In February of this year, The Wall Street Journal described LinkedIn as “the ugly duckling of social media.” This is true in many ways, but it’s important to realize that the ugly duckling eventually grew up to be far better than its peers. One of LinkedIn’s greatest successes is within human resources, where the site has become one of today’s biggest sources for job candidates, career pages and job ads. But what use is LinkedIn for marketing purposes? What benefits does the social aspect of this specific media site offer to the reverse mortgage industry?

The ideal use of LinkedIn within the mortgage industry is for strategy, not profit. Putting your face online next to a request for how to actively generate the best leads does nothing good for

your reputation. Instead, it’s all about connections and how you work them. The more active employees a company has on LinkedIn, the stronger its presence will be, the greater its network of contacts will be and the larger the company’s potential to be seen as an industry expert becomes. This yields trust and attention, and both of those things contribute mightily to sales.

Management must be involved in getting employees registered on LinkedIn. They should update their profiles regularly and participate in discussions and groups. They’re management for a number of reasons, primarily because they’re intelligent and trusted to do a good job. These are the best people to showcase, as they will put your company’s best foot forward.

LinkedIn is an entirely different beast than Twitter or Facebook, but in the end, the game is still the same; it’s all about combining your marketing efforts with positive feedback from your custumers to encourage potential clients to engage with you. Following these easy steps is a great way to begin to garner the momentum you need to grow your reverse mortgage business.

Easy Steps to Start:

Step one
Have your employees register for LinkedIn accounts and link with your company. Their professional contacts will be the start of your company’s fan base, much like Twitter. They don’t need to “like” your company’s page in order to indicate their affiliation. It’s the association of the contact’s name with your company’s name that will grow your company’s popularity and online efficacy.

Step two
Join groups. Groups are one of the best ways to expose your company to outsiders. Encourage employees to join groups related to your industry. Have a few designated employees contribute to discussions by sharing, posting links, answering questions and otherwise participating in conversations. Also, be sure to launch a group page for your own company and encourage employees to join.

Step three
Display industry talent. When employees register, be sure that their profiles showcase any industry talents, specialties and certifications that they have. The more employees a company has on LinkedIn, the merrier, but the smart and Internet-savvy employees are the ones whom you want to invest the most energy into showcasing. If that means working 25 to 35 minutes of social networking into their workday tasks, so be it.

Step four
List services that your company offers. Companies need an overview tab and a services tab where they can list all of the products and services that they provide. This is how former clients can recommend a particular service and enhance your company’s reputation. Nothing matters more to potential consumers than the opinions of their peers, especially their immediate contacts. Collecting positive feedback for your services in one place showcases this to maximum effect. Don’t be afraid to ask those who give you positive feedback to post it on your company’s LinkedIn page.