How to Maximize the New LinkedIn Share Button

The online world just got more social! Facebook and Twitter led the way making share buttons available for inclusion on blogs, websites and online content. By doing so and stacking up “likes” and “retweets” on almost every page on the Internet the popularity and business value of using Facebook and Twitter to saturate social networks has grown exponentially. In the last year a number of social sharing buttons have popped up, but noticeably missing has been LinkedIn.

As of this week, LinkedIn will now have share buttons available to professionals looking to share information with their network. By adding the LinkedIn button, (as seen on the right), content creators can invite online readers to share their article, press release, listing, or social profile with their LinkedIn network and more importantly their groups.

Distinct from Facebook and Twitter, LinkedIn features a unique way of sharing information, via opt-in groups. In groups tab in a LinkedIn account, users can search in the group directory for industries or topics of interest.

The power of the share button comes in when a real estate agent has new information to share with potential homebuyers. For example, if an agent just ran a market report about housing prices in their local city, and found that prices were rising by a notable percentage, he/she could write a short blog about it and post it to their blog. Now they have the option to add Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn share buttons for online readers to share with their networks, thus creating a more viral effect.

Once this blog is posted, the real estate agent can post a teaser fact about the local home pricing to catch viewers' eyes on their Facebook profile/ business page, Twitter stream, LinkedIn profile and also LinkedIn Groups.

LinkedIn Groups pose a more strategic way of targeting potential homebuyers and homesellers. There are several ways to target these groups.

Targeting LinkedIn Groups by Topics:

LinkedIn Groups are key to sharing a message. Users can search for and join common interest groups. Once a part of the group, members can post content and share resources with like-minded professionals. With the new LinkedIn share button, agents and brokers can not only drop links to their content and listings in groups they have joined, but invite online viewers to do the same. The share button is a great way to generate more LinkedIn "press."

Targeting LinkedIn Groups by Location:

Another key way for real estate agents to leverage the LinkedIn share button is to search the LinkedIn Group Directory to target specific geographic regions.

For example, if an agent has new information about FHA financing they could identify those that live in their neighborhood through a search and then join those groups so they could share information with this group of people. You could also talk about how they can invite their sphere to join them on their own LinkedIn group and then share the information there as well.

Inviting people to share your content can only boost your branding on social networks. This new share button for LinkedIn opens up great possibilities.

HubSpot posted an interesting article with more details on how to utilize this tool.

"Publishers can find instructions for how to add the share button on the publishers portion of the LinkedIn site. LinkedIn is offering three options to choose from: a vertical button with a share counter, a horizontal button with a share counter, and a horizontal button without a counter. To add a button to your website or blog all you need to do is choose a button style and copy and paste a few lines of code."

Their article goes on to say, "With all easily implemented options for sharing content such as Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Delicious, etc. it probably isn't going to be the ease of execution that determines how successful LinkedIn's share button is. At 85 million users and a new users joining every second the success of LinkedIn's share button is going to fall in the hands of its users. Since those connected on LinkedIn most likely share business interests, it is very likely that the LinkedIn share button becomes a standard for business-related content."

As the social sphere continues to expand and redefine the way we communicate and share resources, LinkedIn has made in my opinion a very strategic play by adding the share button. So visit LinkedIn today to try out your share button today.

To read the full HubSpot article, please click here.

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