(MKTG 347) Week 7 - LinkedIn & Social Media Marketing

Chapter 6 of CASA Marketing Intro to Social Media Marketing by Todd Kelsey discusses LinkedIn and how it can work with your social media marketing strategy. Kelsey suggests that LinkedIn is most successful when you are a company that works B2B not B2C. Kelsey also says that LinkedIn is a strong tool for individuals. You can use LinkedIn to basically sell your self to potential employers. You can add skills, work experience, and any other accomplishment you have to help boost your appeal to employers. It is a good networking website and can help you make connections that could be beneficial in the future. If you use LinkedIn properly it is really a "people helping people" website.

Another important reason to keep your own LinkedIn profile up-to-date is because if you begin to work for a company, potential employees will start seeking you out. Also, potential business partners for the company may look at your profile to learn more about the business. It may seem pointless to update your work and keep adding skills to your profile when you already have a job, but you never know who may be looking. You want to present your best self all the time on your page.

Creating connections on LinkedIn is also very important. You should be seeking out friends, family, coworkers, etc., that you can connect with. This can open up doors to other people that may be able to provide you with job opportunities or even keep you connected in your field. The major thing to keep in mind when connecting with people is to not feel shy. Everyone, well most people, are on LinkedIn because they want to further their careers. So you should not feel weird connection because you all have the same goal in mind.

LinkedIn can be used for businesses to update the public about going-ons as well as job postings. LinkedIn has special pages and advertising that companies can explore if they choose to do so. This may not be something your company needs to do, but at a bare minimum you should at least have a presence on this site. Something you may want to do is write a blog and then share your blog posts on LinkedIn. That way potential employees or customers can learn more about you, even if their intention isn't to make a purchase or do business at this point. You can also convince them through more posts or they may even get to know your company well enough that they refer people to you.