Why LinkedIn?
What is the benefit of this platform?
Is it just a professional Facebook?
Is there a point to it?
The above are just some of the comments I receive on a daily basis when I ask people “Are you on LinkedIn? Can we connect?“; and it makes me wonder why people are not seeing how we can all have something that is just so much more than a Professional Networking Platform. It has grown so much from the early days when, yes, you could say that it was just platform to look for a job, but even then it was so much more.
How do I explain this? I can’t fully because I am not here to tell you why you should be using it but highlight some ways and how you can help yourself in so many ways. Just think, when you search the internet, it is to find information on anything and everything. Well with LinkedIn, I can undertake many things including….
- search for companies and see what they are like, do they deliver what I (or my clients are/) am looking for, what information to share, do they have someone there that could benefit myself or my clients?
- search for information that I am looking for – call it doing a professional Google search for what I need. Yes I know I could just Google it, but doing it here, I get information from the people within my network, so the chances are it is more update and valid than just a Google search with results driven by SEO!
- should I meet someone at an event and want to discover more about them and their company, I can undertake a quick search and see what they are saying and connect with them
- where am I and what is generating that people wanting from myself? Well, yes you go to your website and use tools that will show which page they viewed, where they came from etc – but for me it is their “Who viewed your profile?”facility. Why? Simple, I get a breakdown that shows:-
– Who has viewed myself
– Are they level 1, 2, 3 or outside of my network
– What industries are they from?
– Where did they come from? For an example, a recent search showed that my viewers were:-
- United Kingdom – 890
- United States – 478
- India – 119
- Canada – 51
- Australia – 35
- Netherlands – 35
- France – 33
- China 21
- Pakistan – 20
- Germany – 19
- Having groups that I can actively take part in and communicate in, whether with my Peers, Competitors or people I have never interacted with before
The above are just a few points to consider but there many other points to consider, such as extra to tools to help (and yes I do use most of these) you fully utilise LinkedIn as explained here in this article called “8 Great LinkedIn Tools For Business” written by Pam Dyer and published in Social Media Today. Some of these 8 tools are so very key and important for me in so many ways that helps me to keep engaged with my connections; they include:-
- SlideShare
- SyncME
- LinkedIn Pulse
- Outlook Social Connector
Also, one that is not listed but I do use every day is LinkedIn Contacts, which really does help me engage with my connections in an in-depth manner. So these are just a few points and I haven’t even gone into Company Pages or Showcase Pages either. Or, I haven’t even mention the benefits of how you can search for your target decision makers to help with your sales growth. Just think of the above as the main filling to your cake and these points I haven’t gone into as being the icing.
Also, I have met on-line with LinkedIn (and been fortunate to meet some in person), some truly amazing inspiring people, who have helped me both personally and professionally to move forward. Now, does it do anything else?
Well, yes, some of my connections whilst they do have a website, they actually put 95% of their effort into LinkedIn and when people ask them to explain about their business, they drive (direct) people to their LinkedIn profile 100% of the time as it clearly shows them and what they do. A good example is Richard Sink who does this and it truly creates so much more understanding for his prospective clients when they come back to him to ask about working with him and his team.
I do hope this as given you some thoughts as to why you should be using LinkedIn and in my opinion why this platform is developing into such a strong all-purpose tool, that it should be one of the first Social Platforms you name as being in your portfolio – I would say it should be one of your Top 3.
[Please note – this article was written by myself and portrays my thoughts and observations only, they don’t represent the views of LinkedIn or neither have they or anyone else paid me to write this Blog Post]
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