Understanding the Power Of LinkedIn for Your Business

Understanding the Power of LinkedIn

May 2014 – Gail Houston @ghouston

Why Your Business Should Use Social Media• SMBs the greatest challenge is attracting and retaining customers

• The average U.S. consumer spends 15 hours per week on social media

• 81% of small and mid size businesses use social media (8 out of 10)

• 3 in 5 SMBs say they've gained new customers by using social media

• 49% of SMBs use social media for learning, specifically to access a network of peers and to learn from industry experts

• 3 out of 4 SMBs believe LinkedIn helps them build credibility

• 25 million businesses have active Facebook pages with over 1m advertisers

• More than $2.7 billion was raised through crowd funding in US

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Brand Your Company On LinkedIn

Brand your companyShare jobs, events, promotions

Educate your customers or applicants on your companyBuild reviews (could be good and bad – thank reviewers for positive reviews.

Apologize for negative and proactively work to solve the issue

Follow Your Vendors & Competitors and those you aspire to be like on social

Use LinkedIn to Find Applicants

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Create profiles that attract talent and customers

11 Ways to Brand / Connect with LeslieVisible email, twitter IDPublic ProfileYou know that she loves her jobYou can follow appropriate websites in two places

Websites You Can Addhttp://network.intuit.com/ - The Intuit Networkhttp://about.intuit.com/ - Learn More About Intuithttp://bitly.com/bundles/intuitcareers/F - Intuit Workplace Awardswww.intuit.com – Intuit Small Business

Recommendations for your LinkedIn Headline

Use key skill word and company in your job title (headline)

LinkedIn Instructions - Profile

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Select your LinkedIn user name

• www.linkedin.com

• Profile

• Edit My Profile

• Public Profile

• Customize your URL

• Enter chosen name (LI will check for availability)

• Set Address

Create public

profile URL

Make your LinkedIn profile visible

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Be sure to have two email addresses

Your Summary Section – All About Key WordsSummary Section (first part your summary – use keywords, contact /job info, specialties)

Senior Finance and Operations Leader with over 20 years of business experience in financial planning, business analysis, resource allocation, operational execution and process excellence principles. Leverage extensive background in strategic planning, forecasting, mergers, acquisitions and divestitures. Strong team builder and facilitator, consistently foster collaborative, innovative atmosphere that encourages talented professionals and teams to reach maximum potential. Ability to solve problems, synthesize complex information and communicate direction in concise, easily understood formats. Received Intuit’s FinanceRecognition of Excellence Award.

Are you interested in a career at Intuit in our Finance Department? If so you can check out all of our finance roles here: http://jobs.intuit.com/careers/finance-and-operations-jobs. You can also send your resume to our finance recruiter: [email protected].

Mention my name and LinkedIn and she will get back with you on your candidacy with Intuit. Be sure to include the position numbers you are interested in to speed up her response.

Specialties: Financial planning and analysis (FP&A), strategic planning and operational execution, business process and workflow improvements, collaborative leadership

Past Employers – Keywords are still critical

Add media to Summary - Work

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Edit | Add Media | Rearrange

Join appropriate groups and introduce yourself

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Click reorder groups

• Click “groups”

• Click “your groups”

• Click “groups directory”

• Enter keywords for groups you are looking for (i.e. CPA or Enrolled Agent )

• Click “join”

• Select how often you want to receive email updates

• After you have joined 50 groups (you will go over 50 if you manage groups)

• Click “reorder”

Jobs Tab – all paid LI jobs, Career Discussion – more postings

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Click on profile – view profile – your # should be in URLhttp://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=385389&locale=en_US&trk=tab_proCopy this URL – replace #, first name, last namehttp://www.linkedin.com/inviteFromProfile?from=profile&key=385389&firstName=Gail&lastName=Houston

Create a Personal / CompanyTwitter profile

160 Character bio – include Intuit and Keywords

Create Similar PersonalFacebook profile

Your Work | Education are Public – Everything else – Friends Only

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Create a Company Facebook Page

Google+ - Personal | Company

List Company and Job Titles / Key Skills

Additional Resources

• http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/23454/The-Ultimate-Cheat-Sheet-for-Mastering-LinkedIn.aspx

• http://mashable.com/2014/02/13/linkedin-social-media-study/

• http://www.getbusymedia.com/vital-small-business-statistics-trends-and-facts-for-2014/

• http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/stats-smb-social-media-list

• LinkedIn has built a website dedicated to helping small businesses succeed -http://smallbusiness.linkedin.com/