I’ve said it every year for the last few years and I’ll say it again – if you’re not actively using LinkedIn to generate leads and sales for your business then you’re leaving money on the table.

LinkedIn grows at a rapid pace and there are now over 630 million people on LinkedIn. That’s a huge database of prospective contacts that you can filter, sort, directly contact and engage with. 

Last year saw the release of lots of new features to help you leverage this platform even more – especially to two of my favourite LinkedIn tools – Groups and Company Pages. 

Some key features released this year:

LinkedIn Profile 

• The summary section is now called the ABOUT section
• At the top of your profile, there is a new section where you can promote the fact you’re ‘Open for Business’ and people can search for your services contact you directly
• Take a quiz to support the skills you show off on your profile 
• If you select the ‘documents’ tab on a profile, you can see a list of all the documents they’ve shared.

LinkedIn Company Pages

• When someone sends you a connection request they are prompted to follow your Company Page too
• Invite your connections to follow your Company Page 
• Up to 10 groups can be linked to your Company Page
• You can link up to three hashtags to your Company Page and interact as your brand and not your personal profile
• Employees can receive notifications about new posts on your Page.

LinkedIn Groups (still being rolled out) 

• Photos and icons can be added to the header image of your groups 
• You can ‘Recommend’ one post every seven days to your members to notify them about the post.
• Recommended posts will now also appear in the “Recommended Posts’ tab.
• Search for content within a group, filter by who’s posted it and by industry 

LinkedIn Events

• This is still in beta testing mode and not available to everyone
• The LinkedIn events feature allows you to set up an event on LinkedIn, share with your connections, and invite others.
• Anyone can join an event as an attendee so look out for invites and posts about upcoming events from your connections.
• Once you join an event you can see a list of other people that are attending. This gives you the opportunity to start networking with them ahead of time.
• Post on the timeline of the event and join discussions – a bit like in a group.

LinkedIn Live

• Not available to everyone yet but users with this feature can create live streams to their network.
• Connections are notified when someone goes live, and users can participate in active conversations. 
• Apply here if you want to become a LinkedIn live broadcaster –  https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/100224

Content in the Newsfeed

• You can save posts to look at later (you could only save articles before) both on mobile and on desktop 
• LinkedIn reactions were introduced so you can Like, Celebrate, Love, and say something is Insightful or curious
• Tag people in images you share/

That’s a lot of changes from LinkedIn and we can expect more in the coming year. Keeping up with these changes and using them for your business can seem overwhelming which is why I’m here to do it for you. 

If you’d like more information around leveraging LinkedIn to help you win more business and raise your profile in your industry then I offer lots of free resources to help you get started as well as training, coaching and strategic services.

FREE RESOURCES:

• Blog articles here on this website including the LinkedIn for Lead Generation Blueprint which you can download here
• Regular posts and Articles on my LinkedIn Profile
• Podcast Episodes specifically focussed around using LinkedIn as a key business development and lead gen tool – I’ve been invited on many podcasts to speak about LinkedIn – you can see the list here and listen at your leisure 
• My Podcast: The Curiosity Key – although this is not focussed on LinkedIn many of my guests have seen huge results from using it so it’s a great place to hear case studies and get inspiration

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