LinkedIn Is Rapidly Growing – Are You On-Board?

In case you haven’t read recent articles, LinkedIn is growing by leaps and bounds — solid and steady. So, what I want to know is…. are you on-board? 

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 LinkedIn Now Has 175 Million Members – article by Todd Wasserman on Mashable Business

 If you find yourself wondering, “Why isn’t my business growing? Why don’t I have greater visibility? Why is my business growing at a slow and steady pace rather than exploding?” — it’s time to get serious about LinkedIn.

 LinkedIn affords you the largest and most focused professional social platform on the planet. It delivers a tremendous opportunity to source connections, leads and prospects.  Exactly how should you take the leap into LinkedIn? A great technique you can implement immediately is…

 Connection “Tags” – Build Your Lists

 I’m sure you’ve heard the statement, “The money is in the list.”  LinkedIn lets you build a list almost immediately upon setting up your profile. Organizing your connections, from the onset, will not only save you time but will also enable you to engage target markets.

 LinkedIn “tags” is a great tool. After accepting connection invitations, it is crucial to visit “Connections” in your LinkedIn profile and “tag” these people.

 You can create lists for specific prospects, types of clients or even according to location.

 “Tags” also build your lists and provide an awesome opportunity to ‘in-mail’ that particular list (tag) in order to share company information, links to videos, gain important information (go ahead…ask questions!) or anything else you might do when attempting to turn leads or connections into customers or clients.

 Visit your LinkedIn profile and click on “Contacts” – this will take you to your list of connections.

 Next, click on the link entitled “untagged.”

 Hover over the first connection, click, and the information for that contact will appear on the right side.

 Under the connections information, you will see a link entitled “Edit Tags” — click on that link.

 A list of tags will drop down. Select one or however many pertain to that contact. You can also ADD new tags too!

 Be sure to “Save” the tag(s)! You can confirm that your contact was tagged by viewing “All Connections” to ensure the numbers have increased. Next, check to ensure your “untagged” numbers have decreased.

 After completing the above steps, you are now ready to begin connecting with contacts within the specific lists you created through utilizing “tags.”

 This is just one of the many features that LinkedIn offers to almost make your profile a custom business website.  Take some time and check out how ‘tagging’ your connections can be help you start prospecting for leads and building your list.

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Guest Author:  Lynn Brown – Social Media Marketing Manager, Coach – Blogging Strategist and LinkedIn Specialist helping small business owners, online marketers and professionals achieve increased company branding and visibility through social media for their specific products, programs or industry.  Complimentary consultation available.