10 Advanced Tips To Rev up Your LinkedIn Profile!

If you're not getting the results you want from your LinkedIn page, try these 10 advanced tips to rev up your LinkedIn profile and make it work harder for you!

1. Are You Publishing Yet? Another great new feature is that any LinkedIn member can now publish their content on LinkedIn and promote it via either their Company Pages or Personal Profile. While most still tend to post only company related news or PR - think outside the box and publish industry related news, “Op Ed’ pieces, white papers and infographics. Publishing a news piece about a company that you would like to do business with is a great way to open the door for dialogue!

2. Track The Content That’s Trending! This is relatively new tool, just launched in spring of 2014, and not widely used at all yet, but certainly worth your attention! Trending Content spotlights the most popular content being shared all over LinkedIn. While it’s a great way to stay on top of events and news in your industry - it’s also a fantastic way to share the spotlight with the trending stories by adding your ‘two cents’ with pertinent comments.

3. LinkedIn Ads - Pricey, But Worth It. Laser focused, targeted advertising is possible with LinkedIn’s Ad platform, but be cautious and monitor your ad spend closely, as that targeting comes at a hefty price tag. But remember who you are targeting: the CEOs and top decision makers in the company. One deal may be all you need to cover the cost of the campaign.

4. Create Your Own LinkedIn Group. LinkedIn Groups are a great way of reaching out to people that you would like to connect with - create a group and invite them to join! As a LinkedIn Group administrator, you can email your group members up to once per week. This lets you establish a relationship with your group members, while also establishing yourself as an authority or ‘thought leader’ in your field.

5. Use Pulse to Track Industry News. LinkedIn's Pulse lets you follow specific people, companies, influencers, publishers or channels. Get their attention by commenting and interacting with them via their content. Send someone you want to connect with an InMail, with a few well thought out comments about their recent article - and you will get a response back 99 times out of 100!

6. LinkedIn - The Ultimate Lead Funnel. LinkedIn can be a goldmine of business owners that are ready to invest in solutions to their problems, whatever they may be! From SEO to website design, app development to manufacturing equipment, spend some time putting together a logical sales funnel to maximize your prospecting efforts on LinkedIn. Start with an entry level product or service to build trust, then have a full menu of additional products and services you can follow up with after the initial sale.

7. Joint Venture Heaven! I am always amazed that people don’t realize what a goldmine of potential JV partners LI is! Keep an open mind no matter who you are connecting with on LinkedIn - they may not be a great fit for the product or service you are selling - but are your products compatible? Can you share resources or put together a package deal to sell to both companies customers? Always be looking for new ways to expand your reach into new markets!

8. LinkedIn for The BEST Leads. On a tight budget, so LinkedIn ads are not a good option just yet? Then take advantage of the many free options available to you on LinkedIn. With the highest visitor-to-lead conversion rate of any social network, LinkedIn allows you to share links to your landing pages in your status updates, and on your Company/Showcase pages. You can also include them (when appropriate!) in your group posts and LinkedIn's publishing platform. The key is the phrase ‘when appropriate’ - don’t ever spam your contacts or groups just to get your links out there - it doesn’t work.

9. Find Out What Your Potential Customers Are Thinking! Although LinkedIn no longer offers the group Polls feature - you can still ask questions in groups to get people’s thoughts and opinions on current topics, industry issues etc. It’s a great way to start a conversation with possible customers, and to focus in on what your potential market’s real issues and pain points are.

10. Let Your Company Pages Be Your Company Showcase. LinkedIn offers so much more flexibility then most social marketing sites: you can create multiple pages, each specific to a division, product or service within your company. Each page can promote a specific product or service. Create pages specific to each vertical or market segment you service, so you can direct interested parties to the correct page on LinkedIn.

I hope these ideas get you started on LinkedIn - it’s one of the best places online to connect with the true ‘heavy hitters’ and decision makers at virtually company or in any industry…..anywhere in the world.