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You’ve heard of LinkedIn and probably have created an account, but do you use it effectively?
Do you know why you want to use LinkedIn? In this blog, we’ve got the stats and strategies to help you identify how this tool could work for you and your business.
7 Reasons to Use LinkedIn
Why use LinkedIn? Among all the tools and capabilities that LinkedIn provides, here are 7 good reasons that you should be using LinkedIn.
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Professional resume and personal branding. LinkedIn is a tool that businesses and professional are using to find people. There were nearly two billion people searches on LinkedIn in 2010. Searches are conducted to find potential employees, customers, vendors/suppliers/contractors, venture capitalists, board of director members, etc. If you want to be found, set-up an account on LinkedIn and look at this as a tool to present your personal brand.
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Company brand and employee information. Companies get their own profile that is searchable and allows employees to be easily found. This is just one more tool to tell people about your company and help increase sales.
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Build your network, clients, and partners. Once you’ve got your profile set-up on LinkedIn, it is your opportunity to grow your network with the people you know and start reaching out to others. Think of this as a networking meeting, but it is taking place online rather than in-person.
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Promote your message and free content. LinkedIn provides a forum for you to promote your events, blog posts, social media sites, ebooks, webinars, etc. There are a lot of ways to post on LinkedIn to engage in conversations and network with people. The more you participate, the more visible you are.
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Generate website traffic. By including your website address in your personal profile and company profile, you’ll find that people will click on those links to check out your company. When you’re posting in groups, answers or you’re starting a discussion, you can post with a link to your website for more info. This should not be a “sales” opportunity. Look at these posts as a way to reference people for free information or educational tools that supplement the conversation topic you’re starting on LinkedIn.
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Research and reach your audience. Through groups, answers, polls and other tools, you can really learn a lot about what your audience needs and wants. You can then use this insight to improve your business and offerings.
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Become an expert. With LinkedIn Answers you can give free advice in your area of expertise to genuinely help others while also get recognition by your expanded network to help increase your sales.
International Professional Networking Tool
LinkedIn is a professional networking site that holds the largest number of professional networkers with over 100 million members in over 200 countries and territories. Of those members, approximately half are in the United States and half are in other locations. As of March 2011, below is a break-down of some of the most popular countries outside of the United States:
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20m+ members in Europe as of December 2010
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5m+ members in the UK as of December 2010
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1m+ members in France
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2m+ members in the Netherlands
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1m+ members in Italy
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1m+ members in the DACH region (Germany, Austria and Switzerland)
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1m+ members in Spain
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9m+ members in India
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3m+ members in Canada
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1m+ members in Australia
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1m+ members in Brazil
For the latest stats, visit LinkedIn at http://press.linkedin.com/about/.
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