LinkedIn is one of the top social networking sites and has definitely taken the world by storm. It offers various community management solutions that include the ability to create profiles, manage emails, comments, groups, and many more. If your company uses any of these services then it's important to know how to integrate them with LinkedIn. There are many ways in which this integration can be achieved but it starts with the creation of a custom LinkedIn page. This page should link to all your existing and new professional networks which can greatly help in building up your brand and reaching out to your target audience.
The first step is to get an online community management platform integrated with LinkedIn. These platforms offer a wide range of options like creating search filters to narrow down the results and to track the engagement level of the different communities you belong to. This makes it easy for you to measure the performance of your different communities and get immediate feedback about any improvements you need to make. Most of the platforms also offer analytics to provide you with detailed information about how your profile is being used.
Once you have set up your Online Community Management platform it's now time to start using your new tool to promote your brand. Post links to your profile in the content community so that users can easily find you and your products and services. You can also share links to your most popular and relevant blogs and articles to encourage your current clients to participate in these communities. You can also ask your existing customers and contacts to engage on your pages.
Once you have implemented this strategy successfully then the next step is to start driving traffic to your pages. The best way to do this is to leverage your social media assets. One of the easiest and fastest ways to drive traffic to your profile is to submit videos, articles, press releases, audio clips, photographs or any other content that you feel comfortable uploading. Another method that you can use is to participate actively within the various social media networks like Facebook, Google+ and Twitter. Posting comments on other people's posts and sharing links to your content will help build your online community management platform.
When it comes to the content aspect of online community management platforms it is important to remember one thing. Don't be too pushy when it comes to posting your information. If you want to build trust as a brand then it would say more that you are willing to share information than one who posts all the information out there without any discretion. It also wouldn't be a good idea to share everything that you have as a brand because then you might end up appearing as a spammer. Always err on the side of caution when it comes to the sharing of information.
These are just some of the tips that you can use to get your online community building platform off the ground. Now it is up to you to decide which platform would best suit your needs. By following these tips you are guaranteed to have the best alternative to traditional community based marketing.