If you’re like most people, you’ve updated your LinkedIn profile within the last month. That’s good news and it’s a start. But if that’s all you’ve done with LinkedIn, you’re not using it to its fullest potential.

Given that, I thought I’d provide several new tips on using LinkedIn to grow your sales and revenue. At the end of this short post, you’ll find 5 more insider tips on using LinkedIn. I’ve intentionally kept the video to about 60 seconds so you can get in, get out and get back to work.

Here are several quick tips on how to use LinkedIn for business. Have at ‘em:

• Include your LinkedIn URL in your email signature. This is an obvious one. And it’s a great way to promote your personal brand.
• Use TweetDeck or HootSuite for your LinkedIn status updates. As you know, LinkedIn has a feature that allows you to update your business status as often as you’d like. But did you know that you can use TweetDeck or HootSuite to do this for you? It’s a great productivity-enhancer.
• Update your settings so you get LinkedIn messages delivered to your email in box. That way, you can respond more quickly to the messages people send you via LinkedIn.
• Alternatively, you can use NutshellMail to do the same thing. A short while ago, I blogged about NutshellMail, which is a terrific new tool to supercharge your social media productivity. NutshellMail aggregates all your social media conversations into one daily email so you can quickly respond to conversations happening on your social media platforms. (Side note: If there’s one thing you do coming out of this blog post, please sign up for NutshellMail. It saves me about 45 minutes a day.)
• Use DirectAds to drive people to your website and/or blog. Do you have a free eBook for people to download? Or do you need more subscribers to your e-newsletter? Perhaps you have an e-commerce site that needs more traffic. Use LinkedIn DirectAds to drive businesspeople to your website, blog or e-commerce page.
• Create a LinkedIn Poll for a quick survey of your customers and/or prospects. Remember, the idea behind social media is to connect with prospective customers so you can a) build trust and, b) eventually sell them something. LinkedIn Polls are a great way to stay on front of prospective customers and, eventually, create a business relationship with them.
• Supercharge your LinkedIn profile with their cool, new applications. I wrote a post called “13 LinkedIn Apps You Can Use to Become a LinkedIn Rock Star” a short while ago. It’s a quick write-up on the top LinkedIn Apps you might consider adding to your LinkedIn page.

Still interested in learning more? Terrific — just click the play button below and watch the short, 60-second video with 5 additional tips on using LinkedIn to grow your sales and revenue. (By the way, this and 50 other helpful videos can be found on the 60 Second Marketer YouTube channel.)

Posted by Jamie Turner, Chief Content Officer of the 60 Second Marketer, the online magazine for BKV Digital and Direct Response. You can download a free chapter from Jamie’s book by clicking “How to Make Money with Social Media.”

Tuesday, August 31st, 2010, 9:22 am   |   LinkedIn, Social Media  |  RSS feed |  Respond  |  Trackback