By Walter Elly
Senior Director of Internet Marketing

When we launched FINT, a program for businesses to get started with social networking, and the corresponding FINT 3-in-1 widget (see ours on the side of our blog!), we also launched a FINT LinkedIN group for FINTers to connect and discuss social media marketing strategy together. We hope you’ll join us in that group! Moving forward, we’ll be bringing you highlights from discussions within that group. Here we present a discussion on four best practices to market yourself within LinkedIN that was posted to the FINT – For businesses new to social networking LinkedIN group:

Question from the group:
I think Facebook and Twitter are more community based and sense people check in more frequently on these sites to see or post status updates, etc. LinkedIN appears to be more of a networking tool. Do you have any suggestions on how to strategically use each of these sites differently for a business? I could see posting the same information to each site (in my case, real estate listings), but I am trying to figure out the best use of LinkedIN for our real estate business (thinking it is to network with industry contacts such as realtor organizations, home builders, appraisers, mortgage brokers, etc.) Any ideas?

Answer to the group:
Let’s start with LinkedIN — The first thing I’d recommend doing is familiarizing yourself with the LinkedIN Learning Center – http://learn.linkedin.com/ – a great resource, especially if you are new to LinkedIN. You’ll want to use that as a guide for your experience on LinkedIN — secondly you’ll want to setup a company profile within LinkedIN – following these best practices: http://blog.linkedin.com/2008/11/17/creating-company-profiles-on-linkedin/

Now, within LinkedIN there are many different opportunities to grow your business. For now, let’s focus on four:

2. Networking, the base of LinkedIN
3. Groups (like this one)
4. LinkedIN Answers
5. Service Provider directory

1. Of course with networking the idea is simple- examine your contacts’ contacts for relevant, compelling connections. Ask for an introduction through your common contact or introduce yourself, you never know what kinds of opportunities exist within your own network’s network!

2. Groups, like this one, are also another great opportunity. As a domain expert within Real Estate you should search for LinkedIN groups that relate to your business and join them and contribute your expertise to the discussion. By contributing thoughtful and helpful comments to ongoing discussions you will establish yourself as a leader within the space and earn respect and business as a result. Speaking in general though, if there is not a group within LinkedIN that reflects your domain expertise, then you are facing a great opportunity … you could create your own discussion group and invite others to connect with you to discuss accordingly.

3. LinkedIN Answers is another great way to connect with contacts and establish yourself as a domain expert. This section of the site contains a wealth of opportunity for you as an expert to answer peoples questions within your domain *and* ask questions to experts in related domains or in other areas of business. In both cases you establish yourself within the greater community, but answering questions provides the best opportunity to gain respect and new business through LinkedIN. Further, participating in the LinkedIN Answers portion of the site can earn accolades for your LinkedIN profile that are seen by others – if your answer to a question is selected as the best answer by the question asker, your “best answer” award gets posted to your profile.

4. Finally, be sure your agents are established within the Real Estate listings in the service provider directory within LinkedIN. This again can provide access to new business because LinkedIN members can browse the directory and find service providers that are connected to their personal network, enabling people to find service providers that are recommended by their contacts, a valuable tool. As a service provider, after setting up shop within the directory, you should be sure to reach out to your network of contacts and ask for recommendations. These recommendations appear within your profile and also can help drive business and referrals to you through LinkedIN.

There are other ways to market within LinkedIN as well. Targeted advertising, for example, is one venue you can pursue. If you need help getting started within LinkedIN, or social networking in general, we urge you to get started with FINT and contact us when you’re ready to move beyond the getting started phase. Meanwhile we’ll be sharing more discussions in the future from the FINT – For businesses new to social networking LinkedIN group and we hope to see you on the group soon!