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LinkedIn is becoming a valuable connecting site for business owners.  You can build a list of contacts, participate in group discussions that are relevant to your industry, and find potential joint venture partners there.  But are you using any of LinkedIn’s advanced applications?  By using them you can leverage your time to get more leads, traffic, product sales, brand awareness, ticket sales, investors, sponsors, consulting engagements and more.

Here are a few to consider:

WordPress app

This application links to your blog so all of your blog posts are seen on your profile page.  When LinkedIn visitors want to check you out, they can see posts you have made and will more likely go check out your blog to find out more about you.

Twitter app
When you use this app to link to your tweets, your messages have less chance of getting lost in the feed on LinkedIn, like they do on Twitter.  Another benefit is that the tweets are threaded conversations similar to Facebook so you can continue the dialogue for days after. If you’re active on Twitter, you will look like you’re interacting on LinkedIn and continuing to stay on top of the minds of your LinkedIn connections even if you don’t use LinkedIn very often.

SlideShare
With this app you can showcase photos, or slide presentations.  It also includes the capability to upload videos and audios.  Using this app is an excellent way for you to feature your expertise and your offerings.

The Reading List by Amazon
So many bloggers are becoming authors. Here is a great place to list books you have written that many authors aren’t taking advantage of.  You can also list books that you recommend. This will give visitors a better sense about your interests and your ongoing education.

LinkedIn Events app
Here is where you can create an event that will go out to all of your contacts.  Some of the features of this app are that you can see how many people have RSVP’d for your event, and who’s interested. You can also see a picture of those who are attending or interested, their industry, how you’re connected to them, what company they work for and more.  The events can be live, regional, or virtual.

Creative Portfolio Display
This is a professional way to showcase your creative work in your LinkedIn Profile. You can create an unlimited number of multimedia projects and can select which projects are displayed on your LinkedIn profile.

Box.net
You can upload documents from your hard-drive and share them with your contacts, friends, or colleagues.  Then anyone who visits your profile can download your documents.  You can also create folders to organize your documents by project, and invite others to contribute documents to a shared folder.

Polls
This app allows you to collect actionable data from your connections and the professional audience on LinkedIn. You can use it to easily find answers to your business and market research questions.

These are just a few of the many advanced applications LinkedIn has available. Using them will give you an edge in your marketing efforts. You can add any of these applications to your LinkedIn profile page as well as see the whole list of other applications that are available, by going to the “More” tab at the tip of any LinkedIn page, and clicking on “Get more applications.”  I hope this will motivate you to take advantage of these amazing small business marketing solutions that LinkedIn has to offer small business owners.

Related posts:

1. Why Use LinkedIn to Increase Your Sales?