By John Muscarella

John Muscarella

LinkedIn has become the gold standard for business-focused social media platforms and is the leading social media channel for B2B marketers.

Even with this, many people use LinkedIn only as a place to post an online resume rather than as an effective tool for marketing themself AND their business. In this blog, I will take you through strategies for leveraging LinkedIn to grow your business.

Before we delve into the specifics of optimizing your profile, I want to get back to basics. No matter which approach you use, whether in person or via social media, the first step is always to find your customer’s problem in order to deliver useful content to ease it. As we mentioned in the last blog, the business owners you are targeting are looking for help and for consultations from people they trust. You want to be that trusted advisor, and that should be reinforced in everything you do.

To make the most of LinkedIn, there are two areas where you want to spend your time:

Your Profile

Your profile is a personal branding opportunity to show off your expertise, capabilities, and affiliations. Once you shift your profile emphasis from being simply a resume to serving as a professional profile, you show others why it is important to connect with you. Others will see you as:

How to Build That Standout Profile:

Create an informative, professional headline. The default in LinkedIn is to use your current work title, which can often be effective, but you can modify that to be more descriptive. For example, “VP of Sales” isn’t as descriptive as “VP, Sales/UCaaS and Cable Services.”

You have 30 seconds to describe yourself. Can you do it? The summary section requires brevity and the ability to boil your expertise down to a tight few lines people will remember. I will break down the sections of the summary to help you build the most effective one.

Example: “I am a master agent with a focus on optimizing the complexity of lower revenue orders within the UCaaS and cable segments.” 

Example: “As vice president of the XOC group, a full-service agent for premier cable solutions, I find the best vendors and carriers to work with to deliver the highest service and best value to our SMB customers.”

Example: “My mission is to know everything about the newest technologies and strategies around UCaaS and cable to help match the best tech to your needs and budget.” 

Now you’ve got an on-target summary. Next, how do you leverage LinkedIn so people see it?

Your Activity

To make LinkedIn work to your advantage, there are a few strategies to keep in mind.

With so many professionals on LinkedIn, don’t miss an opportunity to engage your partners and prospects everywhere they congregate.

We value our Cox partners and I welcome the opportunity to discuss how we can help you grow. Reach out anytime at [email protected].

As a senior director at Cox Business, John is responsible for the overall readiness strategy for the indirect business sales channels. His team has the primary responsibility to develop, implement ­and sell solutions utilizing the Cox Communications network throughout the country. John has more than 25 years of experience in business management, which includes sales and leadership positions with companies such as Polycom, Sprint and EDS.