How to Use LinkedIn to Create Visibility, Credibility and Valuable RelationshipsPresented by Jeannette Kraar
CEO, Performance Management International LLC and South Florida Execunet Facilitator
Here’s the Resource of the night – makes the price of admittance to tonight’s meeting PRICELESS!
http://www.linkedintelligence.com/Core Function of LinkedIn
1. It is a business productivity tool specifically created for people to make business contacts.
2. Unlike other social networking sites, LinkedIn is not about group interaction. It is based on one-to-one interaction with a focus on building relationship between individuals, not necessarily with groups.
Type of LinkenIn Account1. The question is how often do you need to search and how many people do you need to reach?
2. Free Account - Up to 5 introductions at one time. They must be accepted, rejected or withdrawn before you can do more; To contact someone who is within three degrees—that’s a friend of a friend of a friend—you have to do it through introductions.
3. Premium account - You can send direct messages to people bypassing the introduction process.
Initial Setup to leverage the power of LinkedIn
1. Create a well-built profile
2. Get endorsements
3. Established your network and your relationships
Writing Your Profile1. Your resume is the starting point (as long as it’s well written)
2. Emphasize results – not responsibilities
3. Another consideration of LinkedIn, people are thinking not only about hiring you as an employee or consultant, or buying from you or whatever, but the very fact that they’re there is that they’re also using that means to get to know a little bit more about you as a person.
• What are your values? / What are your motivators?
• What motivates you on a day-to-day basis?
• Example of a profile that gets results: http://www.linkedin.com/in/ScottAllen.
• Why add a “Quick Facts” section for the search engine
i. Your name is considered part of the keywords, but it also looks throughout the rest of your profile. That said -- write your profile in the third person.
ii. Include a summary at the top to give more of a description of who you are, what you’re all about, what’s important to you and what you’re working on now. This is one of the places you can actually promote things using LinkendIn.
iii. Use common names/titles so people can search for the service/products you provide. No matter whether it’s for a job referral or a plumber, people want recommendations rather then an unknown/unproven resource. Consider this – one of the things that makes LinkedIn unique is the ability to search people. If you do a Google search on any key phrase, for the most part, you’re going to find articles and White Papers and websites. You’re not going to find people.
4. LinkedIn can also serve as a brochure. Once your information is in there, LinkedIn serves as an auto PDF and a temporary website for professionals or start-ups, all at no cost.”
Connecting On LinkedIn
1. There are two ways to connect on LinkedIn: Technically and “Really.” LinkedIn IS NOT about numbers - it’s about the quality of the connections.
a. Consider the “Threshold Test: How well does someone need to know you to act on your behalf? Simple question. If I ask you to loan me a dollar, you wouldn’t think anything of it. A hundred dollars, you start thinking, “Hmm. That’s a little weird.” If I started asking you to loan me $10,000, you’re going to want to see the business plan and my credit history.
b. If you’re asking people to make introductions, provide insider information, close deals, buy something, get an interview -- you’re not going to get that with someone who you just mutually agreed to exchange electronic links with. When you’re spending time pursuing 3,000, 5,000 or 10,000 connections versus spending time nurturing 500 to 1,000 of them, you get very different results.
2. An electronic link is NOT networking – it’s a database entry
3. Sample response to someone you don’t know who wants to network: “It’s most useful to me to use LinkedIn as a record of people I’ve actually had some professional interaction with. I’d love to get to know you. Drop me an email or give me a call, and let’s start a conversation and find out if we can be of service each other.”
LinkedIn “Codes of Behavior”1. It’s all about permission
2. The second thing is reciprocity – it’s about give and take. If you have given value – no matter if it is an article, answer to a question, referral, etc. others won't be resistant when you ask for something.
Getting Recommendations
ASK -- Make a gentle, polite request. This is a little subtlety, but just the difference in the wording between “could you please recommend me?” versus “if you're comfortable with it, would you please recommend me?” makes a difference. It’s the permission thing again.
LinkedIn’s Q/A Feature
1. You can answer questions to you sent from within your network, or you can browse categories to answer questions from the membership – however, you actually get more visibility answering questions for people that you know as they can be circulated to up to 200 people.
2. When the question closes, the person asking the question will be ask to select the best answer . The person who provided that answer can be “flagged” as best answer on their profile which provides a lot of credibility. Your network can see all the questions you’ve answered which can build validation and reputation.
Generating Leads With LinkedIn1. Focus on targeted networking. Determine very specifically who you want to reach - the companies, geography, titles, etc. and then network with as many people as possible within those specifications.
2. Figure out what it is that you have to offer them and how to approach them without “selling.”
a. Informational interview request
b. Introduction request – then start building rapport with them. It’s a whole systematic thing – learn more about this person and people just like them – what groups are they in, what blogs do they read, what issues are most important to them? This is how you build your “market research information.”
3. Use this information to craft your branding/advertising /approach. Just be very clear about what your ideal customer/employer, target looks like. Put it in terms of keywords that you can use to search for those people on LinkedIn.
4. After working this consistently over a period of time (this doesn’t happen over night) you’ll create an growth curve spike where all these people that you’ve been building these relationships with, all of a sudden, requests and business interest will start flowing to you without asking for it.
5. Consider this – When you do a promotional campaign on LinkedIn, no matter if your looking for a job or promoting your services, your message must be specific yet concise, it should require very little effort on the part of your network and your call to action should be directed at getting the people in your network to help you get the word out. Think about it. When you’re asking people to help you get the word out, then you're going to get people who will interview you, refer you, forward you and your message to a key contact. That’s ultimately what you're after.
6. The key here is that other methods are not as effective at getting that kind of action, and getting that kind of action from people who are interested in it. Because they want to support you and feel good about helping you accomplish things in your business or your career they’re willing to put the time and effort into helping you get the word out about it. First and foremost is that the best campaigns on LinkedIn are really business development. You’re trying to get at that second tier of connections, and get those people who are your first tier to help you spread the campaign.
Framing Your Message (using career transition as example)
• As you may know, I’m going through a transition in my career.
• I’m asking for some help with this shift (humbling yourself ) I’m at a point of need. I’ve made big life change and as my friend, I’m asking for some help in making this shift. That frames it to make it personal.
• Call to action: “If you would like to discuss ideas…” The call to action is highly personal vs visit my website or check out my bio.
• Establish your credibility – “being a fellow LinkedIn user…” reconnecting here, - “I bet you’ve wondered, like I have…” identifying with each other,….
Managing Your TimeDaily
• Check messages and “hot” topic questions
• Questions need to be answered as early as possible to when they’re posted to be able to provide the most relevance and value
Weekly
• Do targeted outreach - send five introduction requests a week. If you can get five introduction requests out a week and if you're doing this right (really targeted), 80 percent of them are going to be accepted, and people are going to talk to you.
• Convert these intros into short conversational meetings to begin building the relationship.
Monthly • Review and purge or follow up as needed. Drop them an email message, ask to reconnect and see what they’re up to. Refresh the relationship.
People don’t want to be used, but people want to be useful.
That thought, right there, is gold in your pocket.
Information for this article contributed by Scott Allen from his site Linked Intelligence. You can reach Scott at: scott@thevirtualhandshake.com. Linked Intelligence is the smart source for all things LinkedIn™, the most popular business-oriented social networking site with over 40 million users. Linked Intelligence is an independent publication and not affiliated in any way with LinkedIn Corporation.LinkedIn™ is a registered trademark of LinkedIn Corporation. Its use here in all contexts constitutes nominal use for the purposes of education, news reporting and commentary.
