Using LinkedIn to get more traffic to your blog or web site

July 30, 2012 by
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Are we connected on LinkedIn? We should be. Send me a request to connect and mention this blog as our connection.

I like LinkedIn. It’s an excellent social media platform for professionals. No LOL cats, vacation photos, or game requests.

Our LinkedIn profiles lets others learn about what we do, and if that’s all it did, that would be great. But LinkedIn is a giant directory of professionals and business owners we can reach out to and network with, and with a little effort, it’s also a mechanism for actively generating more traffic to our sites.

Here is a very basic example to illustrate:

Let’s say you represent small businesses and you connect with commercial real estate attorneys, brokers, bankers, et. al. One of them posts a link to an article on new government programs for small businesses. You like the article and

  • Comment on their LinkedIn post, which exposes your brilliance to others and brings traffic to your profile, and then to your blog.
  • Comment on their blog, which can also bring traffic.
  • Reach out to the author and tell him you like the article, which may lead to future networking opportunities, guest posts, etc. You can do the same with the person who posted the article if they aren’t the author.
  • Share the article with your clients and prospects, which earns their appreciation.
  • Learn something you can use in your practice and in your marketing.

There are lots of ways to network and share content on LinkedIn. This excellent article on how to use LinkedIn to drive traffic to your blog shows you seven ways to do precisely that. Some of these I’m doing; others are now on my “Next Action” list.

There’s a link in the article to LinkedIn applications you can install to help automate some of these tasks. I use the WordPress app to sync this blog and recommend it. A few applications are designated for legal professionals and I’m going to check them out.

Are you using LinkedIn to get traffic and make new connections?

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Networking, Social media, Social media marketing, Web traffic Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Your LinkedIn profile is boring. Congratulations!

December 13, 2011 by
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your linked in profileLinkedIn studied 135 million user profiles and released their second annual list of the top ten “overused buzzwords”. Here is the list for the US:

  1. Creative
  2. Effective
  3. Organizational
  4. Extensive Experience
  5. Track Record
  6. Motivated
  7. Innovative
  8. Problem Solving
  9. Communication Skills
  10. Dynamic

If you’re grimacing because you used one or more of these words, relax–it’s okay. In fact, using some of these words is probably a good idea. Here’s why:

  1. These words are overused for a reason: they are associated with positive attributes, the kinds of attributes people looking at profiles expect to see.
  2. If you didn’t include these words, people may wonder why. “What, you’re not creative?”
  3. People who use Linkedin profiles for hiring run through them quickly, like resumes, looking for reasons to reject a candidate. If a profile doesn’t have the basics, it may be rejected for that reason alone.
  4. Nobody pays attention. Profiles are skimmed, not read, at least initially, and most of what’s in a profile doesn’t matter. It’s like wallpaper–you would notice if the walls were bare or they were covered in red velvet, but you pay no attention to “regular” wallpaper (unless you’re a designer).
  5. Giving people what they expect to see, albeit with overused buzzwords, makes them comfortable, but it won’t get you the job or the client. Don’t limit your profile to the banal, flesh out your profile to show the uniqueness you offer.
  6. Nobody believes you. You can say what you want about yourself but what really counts is what others say about you, so make sure you have “recommendations”. It’s the most read and most persuasive part of your profile.

What’s the opposite of boring? Flamboyant? Loud? Exciting?

When people are looking to hire an attorney, I think being a little boring is actually a good thing.

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Filed Under: Social media, Social media marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,