LinkedIn as Part of Your Web Marketing Campaign
B2B (business-to-business) social networks such as LinkedIn are used primarily for finding prospective clients, introducing dealmakers, hiring people, searching for jobs, and finding tips (sales leads), not for direct sales. You can easily cross-promote between your website and LinkedIn.
You can receive 90 percent of the value of LinkedIn by using its free version, so joining is a no-brainer. When you join, your company profile will look similar to the one established by Red Frog Events, shown in the following illustration. Company profiles are visible to both members and nonmembers; LinkedIn members also see connections with staff and additional information.
If you have a business of any kind, but especially if you sell to or buy from other companies (that's just about everyone), establish a LinkedIn profile for your company and have all your professional employees establish individual profiles.
LinkedIn users differ from the demographic profile on other networking sites, as shown in the following illustration. They're more likely to be male, older, Asian, and more affluent and better educated than Internet users in general; for an example, see Quantcast Linkedin Demographics. Note that the statistics in the following have been quantified with directly measured data.
Because LinkedIn is primarily a B2B network, sorting by vertical industry or job position can provide more valuable information than standard demographic profiles. You can search by people, jobs, companies, or groups under the drop-down menu. Take advantage of Advanced Search to filter results.
