Mary Ellen Slayter

SMSS: How to use LinkedIn with business savvy

By Mary Ellen Slayter on May 12, 2010 | 18 Comments

This post is by Brooke Howell, SmartBrief’s small-business editor.

When Lewis Howes crushed his wrist, along with his dream of making his fortune playing football, and ended up bedridden on his sister’s couch with no college degree and no job, he could have made best friends with Ben & Jerry and whiled away the hours watching TV.

Instead, he spent six to eight hours a day experimenting with LinkedIn — tweaking his profile and learning the ins and outs, often through trial and error. After he was able to get up and about, he cut back to about three hours a day and kept on learning.

Sound like a waste of time? Nope. We’re not talking about Facebook here. Howes wasn’t posting pictures of the people who came to sign his cast and taking quizzes to find out which Disney princess he’s most like. He was doing business and growing into a business pro.

“I believe that LinkedIn is the No. 1 social-networking medium on the planet today …  for anyone looking to build their business,” Howes told participants in the Social Media Success Summit on Tuesday afternoon.

For Howes, LinkedIn has been just that — and he says it can do the same for you, too.

“Start using it aggressively every day and testing and tweaking to see what works for you,” he suggests.

Luckily, you won’t have to spend quite as many hours learning LinkedIn as Howes did, because he’s happy to share what he learned, not only at SMSS, but with co-author Frank Agin in their book “LinkedWorking: Generating Success on the World’s Largest Professional Networking Website.”

Howes says LinkedIn is so powerful for a number of reasons, including:

  • You can export your contact list into a file that you can keep and analyze.
  • You can have an unlimited number of contacts.
  • Its members are largely business professionals, many of whom are decision-makers.

Like any powerful tool, though, you have to put some thought into how you use LinkedIn, starting with your profile. And every profile, says Howes, must start with a keyword or two.  For Howes, the word is “sports.” For you it could be “kitchen contractor,” “tax expert” or “French chef.” What’s important is that it gets at what you are all about.

That keyword needs to appear in five places in your profile:

  1. Headline
  2. Current experience
  3. Past experiences
  4. Summary
  5. List of specialties

Putting the keyword in those five places will help move you up in LinkedIn searches and help people who are looking for experts in your field find and connect with you, says Howes, who is often at the top of searches for “sports.”

In addition to putting your keyword in your summary, he says, you need to be sure that summary answers three important questions:

  1. Who are you?
  2. Who do you want to help?
  3. How are you going to help them?

Answer these questions and write them in a narrative format, not in formal bullet points as you would in a resume, Howes says. He gave more good tips and referred SMSS participants to check out free instructional videos on his website for more information.

It is worth your time to get on LinkedIn and learn to use it with savvy as an important business tool. The great thing about the medium is that you can use  its best features for free, which is great for everyone and especially useful to entrepreneurs, independent contractors, solo businesses and small companies that may not have the bucks to spend on marketing and other outreach efforts.

Have you achieved business success with the help of LinkedIn? Tell us about it and share your tips.

For more great sessions on how to develop a social-media strategy and maximize your efforts, check out the continuing 100% online Social Media Success Summit that (full disclosure) SmartBrief helped plan. For access to the whole session and many others, sign up here.

Image credit,  iqoncept, via iStockPhoto


Related posts:

  1. SMSS: All about social media contests with Michael Stelzner
  2. SmartBrief on: Getting the most out of LinkedIn
  3. A lesson in value exchange: The LinkedIn Outlook Toolbar

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Responses

  • Posted by Tweets that mention SMSS: How to use LinkedIn with business savvy | SmartBlog On Social Media -- Topsy.com on May 12th, 2010 at 1:15 pm

    [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Brooke Howell. Brooke Howell said: RT @sbosm SMSS: How to use LinkedIn with business savvy http://bit.ly/cHQGk6 [...]

  • Posted by @LewisHowes on May 12th, 2010 at 11:53 pm

    Thanks for the kind words Brooke :) Glad you got a lot out of my presentation on LinkedIn

  • Posted by Veronique on May 13th, 2010 at 5:17 pm

    Watched Lewis' video interview yesterday and thought it was great. Just can't figure out, as a Sales & Marketing VP, where I'd enter "social media' or 'wine' on the current and past titles.

  • Posted by Promod Sharma on May 14th, 2010 at 1:50 pm

    Thanks for the tips. LinkedIn is such a valuable tool, yet so few take the time to complete their profiles to 100%. This exercise takes time and certain steps may take you out of your comfort zone. That's good since we grow.

    LinkedIn suggests people you may know. Even if you don't, check out their profiles and see if you would like to know them. If so, invite them to connect via a personalized invitation. They will probably look at your profile before deciding — another reason to complete yours.
    My recent post Let's Get Real: Mahan Khalsa Brings ORDER To Sales Chaos

  • Posted by samantha janney on May 14th, 2010 at 2:31 pm

    Hi Mary Ellen – loved the article about LinkedIn! With any social media site it definitely is an investment of time to get to know how to use it. I'm a fairly new user and will be re-tweaking my profile to incorporate some of these tips. Thanks!

  • Posted by Mike Hughes on May 16th, 2010 at 6:55 am

    Just the sort of article I like – straight to the point with clear, concise guidance. Thanks Lewis. I thought my Linkedin profile was pretty good, but I'm heading straight there to Howes-ify it now!

  • Posted by @ValerieFuson on May 16th, 2010 at 7:08 am

    Thanks for the post. LinkedIn is a great tool. I am not using it to its full capability yet, and I still have managed to acquire business from it. It does take time to create your profile, but definately is a must. I completed mine over a few sessions and update it periodically. I don't connect with people if they don't have a profile up. It's like saying high to someone and they don't respond back. Networking on LinkedIn is just like any networking event, you have to exchange information to get to know each other. It's about building relationships.

  • Posted by Karen Clark on May 16th, 2010 at 12:48 am

    Great tips and I’d like to add that participating in Groups and answering questions in the Answers section is also effective in that you have the opportunity to demonstrate your expertise, and those reading, participating or just lurking will reach out to you for a connection or possible business. This has happened to me many times!

  • Posted by @LewisHowes on May 16th, 2010 at 10:24 am

    Sometimes you need to get "creative" when entering your key words in the title for your work experiences… but I see where you are coming from. Feel free to check out my profile to see how I "got creative" there.

  • Posted by Lewis Howes on May 16th, 2010 at 10:27 am

    I agree Valerie, it's all about building the relationship first and offering some type of value to those you are connecting with.
    My recent post How to Rank Higher On LinkedIn

  • Posted by Michael on May 16th, 2010 at 5:01 pm

    Hi Lewis, et al,

    Question for you: I find myself a bit hesitant to invite people to be connected to me on LinkedIn when a) I can't vouch for their character or b) I haven't done any meaningful work with them. I regard LI as a place where recommendations and referrals are important, and I honor LI's mention "you should only Invite people you really know…" I guess it might be the quality vs. quantity approach.

    Any recommendations or thoughts? Cheers,http://www.linkedin.com/in/susseattle

  • Posted by Use linkedin like a pro… « Mind Corporation — Studio Blog on May 17th, 2010 at 1:55 am

    [...] summary answers: who you are, how you want to help, and how you’re going to help. Full story at Smart Blog. Comments [...]

  • Posted by JORNALICES | Jerónimo blogging about Media & Journalism on May 17th, 2010 at 3:02 pm

    [...] SMSS: How to use LinkedIn with business savvy (tags: socialmedia networking media tools) [...]

  • Posted by Reaching Mass Acceptance in LinkedIn and Social Media – It’s Time. | Mike Ziarko musing on May 18th, 2010 at 9:16 am

    [...] Interested in reading more? There’s quick list of Tips to kickstart your LinkedIn profile, check out the article about Lewis Howes, author of LinkedWorking. He was recently profiled on SmartBlog on Social Media and shared some tips on How to use LinkedIn with Business Savvy. [...]

  • Posted by bestdogbooties on May 27th, 2010 at 8:39 pm

    Great tips! Always looking for new info for marketing my dog booties. Or just me as a Seamstress.

  • Posted by Shari Weiss on June 19th, 2010 at 3:18 pm

    I love reading everyone's ideas on how LinkedIn works for them. Personally, I agree 100% with Lewis and all those who truly believe that LinkedIn is the most robust site for building business contacts and collaborations. While I haven't spent as much time as Lewis "playing around" with LinkedIn, I have attended workshops and experimented enough to compile a report on 8 ways to Tweak your LinkedIn profile on my blog SHARISAX IS OUT THERE.
    In addition, I found a great LinkedIn group comment by Victoria Ipri that listed some Astounding Ways to use LinkedIn. Both of those articles [and others] are in the category LINKEDIN BASICS on my blog: http://sharisax.com.
    See you all on LinkedIn.
    My recent post Don’t Make These Webinar Blunders

  • Posted by Neal Schaffer on July 14th, 2010 at 10:55 pm

    Lewis always has great ideas about LinkedIn, and agree 100% that it is THE place for business networking. I have a similar story to his, having also written a book about LinkedIn from a professional perspective and creating over 100 blog posts about LinkedIn for professionals and businesses which you can find on my Windmill Networking blog. You can also find my LinkedIn book on Amazon…but only buy it after buying Lewis' ;-)
    My recent post Social Media and Your Job Search Strategy- 5 Ways to Stop Broadcasting and Start Contributing

  • Posted by How to use LinkedIn with business savvy on July 31st, 2010 at 6:15 pm

    [...] …keep reading at SmartBlog [...]

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