What is the Slack Marketing Channel & Should You Be On It?

 

For those of you who haven’t heard, there’s a new marketing platform in town.
Designed for enterprise communication, Slack is a messaging app that’s been rapidly gaining popularity.

Slack provides a real time messaging service, which creates a platform for so-called Slack communities. Slack communities, in turn, provide a place for companies and individuals to communicate, collaborate on products, search new channels and enhance visibility.

Here’s everything you need to know about Slack and why you should consider hopping on the Slack bandwagon.


How Does Slack Work?
Slack provides chat rooms for community and enterprise use. Unless someone opts to use a private chat room, Slack allows a transparent view of all conversations being conducted within the platform. This creates enhanced collaboration and greater communication within a company. Different sectors of a company, such as accounts, marketing and media teams can establish individual chat rooms and employees can contact one another via the app’s direct message or private chat room services.
To enhance collaboration, Slack allows sharing of all files, including images, PDFs, documents and spreadsheets. Chat rooms feature an easy drag-and-drop feature, which allows everyone involved to have instant access to new and updated documents. Additionally, all documents are fully editable and can be commented on, shared and searched by all members. The app syncs with Google Drive, Dropbox and Box for enhanced usability.

Additionally, the Slack platform allows users to connect all the tools a company uses to the app, which allows for total integration. Finally, the app is fully searchable and compatible with iOS and Android. Changes on one device are made across all devices, so users always have access to current versions of all work.

Who Uses Slack?
Currently, major companies like eBay, Urban Outfitters and Buzzfeed are using Slack to step up their internal communication. These companies use the platform to conduct team conversations in the app’s open channels and provide chat rooms for different sectors of the company to talk about and collaborate on current projects.

These companies aren’t Slack’s only fans, however: in the last six months, Slack has more than doubled its number of daily users from 100k to more than 500k and that number is growing quickly.

It’s More than Just Enterprise Communication
Although Slack rose to popularity as a workplace collaboration tool popular among employees and managers, it’s now being used for far more than enterprise communication. The platform is beginning to see a myriad of independent groups forming. Currently, there are over 100 public slack channels making use of the platform. These groups are aimed at everything from technology and business to marketing. For interested parties, these groups can provide a wealth of information and marketing possibilities.

Popular Slack communities such as startupstudygroup and #smallbiz provide a valuable space for professionals to communicate, collaborate and plan together. Additionally, these communities are a great place to gain more information about a niche, connect with new contacts and learn more about any given field.

The Pros of Slack Communities
For people who want to connect with other like-minded individuals, Slack is a great place to do it.
The community platform is unique to the world of social media in that it allows for more attention with less competition. While there are 4 million groups on LinkedIn, there are less than 200 active or popular groups on the Slack platform. Since Slack is relatively new and not yet saturated by users, Slack communities are small, tight-knit groups that offer a whole lot of bang for their metaphorical buck.

Additionally, engagement rates on Slack are much higher than they are elsewhere. Thanks to Slack’s interactive dashboard and real-time feature, the app acts like a text messaging service and inspires users to check in on their groups frequently. Humans love instant gratification, so posting something and knowing that other group members will interact with it immediately is a very satisfying prospect. Unlike a blog post, in which a poster writes something and waits for replies from readers, Slack is instant, which encourages frequent check-ins and regular interaction on the part of users.

Finally, the service is free. The lack of a price tag means that marketers can get out of it exactly as much, if not dramatically more, than they put in. The process of using Slack is amazingly easy: interested parties simply pick a topic, create a community, promote the community and then add it to the Slack directories. After the initial push, the community requires only some light moderation and some selective sub-topics to organize content. When companies link their community back to a company homepage, the community can drive visitors to the business and promote engagement with products, goods and services.

Cons of Slack Communities
While the Slack app has many obvious pros, it also has a few cons surrounding its presentation. Users complain that the app’s “read message” notifications can be obnoxious and the readability of the Slack communities pages can be difficult. Additionally Slack does not currently offer a “discover” feature, which can make it difficult to find new groups unless you know what you’re looking for. Finally, the ultra high-tech and interactive Slackbot help center is irksome to some people.

All things considered, for those who don’t mind sticking with Slack as it works out some of its new startup glitches, Slack communities can be a great way for companies to market, interact, collaborate and communicate.

The Case for Slack Communities
For people who want to take advantage of an effective, low-stress, low-competition marketing environment, Slack is a great place to look. The app provides all of the benefits of real time communication and niche-related conversation with the added perk of being able to tie the entire thing back to a company homepage.

Although Slack has put a fresh new spin on online communities, the service is still meeting the age-old goal of content marketing: providing great content to readers and potential customers. While Slack communities are an effective and exciting way for companies and individuals to find like-minded people, collaborate and communicate, they are also a great way for marketers to provide great content, promote vibrant interaction and drive traffic to a site. All things considered, it seems like we should all be hopping on the Slack bandwagon.

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The Tiger Mom Tax: Asians Are Nearly Twice as Likely to Get a Higher Price from Princeton Review

 

 

Every year, thousands of high school students get ready for the SAT by using The Princeton Review’s test preparation services.

But few, if any, realize that the prices for The Princeton Review’s online SAT tutoring packages vary substantially depending on where customers live. If they type some ZIP codes into the company’s website, they are offered The Princeton Review’s Premier course for as little as $6,600. For other ZIP codes, the same course costs as much as $8,400.

One unexpected effect of the company’s geographic approach to pricing is that Asians are almost twice as likely to be offered a higher price than non-Asians, an analysis by ProPublica shows.
The gap remains even for Asians in lower income neighborhoods. Consider a ZIP code in Flushing, a neighborhood in Queens, New York. Asians make up 70.5 percent of the population in this ZIP code. According to the U.S. Census, the median household income in the ZIP code, $41,884, is lower than most, yet The Princeton Review customers there are quoted the highest price.

Image courtesy of (Stoonn) / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The Princeton Review said in a statement that its pricing is based on the “costs of running our business and the competitive attributes of the given market,” and that the company charges the same price everywhere in New York City. Although the test prep service markets its service as “24-hr Online Tutoring,” the company says the tutoring is done in one-on-one sessions in person or online and that the tutors typically live in the same areas as their students.

“The areas that experience higher prices will also have a disproportionately higher population of members of the financial services industry, people who tend to vote Democratic, journalists and any other group that is more heavily concentrated in areas like New York City,” The Princeton Review’s statement said.

These types of price differences are not illegal, and the consequences are not intentional, but researchers say they are likely to become more common in the age of services like Uber, which set prices by computer algorithms. The Princeton Review says its prices are simply determined by geographic region.

Last year, a White House report on “Big Data” cautioned that the “algorithmic decisions raise the specter of 2018redlining’ in the digital economy 2013 the potential to discriminate against the most vulnerable classes of our society under the guise of neutral algorithms.”

In 2012, the Wall Street Journal reported that the online office retailer Staples was varying prices by ZIP code. Staples appeared to be calculating prices based on the user’s distance from a rival store, but the inadvertent effect was that people in lower-income ZIP codes saw the higher prices.

In 2014, researchers at Northeastern University found that top Web sites, such as Home Depot, Orbitz and Travelocity, were steering some users toward more expensive products. And this year, another study found that users who were identified by Google as female received fewer ads for a high-paying job.

Offline, the practice of offering different prices for the same product in different places is fairly common 2013 gasoline or a gallon of milk can be priced differently just a few blocks apart. But as long as there is no intent to racially discriminate, it is generally legal, says Andrew Selbst, an attorney who co-authored a paper on the biases that can be inherent in Big Data.

“If you are open for business, you can’t discriminate against certain protected classes,” Selbst said.
Unintentional racial discrimination is illegal in housing and employment under the legal doctrine known as “disparate impact,” which prohibits inadvertent actions that hurt people in a protected class.
But the disparate impact doctrine does not apply to the online world, where it’s often difficult to determine how and why different prices are being offered.

Earlier this year, Harvard undergraduate Christian Haigh stumbled on The Princeton Review’s variable prices doing research for a class he was taking called “Data Science to Save the World.”
Haigh had been looking for price differences in hotel rooms if he booked from different locations around the world. But he wasn’t finding much. So he looked for websites that required entering a ZIP code.

“We thought maybe if you have to put in the ZIP code, they were trying to discriminate,” Haigh said. Today, Haigh and three fellow students are publishing their findings that The Princeton Review’s higher prices correlate to areas with higher income.

ProPublica reviewed the code that one of Haigh’s fellow students posted on a public web site and collected its own data in July, and again on Monday. The data showed that The Princeton Review offered four different prices for the same “Premier Level” online tutoring package.
Many of the prices are regional. For instance, the entire New York City area, including Long Island, receives the highest possible price, $8,400. Much of California, except San Diego, is offered the second-highest price, $7,200, while ZIP codes in San Diego are charged the lowest price.
Because the pricing regions are large, sometimes spanning multiple states, they are different than the personalized tech algorithms used by some web sites, which make real-time decisions about which advertisements to show to a particular visitor.

ProPublica tested whether The Princeton Review prices were tied to different characteristics of each ZIP code, including income, race and education level. When it came to getting the highest prices, living in a ZIP code with a high median income or a large Asian population seemed to make the greatest difference.
The analysis showed that higher income areas are twice as likely to receive higher prices than the general population. For example, wealthy suburbs of Washington D.C. are charged higher prices. But that isn’t always the case: Residents of affluent neighborhoods in Dallas are charged the lowest price, $6,600.

Customers in areas with a high density of Asian residents were 1.8 times as likely to be offered higher prices, regardless of income. For instance, residents of the gritty industrial city of Westminster, California, which is half Asian with a median income below most, were charged the second-highest price for the Premier tutoring service.

The Princeton Review said it would be a mistake to call its pricing practices discrimination. “To equate the incidental differences in impact that occur from this type of geographic based pricing that pervades all American commerce with discrimination misconstrues both the literal, legal and moral meaning of the word,” the company said in its statement.

The company said the prices of its online tutoring services are based on the prices of local tutors, which vary “just as virtually every good or service does, be it gasoline, rent or eggs.”

Even if the price differences were unintentional, the Harvard students said they found them disturbing. Haigh, the student who discovered the variations, is an economics major and said he’s not generally against price differences unless particular demographic groups are affected.

“It’s something that makes a very small impact on one individual’s life but can make a big impact to large groups,” Haigh said.

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Microsoft Named Victor in Patent Lawsuit

Microsoft Named Victor in Patent Lawsuit

After Eight Years, International Trade Commission Rules

 

 

The wheels of justice may turn slowly, but after nearly a decade of grinding away there’s finally a decision on the Nokia N95.




The what? Well, it’s been eight years so people may have forgotten it, but just before Apple’s iPhone became all the rage the small Nokia device was all the rage. So much so, in fact, InterDigital launched legal action against the company claiming it was infringing on 3G cellular technology patents.

Well, good news has arrived for Microsoft — which now purchased Nokia’s handset division — the U.S. International Trade Commission has ruled there is no infringement. In a lengthy report, the commission stated “a finding of non-infringement with respect to the asserted claims” and noted it was terminating any further investigation.

Microsoft, Engadget reported, is happy with the finding and is currently involved with its own legal action against InterDigital citing abusive licensing practices.

At the end of the day, though, what exactly does the ruling mean?

Well, for Microsoft, it means there’s no need to be worried over a potential import ban on any of its phones.

For InterDigital it could mean some financial loss as The Market Business reported the company’s stock took a tumble after closing Friday.

In a statement referenced by Reuters, InterDigital’s chief executive officer said the company was disappointed in the decision.

However, William Merritt stated, the decision’s impact will be minor “given the decline of the Nokia mobile device business under Microsoft’s control and its limited market position.”

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How To Create A Killer Marketing Strategy In One Page

Let’s be honest: if you’re a business owner and you don’t have a marketing plan, you’re basically flying blind with your marketing efforts. Quite often, this results in businesses that:

• Waste a lot of time and money on marketing efforts that don’t work;
• Aren’t sure why they are doing their marketing;
• Have a very disjointed approach to their marketing platforms (and this reflects badly on their branding);
• Are inconsistent in their marketing;
• Find their growth stagnating.

Clearly, a marketing plan is not optional. However, just having a marketing plan isn’t enough. You have to actually put it into practice.

The problem with most marketing plans is that they are long, complicated, and boring – you’d probably never want to look at them again. That’s why for most small or medium businesses, a one-page marketing plan tends to work best. If you keep it simple, readable, and achievable, you might actually follow it.

Here are some pretty clear benefits of putting together a one-page marketing plan:

• You’ll be able to put it up on your wall and see it everyday;
• It’s simple enough for all of your employees to understand;
• It’s easy to make changes as you go;
• It’s visually engaging;
• It keeps you focused on the most important things (no chasing shiny objects);
• It’s the KISS principle in action.

Because you’re limited to one page, you can only put the most important elements on your marketing plan. Each of these elements are explained in detail below.

Company Statement
You can’t market yourself if you don’t know who you are. This is about more than just the products or services that you sell, it’s also about what makes you different in the market.

Once you know why people should buy from you (as opposed to your competitors), you will find it much easier to decide on an approach with your marketing. This company statement is also a great piece of branding that you can put on your website, print marketing and social media pages.

Example Company Statement: “We are Australia’s largest and most trusted manufacturers of red underwear. We focus on quality, fashion, and are proud to keep our products ahead of current trends.”

Goals
There’s no point doing any marketing until you have some concrete goals written down. Sure, it would be great to “attract more customers”, and “make more sales”, but until you write down exactly how many customers, what you want to sell, and how much you want to sell, and when you want to achieve all of this, it’s all too easy to drift along in your business without really achieving anything.
Example Goals: “We would like to increase our customer base by 10 percent within one year, and have 50 percent of our previous customers purchase from us again during this period.”

Target Audience
Your audience is not “everyone.” Sure, there’s a chance that anyone could need your product or service, and you don’t want to alienate any particular group of people, but when it comes to your marketing, if you can focus on one or two specific audiences, your efforts will be much more effective. Think of your ideal customers – who are the most pleasant to deal with, and who is likely to spend the most?

Example Target Audience: “First-time mothers aged 20-40, living in Australian capital cities.”

Key Competitors
Spend time researching your key competitors. Know what their strengths and weaknesses are, what marketing is working for them, and who their audiences are. Being aware of your competitors ensures that you work hard to make your products, services, and marketing at least as good, if not better.

Tactics/Channels
How will your audience find out about your business, your products, and your services? You could have a presence on every social media channel, every advertising network, and spend hours per day creating content. But chances are, you don’t have the time or budget for this. Know what channels your target audience is likely to access most often, and focus your efforts on these.

Content
There’s not much point in signing up for social media channels, a blog, and a variety of other platforms if you’re not going to share content on them. Businesses with no content give potential customers the impression that they’re either closed or very behind the times. Avoid giving this impression by planning ahead with appropriate content that you can schedule or post regularly. Ask yourself what kind of content your audience might relate to, what information you could share that is relevant to your business, and how you can use it to engage your audience and grow the relationship.

Conversion Funnel
Remember – the point of your marketing is to attract an audience, convert them into leads, nurture them, and then hopefully provide an environment where they feel comfortable to buy from you.
Putting this process into a conversion funnel visually lays out the path a customer might take from first point of contact with you, through to the final sale. This is where all of your marketing efforts come together and actually make sense! Put into a diagram your key channels, the offers you are going to promote on those channels, the content you will share to nurture your audience, and the products and services you hope to sell. See the diagram below for an example of what a simple conversion funnel might look like.

Metrics
An important part of marketing that is often neglected is measuring for results. You should know which marketing tactics are working to achieve your goals, how much they are costing you, and where to invest more time and money in the future. Take note of which metrics are likely to be important to your business and ensure that you look at them regularly. Use your metrics to adjust your marketing plan as you go.

Adapt it to Your Needs
Let’s be clear on something here… every business has different areas it needs to focus on. This marketing plan template is generic in nature, with a focus on digital marketing, so you may need to adapt it to your business’ requirements. Use it as a starting point and add or remove sections as you see fit. There are other articles out there with different approaches to a one-page marketing plan, so it might be worth looking at some alternatives.

Over to you now…

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9 Traits That Make Introverts More Productive than Extroverts

To be clear, introvert doesn’t equal shy like a lot of people think. Introverts are people who just appreciate time inside their head more than the gregarious extroverts of the world do. While the two labels are often lumped together, you don’t have to fear human interaction to fall into this very “productive” personality type.
 

Introverts may not have the wild and crazy, high-energy social graces of their more gregarious counterparts, but get a load of this: At least 3/4 of all people with IQ’s over 160 are introverts! That’s not junk science either, but a fact that’s been proven over and over again. As the IQ scale to intelligence scores above 170 and 180, so too does the likelihood that person will have a proclivity for solitude (learn more about introversion and intelligence).

Of course, this post is all about how being an introvert usually leads to a more productive work and personal life, so let’s move on after giving yourself a good long pat on the back for being so darned-tootin smart!

Let’s see what makes introverts so efficient at getting things done:

1. Introverts are born creative

Most introverts have lived a life filled with introspection into their own thoughts and feelings. This translates into an improved ability to conceptualize and come up with new ideas, to put those ideas to paper, and the ability to predict potential road-blocks to those ideas before they show themselves.

2. Introverts are purposeful and often direct

And less afraid to say no, since they value their personal time so much. Being an introvert does come with its challenges when it comes to just spontaneously diving in to things when it comes to having fun. However, when it comes to work, if they bring their flavor of approaching tasks with purposeful thought and care, they can use this asset to make a better plan of attack than the more impulsive extroverts around them, thus getting more done in less time.

3. Introverts are more efficient communicators

Introverts tend to plan their communication with others with more care. They’ll spend time considering what they’ll say, how they’ll say it, and will consider several different ways to get their message across before settling on one. They take how they’re perceived very seriously too, meaning they care more about the type of impression they’re making when sending an email, talking to a coworker or client, even speaking in front of a crowd. Introverts almost always strive for clarity in everything they say, and expect the same of those around them.

4. Introverts overlook less of the important details

Introverts don’t like playing catch-up or damage control. They’d rather hash out all the details before they start and go over everything thoroughly before calling a project “completed”. Because of this, they miss less details and have less of their work sent back for revisions.

5. Introverts don’t need to rely on others

While introverts are less likely to jump into a life-changing move or adventure than the more impulsive extrovert, they do love to jump into projects that don’t require them to wait on other people to get done. They relish in the fact that it’s up to them to take care of all the details, and can put everything together faster than others who tend to rely on having a team around them for task completion.

6. Introverts understand how to recharge before they crash

Introverts realize that you can’t go 100 miles an hour all day long. They like to step back away from what’s going on to let their brain and body get back in sync, typically using a sort of meditative introspection to review their day (or life in general) or by taking a total step back to enjoy a hobby. They’ll take a quick mental siesta and come back ready to tackle almost anything while the extroverts around them are still scurrying around trying to catch up with what they need to get done.

7. Introverts tend to have less misunderstandings with people

They’re so meticulous about their communication with others, that they tend to have less understandings with people. Be it a conference with an important client or a meeting with coworkers, they tend to see what’s going on with everyone around them and just have a way of earning everyone’s respect.

8. Introverts maintain focus when needed

They like to see everything through and check things off the to-do list, before taking a break or calling it a day. They’re the ship Captain that stays the course and strive to be always making headway in their goals. Some) Extroverts fill their time with chit-chat and playing Angry Birds on their smartphone (kidding — well, sort of!)

9. Introverts are consummate planners

To the point it can drive everyone in their life crazy! From planning every last detail of a camping trip, to figuring out every lane and street change to be taken during a road trip. They drive people in their personal lives crazy, but once everything’s all said and done, friends, family and coworkers all appreciate the forethought they put into everything they do; people that spend time around introverts value the lost hours, mistakes and aggravation they often save because of this trait.

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5 Facebook Tips for Marketing on a Zero Budget

 

 

As we all know, Facebook is a great place to advertise and promote a brand. With 1.49 billion monthly active users, Facebook can launch a company to success in no time flat.

Facebook ads are a great way for businesses to raise brand awareness, social presence, and ultimately conversions. Many smaller companies. however, just don’t have the funds to launch a successful ad campaign. But ads are not the only solution to boosting awareness and social following.

With all sorts of great information and tools available online, marketers and business owners are capable of building a meaningful digital existence without having to break the bank.
Here are 5 tips and tricks to getting your posts seen by a larger audience while never spending a dime.

1. Analyze Your Top Ten
Facebook’s page insights is an invaluable tool for gaining intimate knowledge about how certain posts are received by your audience. By utilizing this tool you can rank your posted content by likes, comments, and shares to understand how successful the post actually was.

Once you have established a post ranking, seek out patterns and trends of those that were most successful. Is subject matter similar among top ranking publications? Were these posts accompanied by images? What kind? What can be learned from the comments section of the updates? When all of this information has been harvested, you can then use that knowledge to influence upcoming updates. And this leads up to our next tip:

2. Post Awesome Content
While this is obvious to most, many still commit the marketing sin of posting sub-par content that is riddled with keywords in hopes of ranking well. This simply doesn’t work.

Once you understand what posts have been working well for you and your audience, you can replicate this formula to develop more highly shareable posts. But you don’t simply want to match previous successes, you want to surpass them. In order to do so, take the success blueprint that you have already established and ask yourself a few key questions:

• What gets people talking and excited?
• What is currently trending in your niche?
• How can your post be useful and valuable to your community?

In answering these questions, combined with the insights you have already harvested, you are sure to create one mega-hit of a post.

3. Target with Intent
One of the beautiful things about Facebook is the ability to target posts. Administrators of pages that have over 100 fans can target updates to specific audiences based on various different categories; gender, age, relationship status, educational status, location, and more.

For posts to be targeted organically, be sure to select the “Allow targeting and privacy options when I create posts on my Page” option within your page settings. Once selected, a targeting icon will show at the bottom left of the publisher. This essentially means that posts that pertain to fans in a specific location or whatever else won’t be hidden by fans outside of that segment. In turn this allows for a higher percentage of folks targeted by these posts to like, comment, and share them.

4. Timing Is Everything
There has been a massive amount of research conducted around this topic. IT doesn’t matter if you are simply trying to create more local hype around your brand or establish a global social media presence, the timing of your Facebook posts is a critical element.

Typically, early mornings and nighttime (around 8PM in the time zone you are targeting) are the best times to post since this is when most people are not working and have time to browse their newsfeeds.

But generalizations just won’t do here; what time is best for your fans? To find out when the optimum time to post is for your audience, check out the Posts report within Facebook Insights.
Additionally, your brand should be frequently posting on the weekends as well. Generally speaking, most people have much more free time on the weekends to surf Facebook and other social media sites, so this is a great time to post. Plus, most brands don’t post as heavily on the weekends so this will give you an edge as well.

5. Email Marketing Tie-In
Many brands have a substantial email list that blasts are regularly sent out to. This is a great opportunity to tie-in and help promote one of your top ranking posts by linking to it in the email. Since this content is already “fan approved” your email subscribers are more apt to like, comment on, or share it with their Facebook friends as well.

As you can see, there are many ways to leverage Facebook’s marketing muscle without spending tons of cash. And this is only the tip of the iceberg. The key is knowing how to utilize and optimize their existing tools.

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How To Use LinkedIn to Grow Your Brand

 

 

LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional social network with over 350 million members. But the platform is not just for business professionals or job seekers. Much like Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, the social platform can be utilized to help grow brand awareness and businesses. The rules to the game, however, are a bit different than the other social networks.

With other community portals, businesses have direct access to market to consumers through status updates or various posts where products or services can be easily promoted. On LinkedIn this type of advertising is frowned upon, which makes things a bit more challenging. But despite this fact, LinkedIn is without a doubt just as valuable for expanding a business’s reach and overall awareness. It’s all in how you leverage its tools and features.

To you help get the most out of your LinkedIn profile and bolster your company’s recognition, here are 4 tips for making LinkedIn a powerful promotion tool:

1. Complete Your Profile

No matter what social network is being discussed, it is highly imperative that you have a complete and professional profile. A profile that has fields missing, no profile picture, or less than articulate language will not gain much traction. Not only that, but each time you log onto LinkedIn the site will automatically prompt you to complete your incomplete profile, so there is no excuse for an incomplete page.

Also, the “professional headline” section should not simply list your job title. This section should be utilized to describe the types of problems you or your company are capable of solving; this allows anyone who is searching for a person or business with said skills to be led directly to you.

It is also highly advisable to customize your profile’s URL. The default URL is simply a mix of numbers and letters which is not exactly memorable or easy to find. By customizing the URL, your page will appear more professional and will be easier for others to remember and share. Yes, SEO still matters, even on LinkedIn.

2. Target High Profile Connections

Adding connections to your network should be your first priority in developing business relationships on the site. Start by creating your base, which should be comprised of individuals you already know (such as classmates, colleagues, friends, and clients). Once your foundation has been established, start connecting with relevant professionals within your niche. Seek out high profile figures in your field and begin to build relationships with those folks. You will also want to connect with individuals that are not only within your target audience but who are also ideal clients for your business.

There are a few different ways that these connections can be established. First, LinkedIn’s free service plan allows for generic connection requests to be sent, however, these should be always be personalized. Do not rely on the standard LinkedIn language; people will assume you’re just trolling for connections unless you make it personal.

It could be fruitful to introduce yourself and mention something that you both have in common such as a group that you each subscribe to, but do not make any sort of pitch. Doing so will most likely end in rejection.

Second, LinkedIn offers a paid premium service that provides information about individuals who have viewed your profile, advanced search filters, as well as an InMail system that authorizes targeted and personalized messages to be sent directly to LinkedIn inboxes. This can be quite valuable for anyone who is serious about taking your connection strategy up to the next level.

3. Generate and Post Valuable Content

This should go without saying. No matter what corner of the internet you may find yourself in, content is king, and LinkedIn is no different. By posting truly exciting and useful content, you will begin to establish yourself as an expert on certain subjects. As you continue to provide value and insight to your network and community, your content will gain momentum, increased visibility, and your brand will ultimately grow. Key features of great content on LinkedIn are no different than anywhere else; working headlines, original and useful, includes visuals, and relevant to your audience. There are a myriad of great content creation tools available online so it shouldn’t be too difficult to meet that criteria.

4. Join In on the Conversation

According to Forbes, 35.5 percent of users are in 1-9 groups. By joining various groups and posting the valuable content you create to these collectives, you can establish yourself as a thought leader on certain subjects and grow your brand exponentially.

Research various groups that would be within your target audience and designate a specific amount of time each week to post, participate, and engage with these groups. Offer advice and insights, and connect with those that ask questions directly through their inbox. The more personable you get, the larger and tighter your network will become.

As one of the largest social networks on the planet today, LinkedIn provides businesses massive opportunities for increasing brand awareness, loyalty, and providing value to communities. By embracing these 4 pieces of advice, your network is sure to grow and in no time flat, you can establish yourself as a thought leader within your industry.

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