11 LinkedIn Tips for Start Ups

Recently I was asked by Business West (Bristol Chamber of Commerce) to contribute some advice on how start-ups can use LinkedIn to grow their businesses. The team at the Chamber put together a list of the most common questions that they are asked. I thought it might be useful to share this.  

What is LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is the world’s most popular online professional networking platform. The key business applications are sales, marketing and recruitment.

Over 60% of LinkedIn’s revenue comes from recruitment solutions. The balance is split roughly equally between marketing solutions and premium membership sales.

You can think of LinkedIn as not one but several products:

•  recruitment platform
• marketing database
• supplier database (for buyers)
• content publishing platform
• business networking platform
• a social network

Is LinkedIn a sales tool?

LinkedIn is an essential tool for all sales people, but it is not about selling. LinkedIn is primarily a relationship building platform. The sales opportunities come after the relationship has been built. It’s really about building trust and credibility.

What makes a good profile?

First of all it should be written with the audience in mind, specifically your ideal clients. You are aiming to come across as trustworthy and credible, someone who really knows what they are talking about - a good person to do business with.

Your profile should answer basic questions such as:

•  What exactly does your business do?
• What is your role (and specific expertise)?
• What types of businesses do you work with – size, sector?
• Where do you operate geographically?
• What evidence is there that you are good at what you do?
• Where can they get further information and how can they get in touch?

Don’t underestimate the importance of the profile photo. First impressions count, an unprofessional looking photo can ruin all the good words you have put into your profile.

A healthy list of endorsements and recommendations from colleagues and customers will reinforce credibility and boost search results.   

For people in a sales or customer facing role the profile should include a call to action, inviting the viewer to get in touch.

What is the best way to connect with people I don’t know but who I have identified could have a positive impact on my business?

It’s always best to send personalised invitations. LinkedIn allows you to send an invitation to anyone that you have an email for. If you don’t have an email address you can send the person a message telling them why you want to connect and invite them to send you an invitation.

The LinkedIn mobile app allows you to send customised invitations WITHOUT an email address on iOS and Android devices, including the iPad.

How should I use LinkedIn on a daily basis?

As a minimum check your messages and notifications every day. Try to respond to messages the same day. Notifications occur for example when someone likes one of your posts, comments on a discussion you are involved in, views your profile or publishes a LinkedIn Pulse post. These are all great opportunities to engage with that person.

Keep an eye on your home page news feed and the discussions in your more active groups – contribute where you can.

How much content should I put on there?

It’s difficult to post too many updates. Any given update will be seen by about 5% of your network. Ideally if you are organised I would suggest up to 5 posts per day but for most people a post a day will be manageable and keep them front of mind with their network.

It is however possible to over post in groups. I would limit this to one or two posts a week maximum in any one group. The aim is to create engagement so one posts that gets a good number of likes and comments is better than 3 posts that get little or no engagement.

There is also the LinkedIn Publisher feature or Pulse, which is basically a blog article (up to 6,000 words). Ideally these should be published every two weeks but I have seen some people publish them every two days. In my view if you publish too often it is hard to keep the quality up especially as most people professional writers and also have a busy day job to do.  I aim to publish at least once a month and more often when I can. This post has some tips on publishing on LinkedIn: Be known for what you know, write here.

How should I effectively use the news feed and articles and liking and sharing of the same?

The content of the news feed will in the main be posts from your connections and companies that you have chosen to follow. It will also include a relatively small number of sponsored advertising posts. Commenting, liking and sharing content from your connections is a good way to stay in touch with them. It brings you to their attention in a positive way.

If you have the LinkedIn mobile app it is quick and easy to monitor and respond to the news feed.

How does the Premium option work is it good value?

Ninety per cent of LinkedIn members use a free account and this will be more than adequate for the average user. However for people in a sales or more specialist HR or recruitment roles a premium account may be more appropriate. 

Some of the drawbacks of a free account are a limit on the number of searches you can do in a month, restricted access to “who viewed your profile”, fewer search filters (e.g. you can’t search by company size), fewer saved searches.

Premium account holders have exclusive access to LinkedIn’s “InMail” message feature, which allows you to send messages to any member whether or not you are connected to them. This can be a very valuable way of reaching out to very senior or difficult to contact people.

My general advice is use the free account until you start to bump up against the restrictions regularly then it is time to upgrade.

This article looks at the pros and cons of premium accounts: Is a free LinkedIn account costing your business?

How much time should I devote to LinkedIn?

The answer really depends on your role. For someone in a back office job, perhaps checking in once a week might be enough, for anyone in a management or more customer facing role then 15 minutes a day would keep you in touch, for dedicated sales and business development  people an hour a day might be more typical.

Here is a popular article that I wrote that has some more ideas: LinkedIn on 15 minutes a day.

How do I know it is working - is there an analytics tool?

LinkedIn provides good analytic tools for the company page and for advertising campaigns. For the individual user the best measures of progress are probably the number of connections and the number of profile views.

There is also something called the LinkedIn Social Selling Score which although it has selling in the name actually measures how effectively you are using LinkedIn. Every LinkedIn member has their own unique social selling score out of 100. You can get your score here.

How can I protect against identity theft?

Identity theft is a much broader and involved discussions however there sensible precautions you can take to protect your LinkedIn data. The simplest and most important advice is don’t put unnecessary personal information on your profile like your home address, use a business email address rather than a personal one.

Be careful about who you connect to. Just as on other social networks there are fake accounts on LinkedIn. You can usually recognise these as there is a very low number of connections, the photo is unusually good looking (stock photo), and the profile will be poorly filled out. Fake accounts want to connect so they can grab your email address.

Another precaution you can take to protect your data is to set up LinkedIn’s two step security, so that when you log in from another device LinkedIn sends an access code to your mobile.

This post has more suggestions: 7 simple steps you can take to keep your LinkedIn account safer and more secure.

How can I limit unsolicited contact/selling?

As a general rule unsolicited selling on LinkedIn is considered spam and LinkedIn provides menu options on the post to block or report the individual.

There are options in settings to choose which type of messages you are willing to receive. You also have the option to block specific individuals from contacting you or viewing your profile.

Thank you for reading this article if you enjoyed it please like and share it so others can too. Please add your favourite tips for start ups in the comments.

You can read my other LinkedIn posts here: 

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Greg Cooper is an independent LinkedIn consultant and trainer based in Bristol, UK. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Direct and Digital Marketing. For over twenty years Greg ran an award winning direct marketing agency working with leading technology companies like IBM, SAP, and Siemens. 

Today he works with SMEs and Business Units of larger companies. He runs public and in-house courses for business owners, managers and sales people including courses on social selling and employee advocacy. 

For an individual discussion of your business's needs call +44 (0)7917 360222. or email[email protected]  You can also follow Greg on Twitter