The Marketing Mentress: LinkedIn Tip #13 - It is all about the Money!

Millions of the members on LinkedIn are utilizing the FREE platform.

The percentage of people on a paid platform is small by comparison. Looking through LinkedIn's eyes, what would you do?

Here is what LinkedIn did:

1. They completely revamped the groups to the point that we can no longer message people in the groups without being connected to them. Now, the only way we can message people in the groups without being connected to them is if we are on a paid platform, and purchase "Inmail". Inmail allows you to send messages to anyone on LinkedIn that you are not connected to. Various paid platforms allow certain limits to Inmails you can send.

Actually, this is a good thing. It cuts down on all the spammy emails we get through LinkedIn.

2. The look of the groups is completely changed. Personally, I like it much better, now that I have had a chance to get accustomed to it.

3. Open groups have gone the way of the Dodo bird. We have to be accepted into all the groups, just like a closed group. ALL the groups are now closed groups.

4. The only places that you can send messages to the group members are in the "LION" groups. The people in LION groups have made a commitment to accept all people who ask them to connect. These people will not IDK (I Don't Know) you. They openly offer their email address, so anyone can connect with them. LinkedIn assumes that if you have someone's email, you know them well enough to connect with them.

Here's what you can do:

1. You can go to your own rolodex, contact lists, and shoe boxes full of business cards to invite them all to connect with you. You have their emails, and will never be IDK'd.

Sound daunting? If you have all these emails in a spreadsheet, you can just copy and past them into the special "Other" box to invite them to connect with you on LinkedIn.

Never - Never-Never!!! ask someone to connect with you if you do not know them or they are not in a LION group!!! You will eventually get sent to LinkedIn Jail. (Account Frozen)

It happened to me when I first started using LinkedIn. I had invited all the connections I had to connect with me, and then I saw that LinkedIn was showing me all these people that "I May Know". I thought that LinkedIn was telling me to connect with them. So I sat at my desk clicking on people to send connection requests for hours on end. HAH! I got sent to jail!

I had to print out the terms of use for LinkedIn, sign them and scan them back to LinkedIn, along with a copy of my drivers license, so they knew that I was a real person. UGH! You do not want this to happen to you. You only need 5 people to IDK you and you will get your account frozen.

2. You can set up your own group and invite all your connections to join in your rousting discussion that you have started there. In your own group, once a week you can pitch to your group about your "stuff". You can also start tantalizing discussions as often as you wish. You can also reach out to the members of your group on an individual basis to ask them to connect with you. Once they have been in your group for a while and you have interacted with their discussions, they will even ask to connect with you themselves.

Remember that people want to be educated and informed before they want to be pitched to. It takes time to build relationships with people and we need to respect that. Remember to use the 'Rule of 10'.

3. Join up to 100 different groups. Be sure to join those groups that contain the people you want to know and do business with. Also, be sure to join groups with 10K or more members, because when you do searches through the groups, you will discover that your Boolean searches narrow down the number of people in the results considerably.

For instance: You might be in a group of small business owners and do a search for 'training and the name of your city'. The group has 400K members, but when your Boolean search is applied, you might only have 50 people in your search that are your target market.

4. You can completely automate your LinkedIn marketing along with all your social media, using the services the LinkedIn Marketing Mentress team.

We manage all your responses to connections, getting connections, searches and blog posts. We also help you to join the right groups for you and set up your own group, monitor that group and respond to discussions therein. How much are 200 leads a month worth to you?

Give us a call and we will fill you in on all the details.

Got a LinkedIn question? Feel free to email me and I will answer it in my next blog.

Fired at Fifty: Stop Looking For Work and Discover What You Were Meant to Do.

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Christine Till