If You’re Not Using LinkedIn to Get Leads - You Should!

There are many tactics you should employ to generate leads on LinkedIn. Following are three quick tools & techniques to get you started:

1. Complete Your Profile. Aim for 100% completeness using these tools:
• An appropriate, professional profile photo to reflect the image you want to convey.
• A summary about yourself and what you can (and will) do for your clients. be aware of the ratio of “you” vs. “I”
• At least five skills on your profile. LinkedIn has standardized skills, and you can make your own. Once you come up with five, you will come up with more.
• Full education and work history. Your past school mates, professors, instructors, teachers, bosses, supervisors and colleagues could be your next referrals and clients.

2. Update and Engage. Update your profile often and include any written articles, white papers, etc. You can also integrate power-point presentations, or video testimonials from happy clients. Include a link to your blog and update it regularly. You can join your Twitter and LinkedIn accounts but for more freedom consider HootSuite or Posterous to schedule your posts.

Engage with your connections so that you remain top of mind. A simple status update such as: Working on a new book about shoes will be more effective by including details and a request for opinions: Working on a new book about women’s shoes. Do you prefer heels or flats? Let me know and you could be featured in my forthcoming book!

3. Fish Where the Fish Are - In Groups! According to Alexa, LinkedIn is the 10th most visited website in the United States and the 12th most visited website worldwide. So there is a high probability that your target market is on LinkedIn - and most likely hanging out in a group. Want to reach Red Hat Certified Professionals in Iceland? There’s a group for that! Interested in networking with early adopters of cloud computing in Sweden? That group is nearly 2,000 members strong.

Participate and comment in discussions, and start your own meaningful discussions. If you don’t see a group that fits your interest exactly, create one and invite people to join! It’s simple to do and you will have a rapt audience.