Congratulations. You’ve taken the first step on the business networking site LinkedIn and created a profile. Your picture is posted and you’ve listed a few previous jobs from your past. Maybe you searched for a few old colleagues and friends. Now what do you do?

For many of our clients at CMD who ask how their companies can use LinkedIn, our recommendation is to make a plan with goals you want to achieve, designate a spokesperson who can represent the company, and start participating.

Think of LinkedIn as a networking event at your local chamber of commerce. After you walk into the room, what do you do? Do you stand by the wall and not speak with anyone, or do you make connections through conversations? Is your goal to get five business cards at the event? Well, try to do the same thing on LinkedIn.

Overall, it’s best to plan a strategy for using LinkedIn and getting your brand recognized. Part of that plan should include being active in groups.

Groups are a big benefit of LinkedIn. Joining groups gives you the chance to be part of the conversation, which is really what LinkedIn is all about. Are you a marketing professional? Join marketing groups. Are you looking to engage with customers? Join groups that your customers are members of and participate in the discussions. Answer questions to show your knowledge. This is where visibility will be your ally, raise your LinkedIn presence, and get a few more people to know who you are and learn what you can do for them. For example, here’s a little tip I read from a LinkedIn expert that can send people to your Web site to learn more about your business:

when you leave a discussion comment, you can put your URL in and have it converted to a hyperlink. So, if you put your email signature in, like this:

Darcie Meihoff
Managing Director/PR, CMD – http://www.cmdagency.com

then it will make that a clickable link. Just having the link to click might get a few more people over to your website to learn about what you do. Be sure to ask the group manager if it is OK to do this first, as some might consider it advertising and ask you to leave the group. When in doubt, ask first.

If you don’t find groups that meet your needs, or engage with the right audience, start your own group. Take the initiative and invite your customers to join your group and participate in discussions that help their businesses. We started a CMD Agency Pros LinkedIn group for CMD employees, CMD customers and potential clients to talk about topics of interest, like social media, marketing, advertising and branding.

We want our customers to join our group and look at CMD as a resource that can answer questions and provide feedback. Imagine having an entire integrated marketing agency read your question. Someone is bound to have an answer, which helps you and establishes CMD as a reliable source. We invite you to join our LinkedIn group at CMD Agency Pros. Feel free to pose a question, supply an answer, or share a link to a relevant article that deals with today’s marketing climate.

That’s the beauty of LinkedIn – you’re part of the conversation.