LinkedIn is a place for businesses and professionals. It mostly used by people to connect with human resource managers, recruiters and companies who may be hiring for open positions. Networking on LinkedIn is also a good way to get connected with other business owners and to find entrepreneur types who may be interested in starting a home based business rather than rejoining the corporate grind.

The only drawback to networking on LinkedIn is that you are limited in your ability to contact people on the site. With their free account, you can only email up to 3 people per month through the site. Therefore, you will need to either upgrade your account or look for other ways to contact your prospects. Do note that you can write off the fee for an upgrade as a business expense on your taxes. Talk to a qualified accountant about how this works.

But don’t let that stop you from taking advantage of all that LinkedIn has to offer. Here are some tips on how to use LinkedIn to your advantage.

Get Connected on LinkedIn

Fill Out Your LinkedIn Profile

One of the tenets of attraction marketing is to position yourself as an expert in your field. This is the angle from which you should approach your LinkedIn profile. You should list job experience and other relevant information that helps paints a picture of you as the person to go to for information about your business opportunity. Depending on the industry your business is in, this may require some creativity on your part.

Build a LinkedIn Profile for Your Business

LinkedIn also provides an option to build a profile for your business. You will be able to submit a description, categorize it by industry, and even add a link to your business’ webpage. When people do a company search, your business will display in the results depending on the criteria they use. Be aware, though, that you must have an email address that is associated with the company.

Additionally, if you are in network marketing, be sure that the name of your company is in compliance with their rules. Some network marketing companies do not allow the parent name to be used in any marketing materials or websites you create.

Add Your Blog and Twitter Account to Your LinkedIn Profile

Adding your blog and Twitter account to your LinkedIn profile is easy and provides additional exposure to your other web properties. To add your blog to LinkedIn, sign in and then click on Profile. Click on “Add Application” and a list of items you can add to your LinkedIn profile will display.

If you have a WordPress blog, then select the WordPress option. For all other blogs, select the BlogLink option. On the next page, make sure the “Display on my profile” and “Display on LinkedIn homepage” is checked and then click Add Application. You will then be asked for your blog address and the application will automatically display the posts from your blog.

To add your Twitter account, go back to your profile. Make sure you are on the Edit My Profile tab. Click on the Add Twitter account option and fill out the information. Your latest tweets will then be displayed on your LinkedIn profile.

Customize Your Links

You probably already know that you can add links to your website and blog to your LinkedIn account. What you may not know is that you can customize the titles of those links to actually reflect the name of your site. On your profile, click Add Website. From the dropdown box select Other and in the box that appears enter the name of your website.

Add Recommendations from Clients or Business Partners

In marketing, social proof is very important. People take what others have to say about a person, company or product into consideration when making purchasing decisions. Connect with customers and other business associates on LinkedIn and ask for recommendation through the Ask for a Recommendation link (found on the Edit Profile page). These will display on your profile once they have been completed.

Add Presentations Using Slideshare or Google Presentations

Additional marketing on LinkedIn you can do is to upload a business presentation to your profile using a Slideshare account or Google Presentation. Since there is no video widget available on LinkedIn at this time, a presentation is the next best thing. You can make your own presentation or check with the network marketing parent company for presentations you can distribute.

Create Your Profile in Multiple Languages

If you are targeting a non-English speaking demographic, such as the Spanish community, you can create a LinkedIn profile in another language. This will make your profile more accessible to people who may have difficulty with your primary language. You will also extend your exposure on the network.

Now that you have your profile attractively put together, next week I’m going to detail some ways you can reach out to others on LinkedIn.

For more social media marketing tips, read other articles I’ve written about using social media outlets to build your business. If you want to take the next step and build a green business that lets you make money while saving the planet take an online tour of a profitable eco-friendly e-commerce business or contact me directly.

(photo credit: Mario Sundar)

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I remember my first Friday on Twitter. I was completely confused & had no idea what was going on? Why do I see #FollowFriday? What does it mean?

Every Friday people will send out their favorite people and recommend that others follow them. Many times you will see tons and tons of tweets like this….

#FollowFriday @Terry_Allison @ckinney @mmangen @williger @David_Kaufer @MirrorFinish @Mastocytosis @westham999 @AnthonyTilghman @Msbbp404

#FF @DeanBenninger @MyGreenSide @billbudgets @teamarete @EcoFan @amous @eQuin2010 @ArwenTaylor

After a few Friday’s I felt like my eyes were going to roll back into my head. Friday’s had now become chaotic & almost stressful for me. I had so many followers and it was too much to try and recommend them all & how was I ever going to keep up with it?

I found an awesome tool to make Follow Friday so much easier. The Twitter Tag Project, which allow you to scan the last 200 tweets, count the dups, and return your most active friends.

The results will display: (you hit tweet and that is it) – So Easy!!

Latest update & breaking news about Follow Friday:

Many more Friday’s went by before I started to realize that my eyes were still rolling in the back of my head. The tweets all day long looked the same to me. It all looked like a bunch of noise & was not really following any new people on Friday. That is when I decided to do things very different then everyone else on Twitter.

I decided that it is all about creating value & that each person deserves to know a little about that person & why they should follow. I also decided that I would make #follow recommendations every day of the week & not just on Friday. This way the recommendation would really stand out apart from all the noise.

Now my recommendations look like this….. (Some of my Favorite peeps )

@Terry_Allison Great friend who does Joint Ventures w/ Authors, Speakers, Trainers, Real Estate and Niche Experts for Promotion/Profit.

@ckinney Good friend. Always engages- very helpful here on Twitter & She markets a Carwash Magazine. Take time 2 get 2 know her..

@mmangen Great girl – My friend. Does Bookkeeping & Property Management Virtual Assistant. QuickBooks ProAdvisor. Excel Queen.

@williger Darren is a tea drinking, guitar playing, low-carb eating, wine making sales maker who writes 4 MyLowCarbPages.com – Luv it !

@David_Kaufer awesome guy -good friend to follow – Great Tweets – He is a marketer, entrepreneur & Passionate #Green advocate

@MirrorFinish Frank is super guy. Always here to help & he tweets to help keep your car and boat like new. Mobile detail biz

@Mastocytosis An incredibly brave women & great person who is always helpful. Follow her & learn about her cause to raise awareness….

@westham999 Really great guy who always engages and is very helpful to me. He mixes it up with music & fun.. Be sure to follow

@AnthonyTilghman He is a great guy who always engages & here to help.

@Msbbp404 Awesome – always engages and RT’s – truly a wonderful person!

@DeanBenninger He is a great guy to know. Always engages here on Twitter & very helpful person. check him out !

@MyGreenSide She is awesome lady… Mother & wife — I am learning great #green info from her… check her out

@billbudgets Jessica is very cool girl. Good friend to have. Always helping others & she takes the stress out of bill paying…

@teamarete He is Entrepreneur, Bringing 25+ years of business development experience to the home business industry. Super guy to follow!

@ecofan Super guy & father. Always engages. He is an Entrepreneur that LOVE’s Alternative Energy. check him out

@amous He is a super guy who really helps out & engages on Twitter. He is holding the famous bunny on twitter #amousbunny – check him out!

@eQuin2010 He is super cool & helpful. He engages and RT’s. Great friend to have. Check him out! Has new #green biz too!

@ArwenTaylor She is great & engages. She also writes articles for people & does SEO. Internet savvy girl.

@davorado Great guy who does magazine design, media, & publishing. He is all about Sharing, learning, and meeting new people. #follow

@AmericanWomannn My fun & passionate friend & the lady who started #Hunkalert & #babealert. She is always on here & will engage!

Those were just a few of my favorite peeps on Twitter. There are so many wonderful people that I have connected with that I wish I could name them all.

I now keep a word document with all the people I feel deserve to go on my list & then I will recommend them throughout the week & even promote their business. I continue to add more and more people that I feel add value & are worth tweeting about on Twitter.

I think people deserve to know why they should follow others and those you recommend deserve to be in the spotlight!

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RT means ReTweet – Give credit to The Tweeter

When you see RT on Twitter it is always followed by @stacykinney (Example). This means that someone is re stating what someone else said. You are giving credit to the person who made the statement much like you would do with a quote.

You want to make sure that you always give credit. Do not ever cut and paste a tweet and make it your own. That is a big NO NO on Twitter.

You may also see people give credit on Twitter with the word…via

Examples of RT and via used on Twitter :

@eQuin2010 RT @stacykinney 5 Secrets to Running a Successful Home Based Business http://hubpages.com/t/a9737
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@ckinney 25 Things I hate about FaceBook — http://bit.ly/ykNqb – Too funny ! Love it ! (via @stacykinney)
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@Terry_Allison (Great article!) Internet Affiliate Marketing http://digg.com/d3q6i4 via @stacykinney
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You will also see where some things get RT/ ReTweeted by many people like this one:

@ateegarden RT @PerryBelcher RT @zaibatsu RT @stacykinney 5 Twitter tips for your company– http://bit.ly/uZYij
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You can add your comments and position the tweet however you like as long as you remember to RT or via the person who Tweeted it.

Retweeting is a big part of building relationship and making new friends on Twitter. I make sure to RT many times throughout the day and to help promote my follows.

Retweeting is also something I use to determine if I will follow a person or not. I always look at their Tweets for the last day or so to see if they RT and are engaging. If I only see them Tweeting their own stuff then it is a one way street and I do not follow them.

If you are brand new to Twitter and not sure what to Tweet about then find some people that interest you and RT their tweets. You will not only learn this way, but your followers will LOVE you for it!

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Twellow lets you find people on Twitter by location and category as well as find people that have your same interests.

Be sure to register so that you are listed in the directory and put yourself in categories like Green, Eco, Music, etc. This way people can find you by category. Then you will want to go and search for people in these categories and follow them.

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Easily create free, customizable twitter backgrounds using TwitBacks.com. Choose from over 70 pre-designed templates, add your logo and photo, add a bio about yourself and links to your social network profiles. When done you are given an option to enhance it with Picnik.

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