26/03/2013

By Alexia Leachman, Founder of www.headtrash.co.uk


In order for a company (and individual) to succeed at LinkedIn then it should be:

- telling its story (what’s happening with products, services, staff, winning awards etc) to customers old and new

- engaging relevant communities (those in their sector, industry leaders etc)

- coming up with new business leads (marketing their products and targeting potential customer groups)
Here’s an example of some companies who, according to Linked In executives themselves, are going about promoting themselves in the right way. In fact, we could all be doing with taking an electronic page or two out of their e-book:

CNBC

This huge US-based media group was named by LinkedIn itself as one of their top Company Pages last year. How so? Well the fact they used their page to cross-promoting their various social networking channels helped a lot. For instance they asked LinkedIn fans to follow them on Facebook and Twitter. Not a bad idea at all and certainly there’s no rule against it.

How they did it was to embed a link to their other social media channels in banner images earmarked in the Products and Services category (as I mentioned in our last article, LinkedIn provides companies with up to three of these banner images.

Hubspot

Inbound marketing software company Hubspot use their Company Page on LinkedIn to sell their product and generate leads. They achieve this by providing advice and guidance on how to use their software under the Products and Services tab as well as offering free e-books on inbound marketing in general. They also have a massive 200 recommendations from past clients (no doubt they asked them for this). That number is certainly enough to sway someone who’s sitting on the fence about buying their product. One or two recommendations wouldn’t have made any difference but 200 – well, all that many people can’t be wrong, can they?

American Airlines

The top US flight company is going for the customer engagement angle. No-one who lands on their page could fail to notice the impressive jumbo jet on the banner image (with their logo on it incidentally!). Their updates consist of visual and fun competitions most readers would quite happily wile away a couple of minutes doing - whether they offered a first class ticket as a prize or not. That’s because it’s entertaining.

So what do you think, having read the above articles? Are you ready to improve your brand (whether company or personal) by getting your profile updated and out there on LinkedIn using all these fantastic new functions?

There’s absolutely no reason not to now that you know how to go about it. In fact, it would be daft not to.

Let me know how you get on!

Alexia Leachman is a Mojo-hunter and helps business leaders to find their mojo by helping them to clear their head trash, tell their story, raise their profile, build their digital presence and manage their reputation. Alexia is also the founder of www.headtrash.co.uk, the home of the most powerful head trash clearance technique in the world. She regularly speaks and writes, and has authored a chapter on Online Reputation for the book “Hit me! The Secrets of getting your small business to punch its weight online”. You can follow her on Twitter at @AlexiaL and find out more at www.alexialeachman.com Her new radio show B.the change launched recently and you can hear that here http://www.alexialeachman.com/radio-show.html