Introduction

LinkedIn is easily one of the most overlooked of the social networking sites for effective online marketing. Yet, if you get it right, it could also be one of the most lucrative.

You see, LinkedIn really does have the power to help you promote your business to the right people. It helps to increase awareness of your brand, and gets word out about your products and services.

So many marketers make crucial marketing mistakes when using LinkedIn that they really could be leaving profits on the table. This social networking platform isn’t about accruing lots of friends or fans or ‘Likes’, as you would with Facebook. It’s not about finding people to ‘follow’ you, as you would with Twitter.

Instead, those people who find real success with LinkedIn are those who focus on building solid long-term business relationships.

LinkedIn is the largest professional network in the world, designed to let you connect with other business professionals and build a network of these people. This gives you the ideal platform to establish yourself as an expert in your field. You can use it to find strong JV partners, and even use it to gain even more knowledge about your niche.

But there’s a lot more to marketing on LinkedIn the right way than just creating a profile and hoping for the best. Don’t be one of these people.

Here are some of the more glaringly obvious mistakes so many marketers make when using LinkedIn.

Mistake #1: Unfocused Profile

Once you’ve created your LinkedIn account, the first thing you’re asked to do is to create your profile. This should only take you a few minutes, as LinkedIn has made it very easy to just fill in the blank spaces.

Unfortunately, if you fill in all the blanks, your profile will end up looking suspiciously like a CV.

You see, there are spaces there asking you to fill in your work history and previous job roles. The vast majority of people goes ahead and fills these in.

What they don’t realize is that your potential clients don’t need to see the entire list of companies you’ve worked for in the past. They don’t want to scroll through endless job descriptions you’ve had as you worked your way up to where you are now.

Instead, consider focusing your profile to suit what a prospective client wants to see. Focus on adding information about the type of people you help – not just the job description. Focus on what specific problems you’re able to help solve.

Of course, if some of your previous job roles do contain these elements, then include those.

These show practical experience. Just be sure you word those job descriptions as actual benefits to the person reading them – not just bland descriptions of what actions you needed to perform in that role.

If you really want to succeed on LinkedIn, you need to design your profile so that it has an impact on the people you want to connect with.

When someone reads your summary, they want to know “what’s in it for me”. This is why it’s important to focus on your prospective customers or future JV partners will want to know most about what you can do for them.

There’s also the matter of your contact settings. People do need to know the best way to contact you. While you might have provided a phone number or email address, you can also add a personalized message that encourages them to visit your website or blog as well.

Mistake #2: Unoptimized Profile

After reading mistake #1, you could be mistaken for thinking your entire profile needs to focus solely on attracting new customers or attracting new business networks. There’s nothing wrong with this, but you still need to be sure you take advantage of the various applications and features LinkedIn offers you.

The words you use to describe what you can do for customers and what you can offer future JV partners are important, but you also need to remember that LinkedIn gives you the ability to optimize your profile.

A well-optimized profile should contain keywords that future customers will search for in order to find people within your industry or niche.

Head over to the first page of people search on your LinkedIn account and type in your own keywords. You should see a list of results for people who match those keywords, terms or phrases.

Just like with Google, you want your LinkedIn search results to show on the front page wherever possible. Look closely at how those highly- ranked people have achieved this and then tweak your own profile accordingly.

Remember, you still have to strike a balance between focusing on your target audience and appealing to those search results, so take your time.

Mistake #3: Not Using LinkedIn’s Applications & Features

LinkedIn constantly adds new features and applications designed to make navigating around the massive social networking site easier for users. Many of these also make it easier for people to connect with you in return.

If you hope to succeed on LinkedIn, you will need to familiarize yourself with these applications and use them to your advantage.

These include:

• The ‘publications’ feature lets you include links to your articles, sales pages or individual web pages right on your profile. You can include anchor text in these links to help your optimization efforts.

• Third-party recommendations about your business, products or services

• Add Certifications to show prospects your areas of expertise, training, and ability

• The InMaps feature to show you precisely how your network of connections actually come together

• The Signals feature is kind of like a timeline that shows your connections’ latest updates

• Link your Twitter account so that tweets get posted to your LinkedIn updates

• SlideShare lets you share visual presentations and videos with people viewing your profile

• The Creative Portfolio Display application lets you show off your portfolio of work right on your profile

• LinkedIn Groups allows you to join or begin your own group that is focused on your own industry or niche

There are so many applications and features available that you should work out the best way to try and use them wherever possible. This will help to make your profile engaging.

Mistake #4: No Recommendations

Many LinkedIn users have garnered recommendations from other people who have used their services or products in the past.

These recommendations act as real testimonials, which show visitors to your profile that other real people are happy when working with you.

Unfortunately, there aren’t many LinkedIn users who will automatically rush to your profile to leave a recommendation just to surprise you. You will need to ask for a recommendation from the people within your network.

Ask them to be honest about their experience with your products or services and they’re likely to leave you a glowing recommendation that others will view positively.

Mistake #5: Assuming People Will Just Come to You

Sure, you may get a few people who recognize your name or profile and ask to connect with you. But this won’t get you the LinkedIn marketing success you’re seeking.

You need to be proactive about engaging with other people.

Remember to update status messages regularly and take the time to comment on other people’s updates or messages in the same way you would with Facebook.

Head over to the Q&A boards and see if there are any questions you can answer that will help to prove your expertise within your niche.

Create new content and distribute this for others to see. This keeps your name fresh in people’s minds, but also helps to circulate fresh content for you.

Make use of introductions. If one of your connections knows someone that you want to know, engage in an introduction. A free LinkedIn

account only allows you five introductions per profile, so use them wisely.

Remember, you can’t just expect people to accept a connection invitation immediately, unless you give a good reason. Take the time to delete LinkedIn’s default invitation message and replace it with a personalized message instead.

This is your opportunity to reach out to people and engage with them before they’ve even become a part of your network. Tell them what benefits you offer if they accept.

Mistake #6: Not Joining the Right Groups

When you first start looking to join some of the LinkedIn groups available, you might be tempted to join those that are in direct competition with you. But this won’t lead you to creating new leads and attracting new customers or finding new JV partners.

Instead, look at groups that focus on your industry and also provide you with up-to-date information from other experts so that you can continue to expand your area of expertise. You’ll also be associating yourself with other people who are considered authorities in their fields, but not necessarily competitors.

Look for groups your prospects belong to and join those. Be a helpful member of the group and remember to participate in conversations, answer questions and respond to comments.

Mistake #7: Not Creating Your Own LinkedIn Group

Creating your own group is one of the easiest ways to attract the right people to you. Having your own group means you can create your own community of followers who you know already want to hear what you have to say. The messages you send out or the announcements you make or the content you post will be actually heard.

Think of your own group as being your very own platform that lets you provide helpful, thoughtful, insightful advice. It lets you build trust with your followers.

While this kind of captive audience can be really tempting, don’t try to use it only as a marketing tool to sell more products. Actually work hard to provide a benefit to those people who want to follow you. They joined your group for a reason, so provide them with plenty of reasons to want to stay there with you.

Don’t just create your group and sit back believing people will automatically come to you. Think about ways to provide a benefit for what the people in your target audience really want. Offer something that represents real value to entice them to join and then constantly over-deliver plenty of benefits for enticing them to stay.

Mistake #8: Not Capturing Contact Information

People join groups, follow people, or show an interest in all sorts of things all the time. However, you’re only allowed to follow up to 50 groups at a time on LinkedIn. If your followers decide they’d rather follow a different group than yours, they’ll drop yours in favor of another.

Don’t make the mistake of losing that potential contact forever. Instead, consider adding some ways to capture their regular email address for future contact.

Of course, you may be using LinkedIn as your source of finding new leads and turning them into paying customers. However, once they are no longer part of your group or network, how will they learn about your new products? Those new products, services, or messages you release once they’re gone will be lost – and they could have been exactly what that person was seeking before they left.

Conclusion

Hopefully this report has opened your eyes to some of the very simple mistakes many marketers make – and how you can avoid them. It should also have made you think about other aspects of leveraging the true power of LinkedIn to boost your marketing efforts overall.

Keep these common mistakes in mind when you next log into your LinkedIn account. Take a closer look at how your current account is set up. Look at your groups and the people in your network.

Then get out there and repair those mistakes. You’ll be grateful you did when you see the real difference it can make to your business.