From all of our conversations on our LinkedIn® Group and Company Page, Twitter®, and here on the blogs, we know that you’ve been patiently waiting for a LinkedIn app for your BlackBerry® smartphone. Today we’re excited to announce that the day has come! A free LinkedIn app for smartphones running BlackBerry OS 6 and 7 is now available for download; get it here.

With LinkedIn you can put your professional network at your fingertips. The new LinkedIn app for BlackBerry smartphones lets you access many of the LinkedIn features that you love from the desktop experience and stay connected while on the go. Read on for an overview of the features that are included in the app.

New Features

Navigation Screen

The app lets you easily access key areas of LinkedIn through the navigation screen, which includes access to an update feed, your profile, inbox and messages, and your professional network of connections. You can tap the LinkedIn logo at the top left corner of the app to get to the navigation screen at any time.

Profiles

The new LinkedIn app gives you access to a Personal Profile view of your profile or that of a connection. In this area you can view not only personal information such as name, headline, company, and location, but also professional experience, education, certifications, and recommendations. If you are like me, you’ll like to check out who’s viewed your profile – just like on the desktop version. This feature is located in the Profile tab within the app.

Inbox

LinkedIn messages are a great way to get in touch with new connections and to keep in touch with your existing network. Access your inbox from the LinkedIn app for BlackBerry smartphones to receive and respond to invitations and messages on the go. Information displayed for each message includes the name and profile image of the sender, a message subject, and the time that has passed since the message was received. Clicking on the message displays the full text. You can also accept or ignore invitations to connect from within your inbox.

Network

You can check out connections in your network and launch their profiles from the Network area. You also have the option to grow your network through a Connections Search or scan through ‘People you may know’ to find out who LinkedIn recommends you connect with.

Recent Updates

You will find under “Recent Updates”, a list of activity from your Connections, companies that you follow, and news from your network, which allows you to stay in-the-know by checking out Recent Activity, Likes/Comments on Updates, or by reading insightful articles on LinkedIn Today.

We hope that you’re as excited about this app launch as we are. Be sure to download the LinkedIn app for BlackBerry smartphones today to get the latest updates from contacts, access the info that you need, reach out to colleagues, and much more.

Of the Inbox, Updates or Network; which will you use the app to view most often and why? Share in the comments below.

Note: It may take up to 24 hours for the app to appear in BlackBerry® App World™. The LinkedIn app for BlackBerry smartphones requires BlackBerry OS 6 or higher, as well as a Wi-Fi connection or data plan in order to function properly. Learn more about regional availability and language preferences on the BlackBerry App World™ storefront.

Hi, I’m Dan Sloshberg, Regional Manager for Small Medium Business Marketing in Europe, Middle East and Africa. I work on helping to promote our BlackBerry® solutions for those who are looking to start or grow their business.

Following on from our last post on mobile social networking for SMBs, we’ve put together this great new video, showcasing some examples of how smart small business can use mobile social networking to connect and engage with their customers and find and attract new customers.

Starting or growing a business can be tough and a lot of hard work. Engaging on social networks from your smartphone or tablet is a powerful and efficient form of communicating and connecting with customers and prospects. If done right, not only can it be highly effective but is also a very low cost marketing strategy. See how you can use some simple social tactics to attract and keep more customers wherever your day takes you – and all from your BlackBerry smartphone.

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

Does your business use social networking to engage with customers? Share your tips and advice for using social networking on a smartphone or tablet in the comments below.

Why is social media important for SMBs?

Having a mobile phone is no longer just for making calls. Smartphones have brought about the ability to connect to the Internet from pretty much anywhere on the planet. This improved connectivity has driven a significant increase in social media use. An InSites Consulting study revealed that 56% of connected smartphone users log on to social networks daily and that 49% of Europeans follow a brand on social media. With more people online and engaging in social networks than ever before, this provides a great opportunity for businesses. With the ‘work anywhere’, flexible nature of small and growing businesses, a smartphone gives them a perfect opportunity to tap into and contribute to the conversations taking place online – and to engage as a means of raising awareness of their brand and developing potential new business opportunities.

Mobile social networking allows for instant engagement from anywhere as Erik Vermeulen, Keynote Speaker at the BlackBerry® Innovation Forum 2011 in South Africa, stated:

“7/10 SMBs already believe that Social Media is allowing them to get closer to their customers.”

Additionally, a 2011 Loudhouse study for Research In Motion® (RIM®) on European SMBs showed that growth and expansion remain priorities even in challenging times, with 69% of those surveyed looking to win new customers and partners. Nearly half of those surveyed also believed that a mobile phone was the most important sales tool an SMB had.

So what do these survey results mean for small and growing businesses?

Simply put, for SMBs to effectively position themselves in the wider market, they need to use mobile social networking to engage with customers and potential prospects at anytime, anywhere. Rather than being tied to a PC in an office, using a device like a BlackBerry smartphone allows an employee to stay mobile but remain connected to people and opportunities.

For businesses, engagement on social media is more than posting links to your website or blog. Effective engagement is about building a conversation with others, sharing insights and knowledge, and responding to questions someone might ask. People are increasingly using social media to discuss their experiences with brands, and so you might get vital feedback on your business or useful insights on the competition by ‘listening’ to these social conversations. You might even become aware of an issue or problem with your product or service, for example, so you can then put in place measures to avoid a potential crisis.

With so many different social networks and different streams of conversations happening all the time, how can you possibly keep track? Simple – the Social Feeds app on a BlackBerry smartphone conveniently brings content across various networks such as Twitter®, Facebook®, RSS feeds, and podcasts into one place. The Social Feeds app allows you to quickly see what’s going on without having to open several different apps on your BlackBerry smartphone. You can even perform Facebook or Twitter actions directly from the app.

Engagement is a key to SMB social media success, and we will be providing information on more handy tools, hints and tips over the coming weeks as the series continues.

Does your business use social networks to engage with customers? Which ones have been the most successful for you? Share your stories in the comments below.

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

With the world’s population continuing to blur the boundaries between business and consumer life through an ever-increasingly connected planet, social networking is now considered a global phenomenon. With analysts forecasting that social networking will be the top communications mechanism by 2015*, Research In Motion® (RIM®) experts at the BlackBerry® Innovation Forum 2011 events are discussing how social networking is making the shift from purely consumer use into the enterprise.

Businesses are adopting and using social networking at a phenomenal rate. As Erik Vermeulen, Keynote Speaker at the BlackBerry Innovation Forum in South Africa, stated:

“At this point, 7/10 SMB’s already believe that Social Media is allowing them to get closer to their customers. When we consider that businesses who use Social Media are twice as likely to see opportunities as their competitors who don’t, it’s best to become an early adopter than being an observer. Dive in, start engaging, and partner with experienced users to develop a strategy.”

Social Networking is rapidly becoming a vital business tool, with companies being able to use the mechanism to add benefits to almost every department of a business – from marketing and customer service to product development and human resources.

Social businesses, no matter what their size, need to communicate, ideally in near real time, across a network of clients, partners, and employees. With the use of mobile in enterprise continuing to increase, companies are looking at ways in which they can integrate social networking on smartphones and tablets within departments to help collaboration, deepen customer relationships, reach decisions quicker, and enable a more effective workforce overall.

The video above discusses how different companies are integrating mobility and in particular are using BlackBerry® Messenger (BBM™) to connect and collaborate for business use. BBM is a social networking platform with approximately 50 million active users and 5.2 million different BBM groups. Companies are benefiting greatly by using social networking to help boost collaboration and create virtual enterprise communities.

For highlights from our BlackBerry Innovation Forum 2011 in Johannesburg, check out the video. For more information on our BIF11 series in EMEA, follow us @BBEMEABusiness and join the conversation using #BIF11.

How has social networking impacted your business? Share in the comments.