If you are on LinkedIn and have no strategy, you’re not alone. A little foresight will go a long way.

Complete your profile

This may seem obvious, but don’t you just hate when a person has the bare bones when it comes to information on their profile? If you’re going to use LinkedIn, your profile should serve as a source of information for someone looking to know more about you. Don’t disappoint them. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Don’t just list your positions – put a little meat on those bones. Take a look at your resume and steal some language from there. Providing detail not only informs visitors, it can help your search engine optimization (SEO) and show people you’re a real person.

Post updates and share links

LinkedIn isn’t a passive network. Sure, it serves as a great directory to find other professionals and potential employees. But if you’re looking to market your products or services, you can’t always wait for people to come to you.

Put yourself out there by sharing links that you find interesting, just as you would on Twitter or Facebook. Sure, the content you share may be different on LinkedIn, but just like other social media sites, content is king.

Join and utilize groups

Instead, find a conversation where you can add value. Does your company offer a product or service that can solve a problem that’s being discussed? Perhaps you have some great content (a blog post or a white paper) that you can share.

Asking questions is also a great way to begin a conversation in a group. A good tip is to try and act the way you would real life – and you wouldn’t just walk up to someone you didn’t know and go straight into a sales pitch.

If you’re already engaging in the ways I mentioned above, that’s fantastic. But if you’re a LinkedIn “newbie,” you may not be using the site to its full potential, and that’s not a good tactic for your industrial marketing strategy.

Take the time to learn the platform. If you don’t, all social media platforms will become a time sponge that will disappoint you. Technology has changed how we communicate as a society and it’s not ever going back to the way it was. When was the last time you used your Telex machine?

Photo credit: Dojaro