Take a look at this article from Hubspot that will fill you in on 11 (yes, eleven) hidden tricks and tools that will help your business on Linkedin.

We already know that LinkedIn is more effective at generating leads than Facebook or Twitter. It also has over 100 million users, is a B2B marketing goldmine, and allows brands and individuals to build valuable industry connections that can lead to opportunities. Here, we examine 11 features of LinkedIn functionality that many marketers either overlook, or just plain didn’t know about, and explain how they can bolster your inbound marketing.

LinkedIn Answers. LinkedIn Answers is a forum for people to ask and answer questions. Aside from the obvious thought leadership credibility you can gain from providing clear answers to questions here, it is also a great opportunity to identify industry influencers with whom to network. LinkedIn Answers actually provides you with the ability to search through experts in the Top Experts section.

Group Statistics. Found under ‘More’ in the navigation of your LinkedIn group, Group Statistics gives you insights about group members, whether you own the group or not. Use the data available in Group Statistics to help refine the targeting of your advertising and marketing campaigns. For example, if you’re running ads on LinkedIn, take a look at the activity levels of groups you’re considering targeting in Group Statistics to ensure you’re only targeting ads at the most active LinkedIn users.

Subgroups. A subgroup is a space within your group where members can collaborate based on a function, project, topic, location, or anything else. As your group grows, you’ll find that maintaining relevancy for everyone becomes more difficult. use LinkedIn subgroups to filter out any content that isn’t relevant for the entire group and keep your members engaged.

Targeted Product Tabs. did you know you can do more than just blanket product information out there for the entire LinkedIn universe? You can actually create different variations of your product tab for each segment of your target audience. Create a default version of your page, then iterate on it so the most appropriately messaged page appears based on the characteristics of your target audience — like company size, job function, industry, seniority, and geographic location.

Linkedin Apps. Did you know there’s a LinkedIn Application Directory? You can enhance your profile and better collaborate with your network with many of these apps. Some of the better ones are SlieShare Presentations, Box.net, and Company Buzz.

Skills and Expertise. This tool is in beta, but lets you search for LinkedIn members, companies, and groups based on the skills and expertise they list. When you search for a skill, you can find the best people on LinkedIn to speak with related to that query, their locations, groups that are discussing the topic, and see the growth of that industry over time.

News Module. The News Module not only feeds mentions of your business to your LinkedIn company page, but it also shows news to those who have your name listed in their profile. That means news about you has a greater likelihood of showing up in someone else’s news feed.

Linkedin Events. This app automatically delivers personalized recommendations for events you should attend based on your industry, location, and what events your connections are attending. That means you can be where your customers, vendors, and industry influencers are going.

Linkedin Polls. Groups now have the ability to poll people, and it’s really, really easy to do. Just go to the group in which you want to publish a poll (it’s up to group managers to decide whether everyone can publish polls regardless of group membership), hit ‘Poll’, enter your question, and schedule for how long you’d like your poll to run. Conduct your own market research and collect data for content creation.

Company Status Update. Company pages now have the functionality (and have for several months) to post status updates, just like you can on personal profiles or your company Facebook page. Post content you’ve created, post questions to your page followers, and share other peoples’ content to get more followers, drive more traffic to your website, and generate leads.

Under Contacts in the main navigation, click on ‘My Connections,’ then ‘Export Connections’ to download your .CSV or .VCF file. You can also filter out certain people in the left navigation — like friends and family — that aren’t relevant to your business.

Source: Hubspot.