Are You LinkedIn
Sep 16, 2010
As a professional, I find that LinkedIn is one of my most valued resources. If you’re not using this resource, you may want to reconsider. The benefits of this site are limitless, and for me, they include: · Profile Review: o If I’m meeting an individual who was referred to me, I’ve never seen them before. Unless the meeting is at their place of business, I’m going to need to get a sense of what they look like. If they are on LinkedIn, I can pull up their profile (with their picture) so I can spot them when they arrive for our meeting. o From a person’s profile, I can also learn important background about their company, their employee base, their education and their interests. It’s surprising the number of people who attended the same college that I did, are in the same groups that I have joined, or have worked at companies where I worked too, or where I knew someone. o I can also tell if we have friends in common. It’s such an easy ice breaker to ask a new contact how they know our shared connection. · Company Searches: o If you provide a B2B service like I do at B2B CFO®, you can readily search your contacts for potential clients. There is a toolbar on the upper right hand corner of the screen that you can change to Companies, type in a key word, and then click the magnifying glass. From there, you will get a tower down the left side of the screen where you can narrow your search by geography, company size, etc. o The best feature of this tool is that you can limit the search to 1st and 2nd degree contacts. If the search yields a company that you are interested in knowing more about, you have a clear path to reach out to your friend and ask for an introduction into that company. · Staying in touch: o We meet so many people in our professional lives that it’s difficult to stay in touch with everyone. Because LinkedIn allows for updates (similar to Facebook and Twitter), you can keep your network up to date on your activities. LinkedIn also provides members with update emails, so even the folks who aren’t active on the site get a weekly snapshot about their connections. What a concept! So what are you waiting for? Go get LinkedIn and let me know what you think.
