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Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Building a Strategic LinkedIn Network
LinkedIn is all about developing your professional network that you can potentially use to improve your career or the success of your start-up. Once you have created your profile (see my last post on creating a credible profile) you will want to start to build a network of contacts that can help you build your company.
In LinkeIn your network consists of first, second and third degree connections. First degree connections are people you know and they are the center of your network. Each person connected to your direct connection makes a second degree connection and those who are linked to your second degree connections, make up your third degree connections. Your first, second and third degree contacts are visible to you and can help you with career opportunities, answer your questions or help you connect with potential employees.
Building your Network
There are a number of things you can do to start building your network of connections:
Getting References
Once you have begun to develop your network of contacts you are going to want to ask some of them to provide recommendations for you. Recommendations allow people on LinkedIn to describe why you are a good person to work with - and they appear right in your profile. You have control over what recommendations appear in your profile so if you don’t agree with the things written about you, you can reject the recommendation. The more good recommendations you can get the better you will look in the eyes of recruiters and potential investors or business partners.
Note: the ability to reject recommendations is a feature you need to be aware of when evaluating people on LinkedIn as well. Since negative information can easily be blocked by LinkedIn users, LinkedIn recommendations are a good place to start evaluating a candidate - but they are by no means a substitute for traditional channels for obtaining references.
Provide Value to Your Network
One of the principles of effective networking is to provide value to you network connections. When creating your network you likely are focusing on those connections that can potentially be of value to you - but equally important is to think of how you can be of value to them.
Once you have linked to someone try to connect with them to see if there is anything you can do for them. One way to do this is to look at their profile to see if you have any connections that they might be interested in knowing. You might also be able to identify a resource such as a website or a blog that would be of use to them. You may find that if you contact them with something that they might find useful - they will be more likely to think of you when a pottential opportunity arises.
References:
In LinkeIn your network consists of first, second and third degree connections. First degree connections are people you know and they are the center of your network. Each person connected to your direct connection makes a second degree connection and those who are linked to your second degree connections, make up your third degree connections. Your first, second and third degree contacts are visible to you and can help you with career opportunities, answer your questions or help you connect with potential employees.
Building your Network
There are a number of things you can do to start building your network of connections:
- Import your contacts from Windows Live, Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo! and AOL. You can also search through lists of LinkenIn members that went to your college or had the same employer and invite those people to join your network.
- Invite professional contacts, business partners and clients who are not LinkedIn members to set up accounts, this way your network broadens.
- Get introduced. LinkedIn doesn’t allow you to contact somebody directly unless you have their email address or you hlist the same school or employer. To connect with these people you have to find a mutual connection that could forward an Introduction on your behalf. There is a limit of five Introductions per month at the free basic account!
- Use InMail (if you have a paid account) to send private messages to any LinkedIn user without showing your email addresses. You can see these messages only if they are accepted by the recipient.
- Promote your URL by taking your distinct LinkedIn profile URL and puting it in your email signature, on your traditional resume, on your blog, your website, your presentations, and possibly on your business card.
- Always include a personal message that offers good reasons for making the connection.
- You can put value items, free reports, links, resources, tools, and even connections in this message.
- You should make sure the language of th message is professional and that it does not contain any spelling or grammar mistakes.
- You should never put anything in this message re selling your products or services.
- Avoid being intrusive.
- Don’t send invitations to people you don’t know and don’t accept invitations from people you really don’t know (see LinkedIn Etiquette for best practices for connecting to people)
- If you invite someone to LinkedIn, remember to remind that particular person under what circumstances you two have met and then you can choose to connect.
Getting References
Once you have begun to develop your network of contacts you are going to want to ask some of them to provide recommendations for you. Recommendations allow people on LinkedIn to describe why you are a good person to work with - and they appear right in your profile. You have control over what recommendations appear in your profile so if you don’t agree with the things written about you, you can reject the recommendation. The more good recommendations you can get the better you will look in the eyes of recruiters and potential investors or business partners.
Note: the ability to reject recommendations is a feature you need to be aware of when evaluating people on LinkedIn as well. Since negative information can easily be blocked by LinkedIn users, LinkedIn recommendations are a good place to start evaluating a candidate - but they are by no means a substitute for traditional channels for obtaining references.
Provide Value to Your Network
One of the principles of effective networking is to provide value to you network connections. When creating your network you likely are focusing on those connections that can potentially be of value to you - but equally important is to think of how you can be of value to them.
Once you have linked to someone try to connect with them to see if there is anything you can do for them. One way to do this is to look at their profile to see if you have any connections that they might be interested in knowing. You might also be able to identify a resource such as a website or a blog that would be of use to them. You may find that if you contact them with something that they might find useful - they will be more likely to think of you when a pottential opportunity arises.
References:
- Using Linked In: http://www.avangate.com/articles/using-Linkedin-125.htm
- Creating your Personal Brand on Linked In: http://mashable.com/2009/07/27/linkedin-personal-brand/
- How to Use the LinkedIn Profiles of Others to Improve Your Network: http://onlinebusinessnetworker.net/blog/2009/07/how-to-use-linkedin-the-profiles-of-others-to-improve-your-network/
Labels: linkedin, social media, tips
