Читать книгу Windmill Networking: Understanding, Leveraging & Maximizing LinkedIn - Neal Schaffer - Страница 11

You now have some key background information about social networking and what LinkedIn can potentially do for you. It is time to ask yourself what you want to achieve using LinkedIn.

This is by far the most common question that I reply with when someone reaches out to me with any sort of LinkedIn question. If you are still asking yourself why you should be on LinkedIn, I hope the previous chapter answered that question for you. If you are currently a LinkedIn member but don’t know where to go from here, I also hope the previous chapter gave you a taste of what is possible. If you are already a LinkedIn user who knows your objective, you are ahead of the game and will be able to quickly implement the strategies I outline in this book.

Many LinkedIn users fall into the following categories. I hope seeing these categories will give you some new ideas for creating your own objective:

Am I on LinkedIn? What is My Password Again?

Many people joined LinkedIn after receiving an invitation, and that’s it. They signed up, accepted the one invitation (or maybe a few invitations from friends) and put it aside. If this is you, I hope the preceding chapter has given you more ideas as to what your objective should be and how you can utilize this book.

Clueless!

These are people that have been on LinkedIn, connected with their friends when requested, but haven’t done anything else with it. They want to do something on LinkedIn after hearing a lot about it, but really don’t know how to utilize it. If you are one of the clueless, no need to despair! There are a lot of people in this category; you will find great value in this book once you decide on your objective and pursue it!

Just Checking It Out

There are a number of social networking sites out there, and it seems that every time one of your connections joins them, you get an invitation to join their network. Every social network wants to naturally extend their reach, so there is often a default “send an invitation to everyone in your address book” option that seems harmless and is often utilized. A lot of people from other social networking sites (Facebook and Twitter come to mind) may sign up for LinkedIn just to check it out. Especially if you are in college or have recently graduated, everyone is saying you need to be on LinkedIn. So, you are checking it out! I believe that people in this category are either early adopters of technology or are already familiar with the concepts of social networking sites. That being said, LinkedIn is unique in its demographic and functionalities (as well as in its limitations), so I hope after you create your LinkedIn Objective (as opposed to an objective which may be different for other social networking sites) that you will be able to fully understand and maximize your presence on the site.

Classmates.com Extension

Many executives I have met see LinkedIn as merely an extension of Classmates.com. To some extent, this is a very valid objective for using LinkedIn—to get back in touch with old colleagues. After all, that first invitation to join LinkedIn should have come from an old friend or colleague, right? As the name “classmates” entails, you can only find old friends with whom you went to school. What if you want to get in touch with ex-colleagues? LinkedIn is definitely the place to make this happen; reconnecting with past co-workers should, without a doubt, be part of your LinkedIn Objective. LinkedIn can offer this in that your basic profile is composed of your work and education history. For each company or college that you enter, you also have the option of to enter which years you worked or studied there. Combining this with the rich database and search functionality that LinkedIn provides allows you to quickly and easily find ex-colleagues. The more information you enter on your profile, the higher the likelihood you will find people. Two words of caution here: 1) you can only find people if they have properly filled out their entire profile (a lot of people don’t do this) and 2) although there is a standard drop-down for colleges and universities, this doesn’t exist for high school names, so it may be more difficult to find someone pre-college (which is where Classmates.com’s strength lies).

Recruiter

With millions of people putting their company names, years worked, past titles, and detailed descriptions at companies they have or are presently working for, you can imagine that, as more people join LinkedIn, it becomes a huge database of talent! Combined with the rich functionality that allows you to pinpoint searches by each of the fields that are entered, you can imagine the goldmine of information that LinkedIn provides to the world’s recruiters and headhunters. Rather than cold calling the competitor asking for “the VP of anything,” that person more than likely already has a profile on LinkedIn! Through sending an invitation, sending an InMail, requesting an introduction from a common connection, or joining the same Group, that recruiter can now contact anyone they wish without cold calling. You can now see why LinkedIn is the only tool that a recruiter may ever need, and also why there are so many recruiters on LinkedIn. For recruiters their LinkedIn Objective is very clear—to log on and start searching for qualified job candidates!

Job Seeker

It’s no wonder how LinkedIn grew with more and more professionals reaching out to ex-colleagues and recruiters, amassing a database of contacts. Just as you can google someone and find information about them, LinkedIn was already being used for finding people without you knowing it. So why use LinkedIn if you are looking for a job? To expose yourself to the incredible number of recruiters who are currently active users! Be found!

Sales & Marketing / Small Business Owner

If you are in sales & marketing, the ability to reach 40 million potential customers is an exciting prospect. But there is more to LinkedIn than just an audience to sell to; this is a professional audience that doesn’t necessarily want to be sold to. LinkedIn respects the privacy concerns of its professional members and has publicly stated spamming will not be tolerated; in fact, LinkedIn set up a special email address (abuse@linkedin.com) to report those who are abusing the site. So while you can freely tweet away on Twitter or have a great deal of freedom on Facebook, you need to be aware that LinkedIn is a different beast. That is not to say that LinkedIn cannot be used for sales and marketing; it simply has to be done carefully, following the proper protocol.

Professional Networking

With all of the professionals who are already on LinkedIn, it makes sense that LinkedIn is the perfect platform to find and network with other professionals. If you are looking to build up your Trusted Network of Advisors, look no further than LinkedIn’s searchable databases, specialized Groups, and a comprehensive Q&A forum!

Windmill Networking

After becoming more familiar with LinkedIn, many will find that the larger the network they have, the easier it will be to reach their objective. Without knowing how LinkedIn really works, it is difficult to see how this can be done. Even when I received my first invitation from someone I did not know, I felt a little violated; however, as you start to communicate with others on LinkedIn, through Group Discussions or through answering questions, you will undoubtedly find yourself starting to connect with people who you may have never physically met before. There are some who will still stick to their original physical network, saying that quality is more important than quantity. This is a debate in which there are pros and cons for both approaches. If you understand the concept of a virtual network that resides next to or on top of your physical network, you will see the advantages of Windmill Networking. You will find yourself connecting with people you may not have met who can help you reach your personal and career objectives. Remember: Your network is still your network; a virtual connection on LinkedIn simply directly links your two profiles.

Although Windmill Networking implies you are an open networker, there is one thing I would like to point out: this book is not merely about open networking. Open networking is a unique type of LinkedIn activity. LinkedIn specifically warns you against connecting with people you do not know. On the other hand, LinkedIn also encourages you to increase your connections. The official LinkedIn blog by Guy Kawasaki urges you to increase your connections to gain visibility. The jury is out on the subject. I suggest you do what you feel comfortable with, as long as it moves you closer to meeting your pre-established objective. This book will include warnings for certain activities that may draw the attention of LinkedIn, so please read carefully. At the same time, please also know that LinkedIn is constantly changing, so the situation could change, for the better or worse, at any time.

Just remember, if you ever feel lost along your LinkedIn journey, re-visit your original LinkedIn Objective. Make sure your activities are consistent with what you originally planned to achieve. LinkedIn, like the Internet in general, can eat up a lot of your time if you are not careful and focused.