LinkedIn Marketing & Social Networking

LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site. It is the world's largest professional network with over 100 million members and growing rapidly. LinkedIn connects you to your trusted contacts and helps you exchange knowledge, ideas, and opportunities with a broader network of professionals.

Sometimes your immediate circle can't resolve a unique business challenge. Tools like Answers and Groups let you locate and interact with experts through trusted introductions. LinkedIn Search lets you explore the broader network by name, title, company, location, and other keywords that will help you find the knowledge you're looking for.

Whether you're looking for a career opportunity, winning new clients or building your professional reputation, LinkedIn connects you to jobs, sales leads and ideal business partners. With powerful search engine, company research tools and a jobs board that shows who you know at listed companies, LinkedIn is the place to turn for new opportunities.

LinkedIn advertising is ideal for companies that operate in the B2B space, such as accountants, consultants and lawyers. LinkedIn advertising is also ideal for institutions that want to attract the attention of highly qualified business professionals, such as universities advertising MBA programs.

If your product or service is mostly sold to end consumers, LinkedIn is probably not the right platform for you. If you don't have a high-converting web design and a strong offer, you shouldn't be advertising on LinkedIn.

Think about it… LinkedIn members aren't actively searching for anything on LinkedIn, which means that your ad really needs to capture their attention and compel them to act and the better your offer is, the better your results will be.

What kind of offer? In most cases, you won't be able to go for the sale straight away. You'll need to have a strong free offer that really talks to the main benefit your prospects are after, for example: a free report, analysis or consultation. Make sure that whatever you offer really delivers value to your prospects.

LinkedIn currently does not offer its own tracking solution. That means in order to evaluate the performance of your LinkedIn advertising campaign you need to setup tracking yourself. You can use a free Google Analytics account to track your campaigns. Make sure that you setup dedicated tracking links using the Google URL builder. That way, you can monitor how many leads or sales your campaigns generate.

Your target audience is on LinkedIn if your business sells B2B products or services, you have great free offer, you have a high-converting website, and your campaigns are being tracked using Google Analytics. With all of those factors in place, LinkedIn advertising can be very profitable for your business. (Web Profits)