I went to a local workshop for coaches on Social Media and Marketing and noticed that many newer, and even established, life coaches are having trouble with Social Media and its relevance for their coaching practice, and ultimately their bottom line.

Some coaches particularly asked about Twitter and LinkedIn and why one should even consider using it. Today I’m going to briefly look at why a life coach could benefit from participating on LinkedIn.

The first thing to consider is the overall Social Media and Business Strategy. Unfortunately, we can’t just dive into a Social Network and expect great results, we need to deliberately plan it. Why are we using LinkedIn and does it actually fit into our business model? Very important questions.

Research is always a good start. Stroll around in LinkedIn.com and look who’s around. What kind of people do you see on the forums, what kind of people do you see in the profiles? Do they fit into your target market? How about your colleagues, are they on LinkedIn?

If none of them is on LinkedIn, this could either indicate that coaches like you don’t need to be on this social network or maybe coaches are still a bit hesitant about using Social Media in general. This doesn’t help you, of course. So scroll through LinkedIn’s groups and see what kind of groups are available and what kind of questions are posted on the forums. Is there something that catches your eye? Are there interest groups dealing with coaching? Are there groups that may have the answer to some of your business questions, such as Internet marketing or Social Media questions? It may be a good idea to join those and watch the questions and answers and learn more about online marketing.

Another aspect to consider is the exposure from simply having a LinkedIn account and profile for you and your business: it definitely helps you to get found online if someone types in your name into the search engines. Social Media networks rank extremely high in search engines and it is beneficial for you to have a presence online.

LinkedIn is a bit different to Facebook and Twitter. The audience is more “professional”, that means you will find lots of professionals and even corporate companies on it. This can be a good thing as many life, business, leadership, life balance, and career coaches target this segment of the market. Many coaches deal with people who are employed or who are executives in a company. So you are in the right place to attract ideal clients for your coaching services.

If you join groups where these people hang out you have one foot in the door. Look at the groups these professionals would be interested in, such as business, leadership, marketing, etc. Try to post meaningful messages, helpful tips and ask good questions in these groups to stand out from the crowd. You’d be surprised how easy it is to get noticed with helpful, informative posts on the right messageboards! But beware of spamming and advertising your services. A great way around this is to have your profile well written, fully filled out and a signature created so that each post shows who you are and what you do, for example: “Linda Doyle, Career Coach, website address.”

Be aware that a good(!) photo is highly important. Don’t make the mistake and download a casual holiday photo, one with friends around you or in too casual wear. Many photographers take a nice headshot of you for little money, make use of this.

Summing up, yes, LinkedIn can be a great Social network for a coach, especially for those coaches who deal with professionals. You are doing it to find out more about your target audience, read their questions, see their troubles and get them to know, like and trust you through helpful and informative participation.