Over the next two years, I kept my profile updated, in the same way as I kept my conventional CV up-to-date, and added other information in odd moments of spare time. It was only when I started my own business, in 2011, that I came back to LinkedIn in order to see what potential it had to further my new status.
I
was impressed. The first feature to attract my attention was Groups. I
immediately saw that being able to effectively set up your own specific interest
forums and news groups was an ideal way of contacting like-minded people and
fellow professionals. (Who were conveniently already connected and searchable,
requiring only an invitation.) It had also clearly become a great tool for researching and distributing
information, including marketing material.
Since
that time, the tools and features available on LinkedIn have become still more
powerful and useful (including the facility to link to external tools and
applications, in a similar way to Facebook) and the extent to which I employ
these facilities has only grown. However, I have realised that not everyone
utilises this capability as much as me. Indeed some people don't see much
benefit in being registered on LinkedIn at all. It is for this reason, as well
as to clarify my own thinking on the topic, that I have decided to create a
point-by-point argument for why anyone who is serious about business networking
should be on LinkedIn.
Many
of your standard business functions can be usefully organised through LinkedIn:
·
Customer Relations Management. Your first-degree Connections allow you to see all
the information that person has entered about themselves. As well as standard
identity and employment details, this will usually contain additional
information such as prior employment, recommendations (both for and by), group memberships, website and social media.
You will be able to see a lesser, but still considerable, amount of detail
about your second-degree connections but virtually nothing about those of the
third degree, other than their identity and some possibilities as to people who
might know someone, who knows someone, as it were. This situation can be improved using the methods below.
·
Leads Generation. Of course the true beauty of LinkedIn is that it allows you to convert
second-degree connections into primary leads by contacting them on the site.
You can do this in a number of ways, for example through shared first-degree
connections, groups or by knowing their preferred email address. When and if the contactee acknowledges the shared connection, you improve the degree of all of their connections to you, by one, and vice versa. So now all of their first-degree
connections are at worst second-degree connections of yours and are now
contactable in the same way.
·
Marketing.
Groups are a particularly powerful LinkedIn tool for a variety of
business-related purposes. Aside for each post having a section specifically
for promotions, you can indirectly market yourself or your organisations
through added value in various forms. For example, you can publish articles and
whitepapers, publicise events, start discussions, offer mentoring or
question-and-answer services or otherwise provide free content that can relate
back to your business. This can be done through existing groups (subject to the
permissions of the administrators) or those you set up yourself.
·
Sales. While
LinkedIn is not and should not be used as a direct sales channel, methods like
the above are fair game. In addition to this, making an initial contact with
someone and messaging through the site will both count as 'soft sales touches'
for the purposes of eventually getting that contract signed.
·
Research. One
of the primary purposes that members use LinkedIn for is to research potential
leads and contacts. However it can be used for much more than just this. Again,
groups become invaluable here. Because many groups are set-up for specialised
interests, you can usually find a group whose purpose is to discuss pretty much
any topic in which you are interested. Not only that but, because the Groups
section is essentially a portal site for setting up forums, even if you can't
find the information you want already listed, you can post up a question and
quite possibly receive an answer to it within hours or days. Naturally, as LinkedIn
is specifically designed to be used by professionals, in all likelihood the
answer will be given by someone who is well-versed in that particular subject.
·
Creating Credibility. As a professional, it has always been useful to
have credible positive opinions from one or several people, eg. employers,
clients or peer or professional groups. What hasn't always been easy is
checking those references. LinkedIn has become the de facto reference point for
potential clients and employers to ensure that their contacts' claims of quality
are, in fact, based on genuine third-party statements. As it is online, these
statements can easily be linked to from your own or other internet sites.
·
Search Engine Optimisation. As has already been mentioned, LinkedIn has over 200,000,000
members, as well as significant numbers browsing open profiles and groups. Many
people link to various sections of LinkedIn and it links to thousands of pages, both
from the core site and through user-generated content. In short, it is a huge
site and linking from it to your own page, in a purpose-designed manner,
bestows significant benefits in terms of being found by search engines. It is
also set up to facilitate this as SEO benefits are a deliberate added-value
service it provides for its members.
·
Establish a Social Media Presence. You don't have to think of it this way but it helps
if you recognise that LinkedIn is a social media platform. You connect, you
store personal details, you choose who that information is available to, you
send messages and you create content within the site. These are the most
important attributes of social media. The primary difference between LinkedIn and (other) social media is not one of
function but rather of psychology. It is aimed at professionals. The initial
content you provide are your professional details. You don't 'friend' someone,
you connect with them. You don't 'like' a page, you recommend a person. If you dislike the informality or requirements of
other social media, LinkedIn may be the ideal platform for you to engage with
your potential online client base. With these points in mind, it may even
acclimatise you to the idea of social media in general and eventually allow you
to expand your presence onto other sites.
·
Enhance Your Existing Social Media Presence. LinkedIn groups are a great source of connections
to online material, for example; whitepapers, statistics, special offers,
events, articles, advice and the like. Much of the material is of questionable
value but that creates an opportunity. Because LinkedIn attracts a different
audience to other social media, most of its content is aimed specifically at
that audience. This means that you can filter out the material that you think
will be of benefit to your audience
and re-distribute it via your other online channels. This process is called 'curating'
and it is a useful starting or supplementary strategy to producing your own
online content.
It is my opinion that LinkedIn is not only a great internet site but an essential tool for any modern business or professional organisation to function today. I sincerely hope that this belief, as well as the above points, will influence many more people to get on it, start connecting and realise the benefit that LinkedIn can give to them.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/edinburghwebdeveloper
Download the Linking Together - LinkedIn is for Everyone with any Business Interest article as a printable PDF file.
