Are You Using LinkedIn For New Business Development?

LinkedIn 277% More Effective for Lead Generation Than Facebook and Twitter.

In a study conducted by Hubspot, LinkedIn generated the highest visitor-to-lead conversion rate at 2.74%, almost 3 times higher (277%) than both Twitter (.69%) and Facebook (.77%).

200 million leads were generated on LinkedIn last year, according to their Advertising Chief, Jim Lister.

LinkedIn is an important social media platform for new business that helps you to:

• Re-establish older connections with past colleagues and clients.
• Find new connections and seek referrals.
• Request and share recommendations.
• Maintain top-of-mind awareness with prospects through status updates.
• Gather the right kind of intelligence to make better targeting decisions.
• Find and follow client and prospective clients using LinkedIn’s advanced search features. You can find people or companies in your geographic location, or within a particular industry or niche.

LinkedIn has been the “dark horse” of the social media platforms. This is partly because it is a difficult platform to master and networking isn’t easy. But LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network, is stepping up improvements.

LinkedIn attracts dedicated users who are serious about business. Here are 12 LinkedIn improvements that will help you connect:

1. More than two million businesses with company pages are now allowed to post status updates to their followers. Watch for prospect’s company status updates and engage with them.
2. Targeted updates enable you to target your company’s status updates to specific followers so they can deliver the most relevant content to the most appropriate audiences.
3. To help facilitate conversations, a new polling feature has been added to LinkedIn Groups that’s designed to get a quick read on an issue.
4. Users can now create a custom group, very similar to a regular group, except you’ll be able to customize a space on the right side of the page. You can add video, integrate your blog, Twitter feeds or other RSS feeds. You can also easily add a poll, from which you can ask your group members questions.
5. An option available with a premium account is the ability to send InMails, or private emails through the LinkedIn network. Whether you know a  person or not, you can contact anyone on the LinkedIn network, even if you don’t know them.
6. New Group Search helps you to find the right conversation faster among the 1.2 million groups.
7. The upgraded People You May Know feature makes it even easier to find and connect with people in your network.
8. LinkedIn Alumni makes it easier for you to tap into this important personal network and review relevant associations.
9. LinkedIn’s Follow Company button can now be added to their websites, making it easier for any consumer to begin following companies of interest.
10. Your LinkedIn Profile now puts more emphasis on Skills and Expertise. This means you can showcase your abilities to easily connect with people who have similar skills or with companies looking for specific expertise.
11. A new tab on your page called Follower Statistics, will add a new layer of reporting to the Page Statistics.
12. You can now embed a YouTube video on your companies overview page as well as on each individual service page.