LinkedIn. It’s not the distant cousin of Facebook or Twitter anymore, but instead commanding notable attention and praise for its ability to offer some very distinct marketing potential. (Distinct, effective, and low-cost.)

LinkedIn, to put it simply, does what its name implies for a surprising 134 million users, and growing. If you’re not aware of what LinkedIn can do to help you build brand strength and set your services apart, take a moment to consider the following key attributes, part of a recent post from Socialfresh.

Join the Club:  LinkedIn groups are powerful

Did you know you can create or join up with a niche group on LinkedIn that will allow you to capture leads more effectively? LinkedIn is full of industry-specific groups that provide a great arena for specific dialogue and meaningful connections. However, be sure you’re looking for a specific focus area that’s unique to your type of industry, such as challenges that seem to happen over and over again or emerging trends.

Allow others to freely join the group and let your current contacts know about the group. If you can identify a few very strong advocates for your industry, invite them to take part in group discussions on a regular basis. Use this dialogue as the foundation for a blog series, and have LinkedIn postings built into your overall, consistent marketing strategy.

Attract Great Minds with LinkedIn
Talented job-seekers from across the nation actively use LinkedIn to look for their next place to make an impact, so be sure your organization has an up-to-date profile so that you can capture some of these great minds and meld them with yours. While LinkedIn users aren’t necessarily posting their status daily, they are using the site to become connected with key positions and companies that match their skills.

LinkedIn Answers:  Strategic Posting Arena
LinkedIn Answers is another area that can help you make meaningful connections that can drive traffic to your blogs and to your web site, especially in industry-specific areas. This tool is set up like a question-answer area, but it allows industry professionals and connected users to answer and share discussions together. Actually, there’s no other resource like it that’s this large and geared toward building your base of connections. What’s more:  You can add to your strategy a few key times a week that you’ll offer these targeted responses to questions within a specific LinkedIn Group, and you can reuse this content as subject material for your next blog or online article. Invite your coworkers to participate, but be sure they’re adding useful, meaningful content.

Even with the intrigue of tools offered by networks like LinkedIn, all your efforts to build a stronger brand identity and more leads must be connected to an overall strategy. That strategy should include integration within the basics, like brand recognition and quality web site content – which never go out of style for the impacts they provide. When you are ready to plan your social media strategy for the upcoming year, contact Susan J. Campbell Copywriting Solutions to guide you.