When you’re growing a business, you need to go where your clients are, says Christine Hueber, who provides advice to small businesses seeking better results for their social media marketing. As a longtime marketing expert, Hueber always has her eyes open for new ways to bring her business in front of a wider audience. Here’s how she used LinkedIn to raise awareness of her social marketing expertise, winning new clients in the process.

1. Small Business
Tips for growing your business using
LinkedIn Groups:
1) “When you’re running your own group,
moderate your posts,” Hueber says. “Then you
can make sure discussions stay on track and are
providing value to members.”
2) “Post content you’ve created, like blog posts or
articles, in your groups,” Hueber says. Not only
does this help showcase your knowledge, it can
help draw traffic to your profile or Company Page
on LinkedIn.
3) “Tone down the hard sell for your business,”
Hueber advises. Whether you’re sharing
information in your own group or other groups,
obvious shilling will be frowned upon by group
members. “If you share compelling content, it will
win you more attention than sending a message
that looks like spam,” she says.
4) “Share your group posts on other social media,”
Hueber says. For example, share LinkedIn
Group posts on Twitter to help bring new people
to the group.
5) “Stay in touch with group members with weekly
announcements,” she suggests. “When you run a
group, LinkedIn lets you send members a
message once a week – that’s the perfect
opportunity to offer up your thought leadership.”
When you’re growing a business, you need to go where your
clients are, says Christine Hueber, who provides advice to
small businesses seeking better results for their social media
marketing. As a longtime marketing expert, Hueber always
has her eyes open for new ways to bring her business in
front of a wider audience. Here’s how she used LinkedIn to
raise awareness of her social marketing expertise, winning
new clients in the process.
Putting social media to work for business
development
Hueber spent the early part of her career as a marketer for
companies like KPMG Peat Marwick, Citibank, and Charles
Schwab, before deciding to strike out on her own as a
marketing consultant. “I found great clients, but it was a lot
of work and involved a lot of traveling,” says Hueber, who’s
based in the San Francisco area. “It occurred to me that
social media could help me get the word out about my
expertise to a larger audience.”
Hueber discovered LinkedIn in 2006: “I decided to take the
plunge and create a profile,” she says. “As the economy
became more challenging, I started taking a closer look at
the social media platforms I was using, like LinkedIn, to see
if I could market my business in a more strategic way.”
Member Success Story
Winning new clients with
LinkedIn Groups

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By taking part in group discussions, and by posting links to
useful articles or blog posts she’s created, Hueber can
expose potential clients to her expertise and services. “If
group members read my articles, they’ll often be interested
enough to go to my website,” she says.
As Hueber keeps up a steady stream of discussions and
valuable information-sharing on LinkedIn, she’s found that
new clients come to her – which means she doesn’t need to
do as much outbound marketing as she did when she started
her business. Says Hueber, “It’s magical – out of the millions
of LinkedIn members, the right ones find me in groups,
schedule a consultation with me, and become clients.”
Hueber’s typical clients, she says, are entrepreneurs – and
since they often tend to embrace LinkedIn, she knew her
desired audience was there. Getting their attention, however,
was the challenge. “As I spent time on LinkedIn and watched
what other people were doing to increase the visibility of
their businesses, I saw what they had in common – they often
had their own LinkedIn Groups, or they were active in other
groups,” Hueber says.
Building “mini-communities” with
LinkedIn Groups
Hueber started her own group, Social Media and Marketing
Results, on using social media to energize sales. “To me,
creating my own mini-community with a group was the best
way to position myself as a thought leader,” Hueber says. “It
was a smart way to build up my business in an attention-
getting but low-key way.”
Hueber invited her LinkedIn contacts to join her group, and
began engaging group members by starting up discussions
and answering group member questions. “When you make
your group a resource for information, people will share what
they’ve learned with their connections,” Hueber says. “So it’s
important that you keep the conversations going – it means
more people will learn about your group and your expertise.”
As Hueber got her own LinkedIn group up and running, she
also joined other groups related to marketing, social media,
and small business. “I join the groups where my ideal
clients are, like small business owners and entrepreneurs,”
Hueber says.
“Taking part in group discussions on LinkedIn helps you
quickly establish yourself as an expert and a trusted
partner to other professionals. It’s an effective way to
get new business without resorting to a hard sell.”
Christine Hueber
Marketing Expert
ChristineHueber.com Marketing