Apr 04, 2012 admin
When it comes to social sites, we’ve all been poked on Facebook. We’re forced to Google+ if we want to come up in search results. And now we’re so excited about Pins you would think it was 1964 and the quarterback wants you to be his girlfriend.
But what about LinkedIn, which many still think of only as a place to look for a job? It may not seem nearly as exciting as the other shiny tools, but it’s a little like Clark Kent – with a Superman shirt under his shirt and tie.
Around this time last year, LinkedIn hit a milestone with more than 100 million users worldwide. That includes more than 17.8 million members in groups and 1.2 million posts and comments to professional groups each week. Anecdotally, LinkedIn is one of the highest referring sources for our blog. And they make it pretty easy.
They already have existing integrations with some third-party social applications so you can have your other social channels feed directly to your LinkedIn. You can sync your blog posts with their WordPress application, have your SlideShare presentations pop right up in your profile and have your tweets (selectively or not) appear as status updates. There’s also a survey function, so you can get some solid data from folks in your network and start conversations about topics that are important or of interest to you. It’s integration at its finest, and if you do it right, you’re able to connect and engage with a much broader scope of your social network.
Sending information and content to contacts and groups on LinkedIn is also a great way for your sales force to stay in touch with current customers and prospects.
LinkedIn also recently introduced Company Pages. This is a great opportunity to provide detail about your company, share news, engage with people who are interested in what you have to say and of course, share job opportunities.
Even though one of my idols, Jack Donaghy, has made his feelings on the social network clear (“He’s on LinkedIn, Lemon. He might as well be dead.”) this is certainly not the case when it comes to making the most of your content.
