections. By connecting with and interacting with members of your groups, you are increasing your chances of more people finding out who you are and what your brand is all about. While we are in a technological world never forget the power of word of mouth advertising.
  • Joint Venturing With Others From LinkedIn – LinkedIn is a mecca of individuals in which you can network with. These individuals come from various backgrounds and have their own circles (connections). It is highly likely that during the course of these interactions that you’ll come across someone with similar interests and goals as you. The individuals could turn out to be perfect targets for joint venturing opportunities. You may find someone who you can partner with to present a workshop or you may find someone who you can partner with to create a training series. The possibilities are endless when it comes to potential joint venture opportunities.
  • Poll your connections – It is a great ideal to poll your connections for their input about different topics or questions regarding your industry. When you ask them for their opinion, it will help you get to the know the mind of those who might be your target customers. Asking a potential target customers for their opinion can also help you know what products to develop that would answer their needs.

LinkedIn holds a mecca of opportunities when it comes to enhancing your brands exposure. This social media platform for professionals is connecting people and companies from all over the world. The first step is to set up your profile and then start “linking” yourself with others.

Case Study: WomenPartner.org (Jerrilynn B. Thomas).

Jerrilynn is the CEO/Founder of WomenPartner.org and she primarily uses LinkedIn to reach her targeted customers. According to Jerrilynn…

I get the bulk of my female clients for WomenPartner.org from LinkedIn by using it as a tool to find women to cross market/promote with by writing insightful posts on the benefits of collaborating to attract women to do business with me. Since WomenPartner.org‘s events focus on collaborative PR and marketing, having a place to showcase my expertise is a Godsend. At the end of every post, I am able to share what events I have coming up and offer complimentary PR and advertising.

It is done in the form of LinkedIn listings and press releases that detail the types of companies women are interested in collaborating with in exchange for them sharing my event announcements. My current LinkedIn PR campaign is the 1,000,000 Women Link Up. 47% of LinkedIn’s over 160,000,000 members are females. My goal is to find 1,000,000 of its most entrepreneurial minded female members who are open to forming collaborative business relationships so they can link up to each other and get the economy back on track. Women can dramatically improve the economy if they work together. Visit http://bit.ly/OmD1XY to join the movement.

Learn more about how to growing your visibility by clicking here.

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