Читать книгу The Social Media Advantage - Holly Berkley - Страница 11

LinkedIn provides an ideal way for you to find new employees, vendors and even open yourself up to new customers and projects. In today’s online world, more and more people in charge of hiring look to recommendations on LinkedIn before anything else. Of our survey of business professionals, 73% are actively using LinkedIn, and more than half are using it to recruit and to connect with vendors, partners or subconsultants.

“I put a lot of weight on referrals received via Twitter and LinkedIn,” admits Amy Good, vice president of finance/business manager of Lancaster County Timber Frames of Lititz, Pennsylvania. She uses LinkedIn frequently in her company’s search for employees, partners or vendors.

Making sure your personal LinkedIn profile is complete, up-to-date and you have quality reviews is a great way to help your profile show up in LinkedIn’s professional searches, which helps your target audiences find you.

The primary benefit of LinkedIn is the ability to connect with other people in your industry and for the opportunity to get introduced to their connections, thereby expanding your network of quality business contacts very quickly. Once your profile is up-to-date, LinkedIn will help you easily find your connections by content pulled from your profile, such as past employers and the schools you attended.

But adding a profile and connecting with others in your industry is only a minor part of LinkedIn. There is an extremely targeted, active question and answer community happening behind the scenes in the LinkedIn social network. Not engaging in these discussions is like showing up at a networking event and not talking to anyone, but just signing in at the registration table and maybe dropping a business card in the fish bowl in hopes someone might notice you and give you a call, but not attending any break-out sessions or social hours. You are a LinkedIn wallflower if you are passing up the opportunity to chime in on these discussions.

Only 20% of our survey respondents are using LinkedIn to demonstrate thought leadership or advance the intellectual brand of their company. Depending on your profession, there are likely plenty of active LinkedIn groups dedicated to your specific industry, that could use more expert voices. There is a search function at the top of your LinkedIn page where you can input keywords relevant to your work or research which professional organizations, groups or magazines the other key players in your industry belong to. Join as many as you can realistically keep up with. You’ll quickly find that these resources can provide an excellent way to show off your expertise to the right potential client or partner who is looking for your skills.

Most LinkedIn groups are created with a particular audience in mind. Often, the administrators will only approve new members that fit this demographic.

Can’t find an existing LinkedIn group that meets your goals? Start a new one. In Chapter 8, we’ll provide tips on how to build and nurture a social media community.