In some recent conversations I have found myself challenged by top business people as to why they should enter the LinkedIn space. They have said to me statements such as,

“LinkedIn is for job seekers, spammers, and marketers. I have no interest in it.”

Now, please understand I am not in business to change people’s minds, rather than to discuss opportunities and assist businesses along in their journey with strategies and tactics my company has proven to work time and time again. But this statement has really stuck with me. In fact, many very influential people I know are not interested in LinkedIn and have no intent on joining anytime soon.

I believe this is due to several reasons:

1. They believe LinkedIn’s value proposition is not clearly in line with their business objectives.
2. Time is scarce already and they don’t want to be bombarded with more emails.
3. There is a perception that the risks outweigh the opportunities.

This is why understanding a clear strategy for LinkedIn is so important. No CEO, VP of Marketing, Digital Communications Director, Owner, or even Entrepreneurs can make sense of this site for their business effectively or efficiently without a true strategy.

Think of the real opportunity LinkedIn provides?

There are 70 MILLION users! 34 MILLION in the U.S.!

These are professionals with an avg household income of $107,000.  These are high end consumers as well as professionals. Why are the banks, computer companies and luxury car dealers and so many other companies not really embracing this space?

Truth is, they probably have.  But they went the route advised by their ad agencies.  Purchase advertisements, distribute to 10 or 20 million profiles and earn “IMPRESSIONS”.  When it doesn’t work, they write it off as a bad use of their money.  When in reality, those campaigns failed because most advertisements are failing, especially when compared with alternative options within social media and other digital platforms. Besides, have you clicked on an advertisement on your own LinkedIn page? I did by accident once. I don’t want to be sold, I want to have a conversation, engage, and interact with people that can help me, make me laugh, help me grow and who care about me and what I do.

Where most companies we work with make mistakes is they start developing their social sites, LinkedIn included, prior to the first 3 steps outlined below. The following is an excerpt from our upcoming release, “An Executives Guide to LinkedIn Mastery.”

The 7 Phases of a LinkedIn Master Strategic Plan:

1. Assessment – Assess your strengths, weaknesses & needed assets for success
2. Strategic Plan – Outline a Strategy, confirm your call to action, voice, appropriate automation, scalability opportunities, etc…
3. Product & Marketing Path Development – Identify what works for your target market
4. Lay the appropriate foundation – it’s not enough to simply put up your name and call it a day!
5. Get Found – Apply strategies and tactics to attracting your market to you internally on the site
6. Build a community – Groups can help you to build highly targeted or massive sized pools of targeted key constituents, prospects, clients, etc…
7. Promotion, Campaigns, Word of Mouth – Attract your market into your Social Circle of Influence

Enjoyed this article? Please share it with your Networks.

If you have questions or would like to contact my firm for your own strategic assessment and plan development, please email inquiry@deminghill.com.

Post by  Guest  Contributor~ Nathan Kievman CEO, DemingHill Founder, Linked Strategies (#1 LinkedIn Strategies Group) One of the most frequently asked questions we get about LinkedIn from over 10,000 submitted questions through our webinars, in posts, or directly by email is: How do I maximize my use of LinkedIn? In many ways this questions resonate  throughout the social platforms, but for today, let’s focus on LinkedIn. To answer the question “How do I make the most of LinkedIn?” I would like to share with you a new way to look at LinkedIn. I propose that you should look at this platform as a small version of the internet. Meaning LinkedIn is its own world. Your webpage is your profile, the leading companies are the groups, the people are in the answers and questions sections as well as in the groups and so on. To master this new world, you have to understand it’s 60 million members behaviors, attitudes, rules, language and etiquette. You also have to master your own voice, message, ability to communicate, processes, and rules. The following list will give you the outline needed to truly start building your LinkedIn presence the right way.

The 7 Stages of LinkedIn/Social Media Mastery

1. Assess your Assets and Capabilities – Opportunity 2. Identify your Social Media Strategy – Clarity 3. Lay your Social Web – The Foundation 4. Optimize your Presence – Get Found 5. Build Your Communities – Become a Leader 6. Develop a Marketing Funnel – Lead People 7. Integrate Business Process Outsourcing – Don’t do it Alone

Applying these Stages will certainly ensure you are moving in the right direction on LinkedIn and that you are creating proof along the way. 

Top Twenty Recommended Linkedin Groups for Business In order to identify the most valuable top 20 groups on LinkedIn for business, we had to identify the areas of interest to businesses in this new social environment. Numbers don’t matter as much as quality, though they help! The measurements used to rank these groups are:

Quality of content Size of the Group User Engagement Value added Features

Categories included in our list are:

Social Media LinkedIn Management PR & Communications Leadership Innovation Sales Marketing Networking Executive Issues HR General Business

Of course there are many other areas of interest to entrepreneurs, business owners and corporate representatives. These are the best groups for business, however the field is always changing, so we may come back and update this list occasionally as new players enter the field with great value! We would love your feedback and comments. Here is our list in no particular order:

1. Social Media Marketing
2. Linked Strategies (disclaimer – I am a co-manager of this group)
3. eMarketing Association Network
4. Executive Suite
5. On Startups – The Community For Entrepreneurs
6. Consultants Network
7. TopLinked.com (Open Networkers)
8. Innovative Marketing, PR, Sales, Word-of-Mouth & Buzz Innovators
9. ! Sales Best Practices
10. Managing a Multi-Generational Workforce
11. OneCoach
12. Inbound Marketers – For Marketing Professionals
13. Digital Marketing
14. SalesBlogcast.com
15. Social Media Today
16. Public Relations and Communications Professionals
17. Leadership Think Tank
18. Training&Development
19. ThoseinMedia
20. Linked:HR (#1 Human Resources Group)

Remember, we are here to report the top groups related to business. We understand there are passionate feelings about some of these groups on the positive and negative side of the LinkedIn Etiquette status quo. 

By Nathan Kievman

LinkedIn has been the best place to connect with people I never would have met otherwise. I love this media vehicle to accomplish all sorts of business objectives.

One of the many things I use LinkedIn for is creating sustainable, real, and valuable relationships with people I would be interested in having on my advisory board.

In a little over a months time, I was able to round out my business (Consulting Businesses on Strategic Alliances) and have a vast network of “experts” join my advisory board.

I used several methods to identify these individuals:

1. Joined groups where these individuals would likely hang out

2. Engaged the groups in discussions to build credibility (this process was key to enable the people I was seeking to contact me first)

3. I also searched for key people with certain titles with the search feature

4. When I found a new person I was interested in, I figured out what they needed first and tried to help them achieve their goals. (when you help someone, a vacuum is created and they feel compelled to help you sooner than later)

Before you start doing the above steps to build out your advisory board, be certain to do a strengths and weaknesses analysis of your self. Know exactly what you are good at and not so good at.

You must also do an analysis of your goals, see where you want to go and identify the key players that could help you achieve these goals, then include this type of person as a position to fill on your advisory board.

For more information on how to create an advisory board with Linkedin, check out this book at

LinkedIntoMarketing eBook

For more information on how to integrate LinkedIn with your business or professional objectives, join us and see why over 10,000 others are raving about our LinkedIn Power User Strategies Webinar (F.ree).

You may also want to join the #1 LinkedIn Strategies Group on LinkedIn HERE

Five Must Join LinkedIn Groups

This week I want to share a simple tip of LinkedIn groups you should consider participating in.

Linked HR:
When it comes to seeking employment, career advice, job search, or HR advice this is the place as LinkedIn’s Largest group.

EMarketing
What better way to understand how marketing and networking is evolving than to be tapped into the largest group on LinkedIn that understand that best.

SalesBlog:
This is the most comprehensive sales group on LinkedIn and since LinkedIn is made up of a majority of people in some type of sales role directly or indirectly this is a must join.

Twitter Strategies:
Why? Integration of LinkedIn and Twitter is now complete and as the founders of these companies have realized the power of joining forces so should you. Twitter Strategies provides the insights on how to effectively manage this new intergration.

Linked Strategies:
Why? If you are going to put any time in to building your business or profession with LinkedIn this is a must join group. Get a solid footing on what to do and what not to do.

This is clearly a very short list and I can think of many more worthy groups. However this will get anyone positioned well in the LinkedIn space.

Bonus Group:

Top Recommended People:
Why? When you are looking for the best and brightest you can find them at Top Recommended People. These are professionals, voted by their peers as a true value and asset to their profession.