Using LinkedIn to Promote Your Book

With a name like Kelly Schuknecht, I’m pretty easy to find online; although, believe it or not, there are 2 or 3 of us that I’m aware of. A few years ago I could Google my name and find a few search results, 5 to 10 at the most; including race results (if you could call it a race) for a 5K event two.

Now, I’m pretty Google-able. Searching for my name in quotes provides nearly 9,000 search results as of today. The top three results in that search link to my profiles on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. As an author, what will potential readers find when Googling your name?

LinkedIn is a professional networking website with over 90 million members. Having a LinkedIn profile can help boost your search engine rankings. Enough people are familiar with LinkedIn, particularly in professional communities, that some will view your LinkedIn profile to find out more about you and verify your credentials. For that reason, if you have a LinkedIn profile, it is important to make sure it is up-to-date and polished at all times.

If you don’t have a LinkedIn profile yet, create one and utilize these tools to enhance your profile, promote your book and build your personal brand:

• Add your published book to your profile. Click to Edit Profile. Under the general information section, there is a section highlighted in yellow that asks “Are you published?” Click to “Add sections.” Follow the prompts to add your book.
• Install the Reading List by Amazon application and add your book. Click to Edit Profile. Towards the middle of the page, click to “Add an application.” Find the Reading List by Amazon application and select it. Click to “Update your list” and then search by the title or ISBN of the book(s) you want to add.

Later we will discuss how to connect your LinkedIn profile with your blog and Twitter profile.