10 More Ways To Grow Your Business With LinkedIn Posted: November 13, 2011 @ 12:15 pm

Use these ten tips as way to make the most out LinkedIn. It’s more than just a networking tool – it’s a business tool and if you leverage it right… you can find tons of new business.

1. Claim your vanity URL. Make your profile look more professional and easier to share by claiming your LinkedIn vanity URL. Instead of a URL with a million confusing numbers at the end, it will provide you with great branding. For example, my public profile URL is http://www.linkedin.com/in/linkedinspeaker. Got to Profile > Edit Profile and in the information box click edit by your public profile; then click “customize your public profile URL” down on the right-hand side.

2. Make your blog/website links customer focused. Instead of using the default “My Website”-type anchor text links in your LinkedIn profile, you can change the anchor text to make those links more appealing to people who view your profile. So if you want to increase clicks on the website links you can display on your profile, change the link’s anchor text to something more value oriented than the standard options LinkedIn provides. For example, if you want to include a link to your blog, rather than choosing LinkedIn’s standard “Blog” anchor text, customize it to include keywords that indicate what your blog is about to offer value, such as “Free Marketing Tips.” Each profile can display up to 3 website links like this, and they can be customized by editing your profile, clicking edit on your website links, and selecting “Other” in the drop-down menu to customize the anchor text.

3. Search engine optimize your profile. You can also optimize your profile to get found by people searching LinkedIn for key terms with which you want to be associated. Add these keywords to various sections of your profile such as your headline or summary.

4. Take advantage of “Saved Searches.” LinkedIn allows you to create up to 3 saved searches in the free account. After conducting a search, clicking the “Save This Search” option allows you to save a search and easily run it again later. You can also choose to receive weekly or monthly reminders via email once new members in the network match your saved search criteria. Just click on the “Saved Searches” tab on the Advanced Search options page and select one of your saved searches to run again.

5. Track what people are saying. Signal is a helpful page on LinkedIn that allows you to track what people are saying about any topic you want to track. It follows people’s updates and gives you the results in real time. Go to News > Signal and enter your search.

6. Use applications. Browse the Application Directory, and consider adding the
SlideShare application or linking your blog to showcase your presentations and blog articles on your profile. The Events application is also a great way to see what events your connections are attending and find other popular industry events to attend.

7. Use OpenLink to send messages to people to whom you’re not connected. LinkedIn only allows you to send messages to people with which you share a first degree connection, but did you know some people let you send them messages anyway, even if you’re not connected? The ability to be part of the OpenLink network is only available to premium account holders, but it allows them to be available for messaging by any other LinkedIn member if they choose to be. OpenLink members will appear with an icon that looks like a small ring of dots next to their name in search results and on their profile.

8. Check in on “Network Updates.” Found on your LinkedIn homepage, Network
Updates are kind of like your Facebook news feed. Check these periodically for a quick snapshot of what your connections are up to and sharing.

9. Be identifiable. Find out who’s checking out your profile by allowing others to see who you are if you view theirs. When you click the information under “Who’s Viewed My Profile” on your profile page, you’ll be able to view users who have looked at your profile, stats on your profile’s number of views, and its appearances in search recently.

10. Export connections. Want to transfer your LinkedIn connections to another contact management system? LinkedIn enables you to easily export your connections. Just click on Contacts > My Connections and then scroll down and click “Export Connections.” You have the option of either exporting as a .CSV or .VCF file.

That’s all for today’s tips. Look for Part II of this series on the most powerful LinkedIn ideas.