8 ideas for leveraging LinkedIn for b2b marketers

LinkedIn is the most obvious of the social media offerings for b2b marketers.

Here’s a few ideas I’ve come up with so far:

1. Make sure you look serious. Get an account, connect it to your twitter account, complete your profile and add a photo.
2. Search for groups that match your business interest. Request to join active (many members and lots of discussion) groups. Do this for many groups.
3. Once you’ve joined a group you can look at the members in that group. Should any of these people be in your network? Invite them.Look at the discussions taking place. Join in. Post new threads and comment on existing ones where you have something to add. Don’t be overtly “salesy” you’ll get kicked out of the group.
4. Start your own group if there isn’t one already on your area of interest.
5. Post your event in the events section. And tell your network you’ve posted it. Ask people to RSVP.
6. Search for other events in your area of interest. Look at who has RSVP’d to that event and invite them to join your network and then your event.
7. Search in Answers for questions being posted in your area of interest. Go and answer some (but only if you have something real to say) add your url at the end of the answer.  Conversely, post some questions “I’m looking for an expert on email marketing in Melbourne, anyone know anyone?”
8. Market you LinkedIn presence. On your email signature, your website, your blog…

Here’s another article on this subject http://www.michaelflavin.com/4-tips-putting-linkedin-to-work-for-b2b-marketers/

Anyone any more tips?