Linked In: Key Component of a Social Media Strategy

LinkedIn: Active Business Networking Tool

LinkedIn: Active Business Networking Tool November 17, 2009

Catherine Sherwood:Social Media Consultant with 20+ years of marketing and product strategy experience. Serving US & Canada.

Presented By: Presentation Agenda:

What is a Social Media Ecosystem?

Creating a profile

Choosing from ALL available features

Using LinkedIn Applications

Getting actively involved

Understanding your Network Statistics

Building a network

Power searching by companies

Mining 2nd degree connections

Asking for introductions

Managing contacts

Twitter: Social Media Prospecting Tool

Look, Listen, and then Talk:

LinkedIn is just one part of your Social Media Ecosystem, but you will find many of your customers, prospects, employees, partners – and your competition – there.

A good Social Media Assessment will let you know where and how to get engaged.

Twitter: Social Media Prospecting Tool

Engage All Departments in a Social Media Strategy:

Create multiple touch points with your customers, partners and prospects

Many employees are already active in the social media; others can be trained

Create policies / escalation procedures to maximize success and avoid problems


The Power of LinkedIn:

LinkedIn has 50M +members in over 200 countries and territories worldwide

About half of the members are from outside the U.S.

A new member joins LinkedIn approximately every second

Executives from all Fortune 500 companies are LinkedIn members

Source: LinkedIn, November 4, 2009


Exponential Networking Capabilities:

If Willie Loman could have

turned 189 relationships into 57,500+ connections,

his son would have been

proud of him.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B00005NVGI.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg&imgrefurl=http://yawp3.blogspot.com/2009_03_01_archive.html&usg=__TfZCZeLcxue90ooWufpEAx7Z7OQ=&h=475&w=319&sz=35&hl=en&start=6&sig2=8BxLJVBt2-4ngCx-fclg9w&tbnid=Y4HhICSodLfTvM:&tbnh=129&tbnw=87&prev=/images?q=willie+loman&gbv=2&hl=en&ei=X6nvSuCpIo3UswPQn6z_BQ


First things first…

1. Fully optimize profiles 2. Build a network

3. Leverage your network

Image adapted from Intersection Marketing’s Visual Marketing collection


LinkedIn Profile:

Aziz has over 500+ connections and

is a strong networker based on his

many years in business development

His past contacts, as well as is

industry areas of expertise, are critical

to his success


LinkedIn Profile:

Summary

– Strong, resume-style overview of

capabilities

Specialties

– Shows areas of expertise

Experience

Education


LinkedIn Profile:

Recommendations

– Aziz’s 21 recommendations show

that he is trusted and admired


LinkedIn Profile:

Groups

– Aziz is a member of

25 industry and

networking groups


LinkedIn Profile:

Barbara is a master networker and

advertises that in the top section of her

profile

She uses every part of LinkedIn to her

advantage.


LinkedIn Profile:

Barbara got creative with her

Education section, really spelling out

the value of her Social Media

Academy training.

Create a simple descriptions about company-sponsored training programs (both internal and outsourced) and urge employees to add the information to the Education / Additional Note section of their LinkedIn Profiles


LinkedIn Profile | Groups:

Not only is Barbara a member of 44

groups, she has founded her own group

on LinkedIn

Social Media Caffe = 233 members

Create groups of relevance to your customers and have your employees join:– 38,000+ English-speaking corporate groups– ~105,000 English-speaking professional groups

Have your employees join groups relevant to them:– 391,000+ English-speaking groups in total– 72,000+ English-speaking corporate or school groups


LinkedIn Profile | Applications:

Barbara invites people to events

that she has organized AND lets

other know about events she is

attending.

Have employees invite contacts to company events and webinars

Have employees let their contacts know which events (trade shows, conferences, etc.) they will be attending



Barbara takes advantage of the

ability to integrate her SlideShare

presentations into her LinkedIn

Profile.

Ask employees to create free SlideShare accounts and create approved company presentations that they can post

…and create a company SlideShare and put a link to your presentations on your website.



Steve Gasser has included his latest

blog posts in his LinkedIn Profile

Company thought leaders can blog and integrate their posts in their LinkedIn Profile



My friend – Stewart Alsop – is a

venture capitalist and a road warrior and

he likes to let people know when and

where he is travelling.

Employees who are in sales or travel to work with partners can let their connections know when trips are planned. (Stewart might get a potential investor to contact him and ask him to stop by when he is in Washington DC.)



Trevor Loy – another VC – provides

thought leadership so book

recommendations fit in with his profile.

Book recommendations can be tricky. However, if an employee is a thought leader or a subject-matter expert, book recommendations can be a nice gesture.



LinkedIn has a Polls application that lets you ask a series of questions to your connections.

Polls could be a nice touch (and useful) for product managers



This could be a good tool for companies. Can be used to build a relationship with your brand or to softly introduce your product or services.

You can also target a specific demographic or “…all US LinkedIn Members” – for a fee.

Can limit number of responses to conserve costs.


LinkedIn | Building a Network:

Join and participate actively in

GROUPS

Check out the ANSWERS section

and help out other LinkedIn

members

RECOMMEND former co-workers

and business colleagues.

Use UPDATES to give information,

not just promote.


LinkedIn | Building a Network | Network Statistics:

Second-degree connections provide a powerful link for sales & business development.

On average, each of my 189 connections is worth 305 potential introductions!

My connections are doing the work for me.


LinkedIn | Building a Network | Network Statistics:

Regional AccessTop locations in your network:

Industry AccessTop industries in your network:


LinkedIn | Building a Network |Personal Contacts:

Make sure that you have connected to all of your offline contacts by importing your email contact list


LinkedIn | Building a Network | Customer Contacts:

Enter a specific company to find your customers.



Once you select a company, you will see Current Employees. Click on See more> to view the full list

Online Resources

Then go through all 871 employees to connect to those that you interface with.



If you find someone you should be connected with, you shouldn’t need an introduction

Select “We’ve done business together” and select the company from your dropdown list.



Relationship managers may also want to reach out to new hires…

..and congratulate recent promotions and changes.


LinkedIn | Building a Network | Prospecting:

For prospecting, enter a company name

…or Browse by Industry



Prospecting in the Financial Services Industry created a lot of results:

Narrowed search to only those people with whom there are 1st and 2nd degree connections:

Increased likelihood of getting a referral.



Can further narrow results by location:

Or narrow results by company size:


LinkedIn | Building a Network |Prospecting:

Once you select a company, you will see Current Employees with degree-of –connection indicators

If you are prospecting, and looking for a past connection, look at Former Employees.

LinkedIn provides some good company

information.


LinkedIn | Building a Network | Asking for an Introduction:

In addition to looking for connections by Company, Sales and Biz Dev can work existing connections

This is how you turn 189 connections in to 57,500 contacts!

I am starting with Duff Bailey. He has already been active in promoting me.

I want to look at the 434 connections that we don’t already have in common.



I found Dean Banfield – Duff and worked with him at previous employer

I don’t need an introduction, I can just add Dean to my network on my own.



This woman who is an Information Architect at JP Morgan Chase looks interesting…

…I’ll ask Duff to introduce us.



It turns out that both Duff and Ken are connected to her. I know Duff better, so I’ll ask him for the introduction…

…but it looks like Ken recently worked with her at JP Morgan Chase, so I will mention this connection in my message to Peppy.



The Category section includes:

–Career opportunity–Consulting offer–New venture–Job inquiry–Expertise request–Business deal–Reference request–Get back in touch

The Category that is selected could, but doesn’t have to match up with what the kind of contacts a person is interested in receiving

This note will only be seen by your contact.


LinkedIn | Maintaining a Network | Tools:

Once you have mined your connections, you will want to keep on top of any new connections they have added.

If you are not using a contact management system, you can use the LinkedIn’s Profile Organizer.


LinkedIn | Maintaining and Extending Your Network:

Groups> More>UpdatesLinkedIn has recently created a “Following” function that lets you follow specific people with a group.

People I’m FollowingAutomatically follow 1st degree connections – or opt out if you wish. Proactively select to follow any group members .

Comment on their comments.

Start a discussion about their recommendation or update.


LinkedIn | Corporate Social Media Policies:

Be proactive about Social Media Policies

– LinkedIn Groups

– Personal Profiles (for financial services companies)

Social Media Governance: 100+ examples of social media policies (US)

Laurel Papworth:40 examples of social media policies (US / AU)


Pay it forward…

Aziz Akin is co-founder of Buzzfile – a Web 2.0 database of US business – and is looking for

some angel investors (www.buzzfile.com)

Stewart Alsop is a partner at Alsop-Louie. Check out their unusual and agile investment

company at www.alsop-louie.com

Trevor Loy heads the successful Flywheel Ventures VC firm. Check out their portfolio

companies at www.flywheelventures.com

Duff Bailey works at Actionable Strategies, a global strategies consulting firm based in New

York City with correspondent office in China, Romania and Saudi Arabia

(www.actionablestrategies.com)

If you are one of the few people in Arizona who does not know Barbara Daniels, check her

out at Caffe Social Media (www.caffesocialmedia.com)


Credits and links…

Some images provided by Intersection Marketing and available on Flickr

– http://www.flickr.com/photos/intersectionconsulting/sets/

Social Media Governance (100+ social media policy examples)

– http://socialmediagovernance.com/policies.php

Laurel Papworth – Australian blogger with links to 40 US / AU social media policies

– http://laurelpapworth.com/enterprise-list-of-40-social-media-staff-guidelines/


LinkedIn: Active Business Networking Tool Thank You !

Catherine Sherwood:Social Media Consultant with 20+ years of marketing and product strategy experience. Serving US & Canada.

Presented By: Follow Up:

Presentation available on SlideShare:

www.slideshare.net/CatherineABQ

Comments, questions, feedback?

Blog post set up for discussion:

http://.CatherineSherwood.com

Email:

[email protected]

Phone: 505-660-6106

For links to all my Social Sites:XeeSM.com/CatherineSherwood

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Linked In: Key Component of a Social Media Strategy