When Defining your social media marketing strategy it is important to have a gameplan. 
If you haven’t yet integrated LinkedIn marketing into your overall marketing strategy, here are a few facts that might get you interested:

-LinkedIn membership exceeds 130 million professionals.

-About one member joins LinkedIn at each passing second

-The Executives of all the Fortune 500 corporations are members of LinkedIn

While most social networks e.g. Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, were founded on the premise of entertainment, LinkedIn targeted the professionals from the very point of its inception.

Here are a few tips for effective LinkedIn marketing.

1. Build a Targeted Network First, and Then Start a Business Group - Your LinkedIn marketing strategy should focus on two important steps as follows:

i.          Build a network of prospects and customers. You should also consider inviting your employees to connect with your company on LinkedIn.  

ii.         Next, create a LinkedIn Group for your company or brand. This open up a lot more opportunities to market your company and extend your reach beyond that initial network. For instance, a group will make it possible to start discussion threads and share important company announcements as well as news with your contacts. You can even use your group to announce job opening in your company. 

2. Use Your LinkedIn Profile Effectively - Your LinkedIn profile is your most important marketing feature. It is what your potential connections will first see before making the decision to interact with you. So, what makes for a good LinkedIn profile?

I.          To start with, use your company website links in the profile and use relevant keywords in the anchor text. For instance, instead of “visit our blog here”, you should consider using something like “pet training blog”. 

II.        You should as well use relevant keywords in all profile descriptions and anywhere else possible e.g. in the experiences section.

III.       Lastly, you should also add your company logo or any other relevant image in your profile. This gives your profile a personal touch and separates you from the crowd.

3. Update Your LinkedIn Profile Regularly - Part of LinkedIn marketing is to engage your prospects and customers and the best way to do that is to continuously update your profile. Various online applications and tools e.g. Blog Link allows you to connect your company blog with your LinkedIn profile.  You can also manually update your profile while logged in to LinkedIn. 

4. Get the Word Out About Your LinkedIn Profile - The last but most important LinkedIn marketing step is to get your potential contacts know about your LinkedIn profile. To do that, you should take advantage of every marketing medium available to your company to reach out to potential contacts e.g. email signatures, newsletters, your blog, and business cards as well as any other materials sent out to your prospects and customers. And if you do a good job on optimizing your profile with relevant keywords, you might as well get some referrals from the search engines like Google. 
Need more help? Feel free to contact me today.! Do you have a social media strategy? Share your thoughts below.

I just finished a new interview with Ivor Kellock for his radio show your thoughts are appreciated.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/linkedlocalnetwork/2012/07/09/business-with-ivor--live-from-st-albans

First off anyone who doesn't know who Neil Patel is he is a serial entrepreneur and internet marketing genius. He is the founder or co-founder of several companies including, Quicksprout, Kissmetrics and Crazy Egg.

Here is why I think he flat out rocks.

1. Shining Example
He is an example that anyone can do it. Neil was never rich he grew up Middle class and decided entrepreneurship was in his blood.

2. He never gave up.
Crazy Egg was not profitable at first and Neil has his share of disappointment but he continued forward.
Determination is huge you have to persevere when things get tough with your business.

3. He is a marketing genius
Neil has consulted with many of the biggest fortune 500 companies out there you don't do that consistently unless your doing something right.

4. I have the utmost respect for him.
If you look at Neil's body of work you can't help but look up to him and respect him.

5. Great Personal Character
Read his blog posts at www.quicksprout.com or his quotes on his facebook page he is  one of the highest men I have had the honor of following. 

In summary Neil Patel is awesome go check out
 his blog and his facebook page I promise it is time well spent.