With well over 60 million members LinkedIn is the place for professionals to develop relationships with each other. Pay attention to this, “develop relationships”, it’s not a numbers game it’s a quality game. The relevance of what you offer to the people you connect with combined with how much they trust and value your opinions and recommendations will greatly affect the outcome of your campaign.

High conversion rates = Relevancy being offered + Amount of trust in referring person.

`Regardless of what your products and services are the best way to gain and keep loyal customers is to focus on what you are offering and develop relationships based on value and trust. Keep this in mind; your goal is to reach decision makers and cultivate a few ambassadors who will refer your products and service. You need to gain credibility as we stated earlier your credibility is your currency. This applies to all everything you do but especially on LinkedIn. How can you accomplish this?

1. The best way to start making a name for yourself is to help contact and group members This does not happen over night. Reading questions and delivering well thought out and constructive answers will establish your value in the important groups where your targeted customers are.
2. Ask questions, nobody likes a know-it-all. You may even be surprised by the insight other members can offer regarding your questions. People love to demonstrate their expertise, this lets other group members feel important and always acknowledge the answers you receive.
3. Connect others by offering to introduce members who can benefit each other.
4. Provide endorsements for other members. Take a few minutes once in a while to endorse others you have worked for and who have worked for you.

How can linkedIn help me optimize?

Google loves to crawl profiles on linkedIn. With that said, you need to fill out your profile and include your relevant keywords. When your profile gets crawled and the search engines see your keywords the chances for higher indexing increase.

One question keep popping up in our emails so let’s get it out there for everyone.

Q: How do I get text links in my LinkedIn profile?

A: You can get 3 text links in your profile page. Clicks “edit my profile” – where it says websites click “edit” – select “other” – in the first box enter your keyword or phrase – in the second enter the page URL – click “save changes” and your done.

You can also optimize your LinkedIn URL: Click “edit my profile” – where it says public profile click “edit” – public profile URL click “edit” – in the box enter your keyword (no spaces or hyphens) – “save changes” and your done.

LinkedIn is a powerful networking tool that will take some time to fully develop but it’s worth it.
Similar sites include:

Ziggs is “organizing and connecting people in a professional way.” Join groups and make contacts through your Ziggs account to increase your company’s presence online and further your own personal career.

Ecademy prides itself on “connecting business people” through its online network, blog and message-board chats, as well as its premier BlackStar membership program, which awards exclusive benefits.