10
of The Best LinkedIn Features For Your Business
The trick with LinkedIn is to know all the little
secrets so you can make full use of the popular social network. It has lots of
interesting features that not everybody knows about and they launch new ones at
a very rapid rate, probably due to their perpetually increasing number of
users, so it can be very hard to keep up and know which features to use to get
the most out of LinkedIn. This has been bugging me lately so I decided to make
a to-the-point list with LinkedIn’s most relevant features for businesses.
1.
Mentions
I thought it best to start with LinkedIn’s latest feature, as there hasn’t been a lot of talk
regarding it and it’s a pretty useful feature. LinkedIn now allow their members
to mention their connections and companies in their updates, which is very
similar to Facebook’s “mention” feature. All you have to do is start typing the
name of the connection or company in the status update box or in a comment
field and then select the name you want – and then that person or company will
be notified of the mention. It might not sound like much, but it’s a very
useful feature, as it allows you to easily start a conversation with someone.
Most people don’t check their feed regularly and read through all status
updates, so the fact that they are notified that gives you a much better chance
that they will see your update and ultimately, comment on it. Since there is so
much noise on LinkedIn, this new (and great!) feature gives you a great
advantage and an amazing opportunity to build a relationship with any of your
connections.
It’s also worth
mentioning that you aren’t necessarily limited to your existing connections.
You can also mention other users that are commenting on a post on the LinkedIn
Homepage – so you can use this feature to also meet some new people and make
some new connections that might have been harder to make otherwise. The guys at
LinkedIn are also promising that sometime in the near future users will be able
to mention their colleagues even beyond the LinkedIn Homepage.
Have you considered setting up a LinkedIn Company Page
yet? At the moment LinkedIn reports about 2.8 million Company Pages and HP is
the first to cross the 1 million followers line. So if you have a business –
why not start a Company Page of your own? It’s a very useful feature that will
allow you to reach more people, get more engagement and raise your brand
awareness.
This great LinkedIn feature allows you not only to make
new connections, but also to make the best connections possible. With Get
Introduced you can search your connections’ connections by keyword and if you
find someone that you would like to be connected to, all you have to do is get
the initial connection to introduce the two of you. This way you can make great
strategic connections that can really help your business.
5.
LinkedIn Signal
The LinkedIn Homepage can be quite overwhelming and it
can get very hard to get to the information you actually care about.
Fortunately, there’s LinkedIn Signal: a great feature that allows you to search
through conversations, updates, etc. so you can instantly find out what you
actually want to find out, without having to go through mountains of
unnecessary information. What’s great about LinkedIn Signal is that you’re not
limited to searching just with keywords, but you can also use locations and
topics and add up to ten filters. With Signal you can also keep up with your
connections’ updates in real time and get a feel for when they are active on
LinkedIn, which gives you a window to approach them.
6.
Groups You May Like
Joining groups is a must if you want to make the most
out of LinkedIn. And not just joining – but also participating regularly.
Groups are great tools for meeting new people, establishing relevant
connections, getting leads and for establishing yourself as an expert and go-to
guy (or gal!) in your field. But joining just one group isn’t enough: the more,
the merrier! And the more people you get to meet! With LinkedIn’ Groups You May
Like feature, LinkedIn gives you the most relevant groups for you, by looking
at the attributes you have in common with other members in groups. Which can be
a little scary, but also incredibly useful!
7.
LinkedIn Recommendations
LinkedIn Recommendations are, well, what they sound
like: LinkedIn basically allows its users to recommend each other so that other
users can see that endorsement. It’s quite a useful tool, as if you get lots of
recommendations your profile will be that much better and more appealing to
others. So, if you haven’t already, start recommending people that you admire
and wait for others to recommend you as well.
8. Common Interests
With the Common Interests feature you can see
everything that you have in common with another user: groups you’ve joined,
skills, causes and interests. Make sure you add all of your interests, skills
etc. and join as many relevant groups as you can (the keyword here is
relevant!) as many people might decide whether to connect with you or not based
on your common interests. The great thing about this feature is that you can
now very carefully examine potential connections that could turn into potential
clients. And with this feature you also get a great in – knowing what the two
of you have in common can give you all the necessary information you need to be
able to reach out and spark a conversation with them.
9. Rich Media Tool
It’s
no secret how important visuals are and LinkedIn has definitely caught on to
that when they launched the “new LinkedIn”. Everybody has noticed how much more
image-centric LinkedIn is now, but not everyone knows of the Rich Media Tool.
With it, you can now add different types of media, such as video and
presentations, to your Summary, Experience and Education fields. This is a
great feature that allows you to get that extra edge over the competition: the
better your profile looks and the more interactive it is, the better!
10.
Sharing Bookmarklet
With the Sharing Bookmarklet, LinkedIn gets, well, more
social! All you have to do is go here and drag and drop the button on your
browser toolbar. Once you have the bookmarklet you can start sharing webpages
with your connections even if you’re not on LinkedIn. It makes it very easy to
share anything you might find on the web in just seconds. And, as a bonus, I
thought I’d also mention LinkedIn Advertising:
11.
LinkedIn Ads
As
mentioned earlier, LinkedIn gives you the option to advertise on their website.
And, if you cater to professionals or businesses, then it should be perfect for
you. LinkedIn advertising is pretty good
as there are quite a few users (over 200 million) and, unlike Facebook, Twitter
and other major social networks, everybody knows that a majority of its users
are business men and women. Another great thing is that ad campaigns are highly
targeted (similarly to Facebook) and they can be very cheap: you can start from
as little as $10 a day. This is great
news as you can at least try it out and see how it works before you throw in
all your budget for an ad campaign. So here they are, the top
11 features to help you get the most out of your business using LinkedIn! What
are some of the features you use on LinkedIn? Are there any that I haven’t
mentioned? Please do let me know in your comments!
