This article lists 15 quick tips for optimising your LinkedIn account for your business. Despite being a popular professional social network, the popularity of sites such as Twitter and Facebook has left LinkedIn as something of an untapped resource.

Top 15: How to Be Great at LinkedIn

1.Ensure your profile is completed, and presented professionally, with correct spelling, grammar, and polished style throughout.

2.Incorporate your website, blog posts, Twitter feed and other online activities into your profile.

3.Use polling functions within your groups for market research purposes.

4.Ensure that your LinkedIn address is highlighted on everything your business name is written on, whether that be websites, an e-mail signature, or a business card.

5.Personalise your LinkedIn URL so it is linkedin.com/yourname – many more people will find you, especially if using search engines to search your name.

6.Join groups related to your business, or which may contain key target consumer groups. Joining the “Single Mum’s Who Knit” group is useless if you are selling luxury motorbikes.

7.Include links to relevant content when you update your status. A photograph with “Our Most Recent Project: Completed Today” or some similar text can work wonders.

8.Use combined media for the best effect. If someone has a query on Twitter, for example, and it will take a long winded answer, post the answer in LinkedIn and link back to Twitter and your original question.

9.Start your own group, and be an active member and leader of the group, demonstrating decisive thought leadership around a number of relevant industry topics.

10.Share content, whether it be your own or someone else’s, that others in your industry or potential and existing customers will find useful.

11.Write recommendations for as many people as possible, although target quality over quantity. Most people on LinkedIn will reciprocate and write a recommendation for you in return.

12.If you are travelling on business, seek face-to-face meetings with anyone you interact with online. Could there be a hidden business opportunity waiting to be unearthed?

13.Look to connect with experts in your field and industry leaders. Ask if they would like to provide a guest post to your blog or contribute to an upcoming webinar. Name recognition could work wonders when growing your business.

14.Export LinkedIn contacts into your email program and smartphone – you never know when you might be able to help someone out or need assistance with something yourself.

15.Request introductions from your first level connections to their most valuable connections. This will help grow your contacts list without incurring the wrath of LinkedIn by trying to connect with any and everybody.

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