The sputtering economy has sparked a spike in the popularity of social networks, and particularly of one network – LinkedIn. This site provides the missing link between social and professional networking.
Offering a huge base of users worldwide and an abundance of professional networks and workgroups, LinkedIn is a great place to establish and build your professional persona. Its reach, range and depth are impressive. Just consider:
Getting started is easy. Just go to www.linkedin.com, sign up for an account (free) and complete your profile. Bear in mind that it takes time to develop your social network online. A lot depends on the connections you make, the chemistry you generate with those connections, and the market demand for the type of work you produce.
To help you get the most out of LinkedIn, here are seven best practices to strengthen and build your network of contacts and your business:
- Grow your personal and professional circles. The best recommendations – and the most credible – come from people who know you and can recommend you to colleagues/friends and to friends of friends or colleagues. Just make sure you return the favor. It’s all about networking.
- Build your personal brand. What you say and how you say it conveys a lot about you. Choose carefully the topics you comment on, what you say, and how you say it so you send a consistent message about who you are. Remember that perceptions matter – especially when someone is considering engaging your services for the first time.
- Explore Groups. LinkedIn offers a wide range of Groups, including corporate and professional groups, alumni associations, conference and non-profit groups that help LinkedIn members enhance their trusted connections. Join the ones that best suit your interests and your business.
- Engage -- be active and helpful within industry groups. You'll find interesting people in the groups who are posting questions and providing answers to questions posted by other group members. Start a discussion thread that may be of interest to the group or groups you join. If you engage with an industry group, jump in whenever possible to answer questions that your peers submit. If you're ever thinking that you want to ask a question in a group, just look at the list of keywords you apply to most of your images and choose one associated with a concept, technique or practice to explore. Integrate keywords into your status updates.
- Participate regularly. If you’re part of a workgroup on LinkedIn, be sure to let people know you’re there by participating regularly. Providing a Status Update can be as simple as up loading a factoid about the subject matter that you're going to be working on for the day. Alert group members to upcoming exhibits or publication of your work. Or add information about something going on in the industry that may be of interest to other people in your LinkedIn network. Once a project is completed, be sure you connect with the people that you worked for on LinkedIn to grow your network. Better yet, ask them to provide you with a recommendation on your LinkedIn profile.
- Go prospecting for new leads. By exploring the "Answers" tab at the top of the page on LinkedIn, you will find many people asking questions and looking for help. For example, you can easily plug in one of your keywords and see who might have recently asked a question about licensing images. Jump in where you can to answer such questions because people use the Answers section of LinkedIn as a resource for information. If you were to do a search in Answers for 'Photographers' you'll see lots of people asking questions that might relate to you or could drive business to you. Like Facebook, LinkedIn indexes profiles with the major search engines. So leverage this network and watch your search results rise. Like other social networks, LinkedIn needs to be monitored. It is good to check in on it at least once or twice a week.
- Seek out fellow LicenseStream members. Many LicenseStream subscribers are affiliated with groups that have a presence on LinkedIn. As a LicenseStream member you’re likely to connect with fellow photographers and other content creators who are members of these groups. You can find, PMA – The Worldwide Community of Imaging Associations, National Press Photographers Association (NPPA), the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP), and Wedding & Event Videographers Association International (WEVA) to name a few. Joining such groups accelerates the pace at which you connect with other professionals in your field.
We hope that you have found this initial series on social media outlets and how to use them to benefit your LicenseStream business useful. Apply what you can and watch the results. As additional social media tools emerge, we plan to report on them and how they can best be leveraged to serve your photography business. Stay tuned.
