LinkedIn Offering Cool New Tools

LinkedIn is a great tool for research, networking, and keeping tabs on professionals you know.  Some recent additions to the platform have made it even better - applications and company information.  These new features have been out for a couple weeks now, and they are very easy to utilize and can deliver some great results.

Applications - From placing an Amazon.com list of book you have read to placing a widget featuring your latest blog posts, LinkedIn has added the ability to use external applications to further differentiate your page and add value to using the LinkedIn platform.  The Slideshares and Google Presentation widgets allow you to easily embed slideshows within your page, while other applications like box.net allow you to upload files and collaborate with connections directly through LinkedIn.  While there are only 9 applications available now, the list is sure to grow soon.  Still, those that they have added are absloutely worth taking a look at implementing into your profile.

Company Pages - Have you ever used Hoovers Online to research a company?  This is a similar concept, but approaches it from a completely different angle.  While Hoovers offers up the view of a company from the top, LinkedIn provides a much more bottom-up view of a firm.  You can see where people who work at a company tend to go to school, where they used to work, what popular job titles are, and on and on.  LinkedIn takes the data attached to each individual profile and aggregates it into a very interesting and meaningful profile of an organization and its employees.  Thinking of calling on company XYZ for some business?  Seach for them on LinkedIn and see what you can learn.

So go get on LinkedIn, update your profile, add some books to your reading list, and build your personal brand.

Leverage LinkedIn with RSS

What if your number one competitor took away your number one client?  How much would you pay to know that they might be in conversation with one another?  Well, if you use LinkedIn and combine it with RSS you can discover a wealth of information about your friends, your clients, and your colleagues that might have otherwise gone unnoticed - and it will cost you nothing.

Sure, you read the latest updates part of your LinkedIn home page when you visit, but what about the rest of the time.  Certainly much is transpiring while you are away - some of which is important to know.  Here is an easy solution - RSS.  You can very easily use an RSS feed, which is built into LinkedIn, to track each and every change that takes place in your LinkedIn network.  Then you can review and catalog everything at your leisure.

It is as easy as this.

• Go to reader.google.com and sign up for an account
• Go to your LinkedIn homepage
• Look in the address bar and click on the little orange (blue in Firefox 3) box with the dot and 2 lines.
• Subscribe to the RSS feed.

Now, every time someone makes a change you will receive an update, which will appear as an unread item in your RSS feeds in Google Reader.  Now, you can quickly scan through the entire list of updates in one or two minutes.

As you proceed through them, you can mark items of particular interest with a star.  This might apply for people who have been promoted or changed jobs - at which time you might want to send along a nice note of congratulations.

This aggregation of information makes it simple to generate intuitive information from your LinkedIn Network.  Whether you seek competitive intelligence, personal information, or just want to make sure who are keeping up with who knows who, RSS makes it easy.  Did your #1 competitor just connect with your #1 client?  Using this method would let you know.  Is your best employee looking to leave your company?  Again, this might give you some clues if that is the case.  Best of all, you might find out early enough to actually do something about it.  Personally, I can tell you of several people currently in the job market simply based on watching my connections.  They have not contacted me saying “I’m looking” but it does not take much to connect the dots when you pay attention.  This give me an opportunity to help them without having been asked, and to discover more about what is going on in the market in the process.

RSS has so many uses, and using a feed reader like Google Reader, Bloglines, or others can save you valuable time and deliver important information to you that would have otherwise been missed.  Give this LinkedIn tip a try and see if you feel more connected to your network.  I hope this helps.

Linking Up with LinkedIn Dayton

Today I was given the distinct honor of addressing the LinkedIn Dayton networking group at Champps in Centerville, Ohio on the topic of leveraging web based tools to build your personal brand.  I want to thank everyone who attended the event.  I hope you found it to be fun and informative. I know that I had a blast and made a number of professional connections in the process.

I was given this opportunity by responding to a call for speakers put out by Joe Durbin and Michael Morley, who organize much of the LinkedIn Dayton group’s actual face to face meetings.  This was the first breakfast meeting, and they sent out an email request for speakers, which I responded to immediately.  I thank them for allowing me to be the first, and hopefully not the last, speaker.

As for the content of the presentation, I offered my 2 cents on how to leverage the emerging web to build your brand and further your career.  I talked about my recent job changes, and the valuable lessons I learned about the importance of both knowing people, and more importantly, being known.  I have given similar presentations before, but have never related the personal history of how I even got into blogging and social networking relative to the crazy events of my life.

My message in a nutshell was this.  We live in a new age.  40 Years of “doing good work and getting a gold watch at the end” are done.  You have to take ownership of your life and your career.  Building a network plays a huge role in determining your ability to control your future.  This applies to all areas of life, not just finance.  The web makes it easier and more affordable to build your brand, and to leverage your strengths to create your future career.

I spoke about how individuals can leverage everything from Microblogs like Twitter and Plurk, to Blogs using Wordpress, Podcasts, Squidoo, Social Networks, and other free and easy tools to join the conversation and establish an area of expertise.  I tried to deliver enough explantion of these tools to make them understandable, without being too technical in how they work.  We discussed numerous ways to utilize LinkedIn, beyond just an online repository for contact information.  (Research Database, Employment Tool, Sales Information, Communication Vehicle, Information Source) In summary, it was a high level overview of a broad swath of web 2.0 tools that can benefit those who seek to leverage the web as a personal branding tool.

Blogging and social media have changed my life in so many ways.  They led me to my current job at LUCRUM - where we use blogs, social networks, wikis, and podcasts to build the company both internally and externally.  They have generated countless connections with other people around the globe, and put me in touch with some of the most brilliant minds on the planet.  I love what I do, and I am delighted that I not only get to do it, but that people are interested in hearing me talk about it too.

Thanks again to all who came to the event today.  If you have questions about anything I covered, or did not cover, in my presentation.  Please drop me a note.  I am happy to help in any way that I can.  I look forward to the next LinkedIn Breakfast, where I will get to eat, socialize, and enjoy watching the speaker.

David E. Bowman - LinkedIn

LinkedIn - Sales, Market Research… and Networking tool

Many people think of LinkedIn.com as sort of an Online Rolodex. Others might describe it as MySpace for business people or Facebook all grown up. While these descriptions are accurate on some levels, they are not painting the complete picture of what LinkedIn can offer to business professionals. There are numerous uses for the site that go far beyond basic networking and contact management. Notably, the site is a great tool for Sales Professionals and Market Research. I got the opportunity to present this concept to the Dayton Service Marketing Professionals group today at a meeting which was hosted downtown at Brady Ware. It was an excellent discussion, and I think people found it to be informative. I wanted to share a little of what we discussed here in this post.

First, LinkedIn is just as much “Google” as it is “Outlook”. What does that mean? Well, it seems to me that most users of the site typically think of it as online contact management - which in and of itself has huge value. I use the brand names to illustrate that idea. However, I am here to tell you that if that is all you are using the site for, you are missing out on a wealth of information - free information. LinkedIn is a rich and dynamic database, which can be searched, mined, and yield insightful and useful information to you and your business. It is a goldmine of marketing information, all of which is just a search or two away from you.

With over 20 million users, the site has information about companies large and small. Who is growing, who is shrinking, who is looking for help? All important information for sales and marketing professionals. You can determine quite a bit about a company and its future plans by simply looking at who is adding people and examining the skills they possess. It is all right there for you to view.

How else can LinkedIn help you get the cash register ringing? As a sales rep, the worst thing in the world is having to talk about “The fish on the wall” at your initial meeting with a prospective Client. Still, good sales people know the importance of building rapport, and engaging the prospect in a dialog about something other than business. “Get them to like you,” is often how this is described, and it is 90% of selling. It is also damn hard, which is why people get stuck on “hey, where did you catch that fish?” Pretty lame. Enter LinkedIn. If someone has a profile on LinkedIn, you can find out where they have worked, where they went to school, clubs and social groups they are engaged in, who they know, and who you know that they know. All potential conversation starters. Better yet, if you have a common connection, you can make a call prior to the sales meeting to do some research in advance of your meeting. This could create a very memorable first impression. For example, say you discover that your prospect is from Urbana, Ohio. You could bring along a bag of Mumford’s Potato Chips as a small but thoughtful gift. Your friend might inform you that this person is on a heart smart diet, in which case you might want to opt for some strawberries from Michael’s Berry Farm - an equally thoughtful, and slightly healthier idea. These are the silly little things that might just make the difference in getting the business. They might also get your name mentioned to others - an added bonus. This was an especially appealing idea for using this tool in a room full of marketing professionals who work primarily in the heavily regulated industries of accounting, law, and wealth management. Great actions are often easier to pull off in these industries that are great brochures and web sites. In the end, thoughtful gestures are more effective anyway.

Yes, LinkedIn is a powerful networking tool. You probably already know that. Still think about it a little differently, and possibilities begin to emerge for its potential. I will post more on this later this week. Are you using LinkedIn? How?