LinkedIn Success Story: Diana Ennen, Virtual Word Publishing

LinkedIn works when you have a strategy. Here, Diana Ennen of Virtual Word Publishing shares how she uses LinkedIn to gain exposure for events and press releases.

“As I specialize in PR and marketing, one of my main goals is always to leverage my marketing efforts and get more out of all I do for myself and clients.  One way I am able to successfully do that is by utilizing the power of LinkedIn.  Not only does it allow me to connect more with my targeted audience, but also to get more exposure for the articles, press releases, tips and media mentions we get.   And most recently another big benefit discovered was being able to successfully promote events we are hosting.

One example of this is the 12 Days of Christmas, Holiday Networking Extravaganza we held this year.   This was a 12-day event and each day one to two experts would provide interviews as well as giveaways and prizes.  It was a huge success and one of the success factors I believe was that we were able to promote it so much on social networks including Linkedin.

Not only did it give more exposure for us, but each of the experts were able to easily share when their interview would run and talk more about their business and giveaways.  I believe it provided more traction for all.  Now this was a holiday event, but the same principles could apply for any event you host.  The key to our success was to have as much set up in advance as we could and to connect with the experts in advance as well.  Therefore, the day their interview aired, it was easy for them to share.  Advance planning was crucial.

Another area that I especially love is the opportunity to get more exposure with our articles.  When I do article marketing for myself and clients, I not only send the articles out to the top article databases and create pitches to send out to targeted databases, but also I add the articles to our blogs, websites, and so forth. That definitely helps get more traffic. But what takes it up even a notch more is when we also post these articles on our LinkedIn updates, in groups, etc. It reinforces our expertise and also provides a great opportunity to get our LinkedIn followers back to our website or blog.

I also post PR tips and Virtual Assistant Tips.  I highly recommend this as well.  One of the ways I know that it’s working is after I post a tip, I take note of the inquiries received or the newsletter signups or requests for connections on LinkedIn.  By doing this, you can tell if the topic is of interest and if it is, you will want to post more of those tips.  One of my latest examples is I often post tips on how to write press releases. This has resulted in several businesses contacting me to write a press release for them.  How do I know it’s from this?  Easy, they message me through Linkedin.  (I love when it works!)

I highly recommend businesses take advantage of all that Linkedin has to offer.  Remember it’s important to give as well as receive.  Be active and engage and let others see your personality and your willingness to help them as well.”

Diana, thanks so much for sharing! I especially like the viral nature of the event promotion when all the contributors can share the content on LinkedIn and other social media outlets. I couldn’t agree more that advance planning is key. When all the pieces work together, it’s like magic!

We’d love to hear from others on how they are using LinkedIn in their business. Connect with us here or on LinkedIn.