SOCIAL MEDIA: SIX MORE THINGS TO KNOW

This post updates my 06/13/10 post captioned SOCIAL MEDIA: IGNORE AT YOUR OWN PERIL.  Tonight I went to hear a presentation titled “Unleash the Power of LinkedIn” given by Larry Kaufman, a managing director of practice development at Blackman Kallick, an accounting firm in Chicago.  For me the takeaways from his talk were:

  1. Most of the 65 million members of LinkedIn are not paying members; if you are in the executive recruitment industry or an employer looking for executive or professional talent, then it makes sense to pay for an upgrade to enhance your searches.
  2. In your profile, you should be repetitive in the tag words you use to describe your areas of expertise or skills so that you will more likely turn up in a search on LinkedIn.
  3. Put your name in capital letters so that you will stand out more.
  4. All Fortune 500 C-suite executives use LinkedIn.
  5. You have to decide at the outset whether you will be an open networker (i.e., come one come all) or a selective networker (e.g., only fellow CFOs may connect).
  6. Use your LinkedIn common connections to warm up a cold call – e.g., mention mutual contact, same college, similar backgrounds, etc.

4 thoughts on “SOCIAL MEDIA: SIX MORE THINGS TO KNOW”

  1. Thanks Larry for showing readers how to drill down further into the Outlook Toolbar to utilize the “Grab” button to easily add a new contact’s information to one’s Outlook Contact from emails one receives. Also, I think people naturally are curious to check out to whom their LinkedIn connections are connected, but as you point out, they are too shy to ask for introductions to those connections that would be useful. Your tip is a reminder to us all that leveraging connections is the whole (networking) point of LinkedIn!

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  2. I have 2 more great tips:

    1.) Download the Outlook Toolbar and leverage the “Grab” button when you open an e-mail and highlight the sender’s signature line, hit the grab button and you now hit save and have quickly added a new contact to Outlook. To download, scroll to the bottom of your home page, go to tools and download the toolbar.

    2.) Have you reviewed the contacts of your trusted connections – who do you want to know that your trusted linkedin contacts know. Don’t be shy – just ask for an introduction from your 1st Degree connection to those you want to know!

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  3. Ryan,

    We appreciate your sharing your success story, your observations and tips. Real live examples will encourage the understandable skeptics and those folks who have not yet been successful at exploiting LinkedIn, respectively, to check it out and invest additional effort. Thanks Ryan.

    G. A.

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  4. G.A.,

    Had a great LinkedIn experience this week. I identified a job opportunity and the company that was posting the job. Through LinkedIn I found three separate connections to the hiring firm through some good contacts of mine.

    I requested an introduction to all three requesting help in identifying the person in charge of hiring so I might learn more. All three contacts come through and the hiring person called me a little surprised about suddenly seeing my name three times. After a brief screen, I was invited for an interview.

    What I took away from the experience was:
    1) Always use LinkedIn for research
    2) Although LinkedIn can identify a lot of connections, get introductions through actual personal connections
    3) Don’t waste anyone’s time. Be direct and really add value / be a fit for the job / etc.

    Thanks for all the great content, G.A.

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