Mark Kolier’s Blog

Posts Tagged ‘LinkedIn’

Last Friday and this past Monday the stock market took major hits. Yesterday it came back. One of the biggest losers was LinkedIn which some say was overvalued. While I am not all that knowledgeable when it comes to company valuations I have been using LinkedIn more and more and with great success.
The main reason I consider it a success is that people respond to inquiries on LinkedIn more than any other social networking portal I have used.

An article in DM News http://bit.ly/pMMuZF highlights increases in LinkedIn’s revenue – and it was from Friday August 5th shortly before the stock took a pounding.

My work in developing our China business requires expertise far beyond that of my regular circle of contacts. LinkedIn has offered me a way to engage total strangers by asking for help, offering help and simply offering my opinion on something they might have written or said. What continually surprises me is the rate of return on what I consider to be a very minor investment.

Of course not all my inquiries are responded to. And I know I need to be careful since there is a rating system on LinkedIn such that if enough people complain about being spammed or contacted inappropriately you can be blacklisted from making outreaches to people you don’t know using a feature on LinkedIn called ‘Inmail’.

But I am here to tell you that if you are not using the Premium or Pro access on LinkedIn you are missing out on opportunities to connect with people in way that has never before been possible. However I do wonder how long this open-networking will last. If people begin to be deluged with requests from all over the map the opportunity conduit that LinkedIn offers may well become unworkable and unusable.

In case you are wondering I try to be as open as possible myself when it comes to answering questions posed to me on LinkedIn. I also receive offers to Link In with people I don’t know but my policy is to not Link In with total strangers. Yet answering a question for a total stranger (provided it is a relevant question and something that I can help with) is something I always agree to do.

I believe LinkedIn is the best of all the social networks in offering a value proposition. Yes better than Facebook and better than Google+ (which is on the rise as far as I am concerned).

How about you – are you getting everything out of LinkedIn that you could? Or do you think it’s too much trouble and a waste of time?

Many people I talk to remark that they see me all over LinkedIn. I am always posting blogs, recommending people, making comments, asking and answering questions, etc. I find the time because using LinkedIn has become one of my most valuable tools for gaining insight and information. And no we do not have LinkedIn as an account nor are we trying to attract them.

Most business people I know have at least a bare bones profile on LinkedIn. But not all. And that in itself is a bit strange in my view. In fact when I become aware of someone that I don’t know and find to be of interest the first thing I do is search their profile on LinkedIn.

Why don’t I ‘Google’ them first? Two reasons. 1) Google (or Bing for that matter) has too much noise going on for me to sift through to find some relevant information on someone. 2) LinkedIn’s information is self-reported. You get to see what someone has reported about themselves. It’s a bit like a D & B report for an individual (I always keep in mind that D & B information is largely provided by the company itself except for payment history and that information can be lacking if non-existent).

It’s actually gotten to the point that if I look to find information on LinkedIn about someone and they do not have a profile I am surprised and disappointed. But not completely puzzled. Ten years ago (ok maybe a lot less than that) I had the notion that I was ‘reveling in my anonymity’. The idea was that if people did not know about me/our company and clients they could not attempt to pilfer them. I could not have been more mistaken and starting in 2007 I have done a complete 180 degree turn on that idea.

Why the change? I realized that our clients and relationships will always be at risk if we do not continue to deliver the great work and service that is expected of our team every time. And LinkedIn offers an opportunity to not only help others (via answering questions, making recommendations and acting as a resource), at the same time it affords you the opportunity to build your personal brand the way YOU want it to be.

This year in particular I’ve seen people I am interested in meeting on television, read articles by them in various publications, or heard them on the radio and have reached out to them on LinkedIn. They don’t know me at all. The cool thing is that on a number of occasions these people have replied and we’ve begun a dialog. I’ve even met a number of these people after starting the relationship on LinkedIn. It does not work all the time nor do I have any expectation that it will work every time. And I am never put off if someone decides to ignore my request. You take your best shot and then move on.

I don’t accept every invitation but probably more than 90% of the time I say yes. Of course I do not want a new connection to sift through my contacts to bother/solicit people in my network so one has to be discerning to a certain degree.

But never before has the ability to reach people on a one to one basis been so readily available and LinkedIn (unlike Facebook) is the best way to help people, meet people, and build your personal brand.

Are you using LinkedIn to help build your network and personal brand?

I heard a radio spot yesterday from Barracuda Networks. Their offer is to help companies make their workers more productive by blocking/firewalling them from websites and social networks that (as the ad infers) detract from employee productivity and company profits. Their ‘solution’ is to have companies employ their product as a step on the road to productivity. It’s a blatant scare tactic and the barracuda is a pretty scary looking fish after all.

It’s nearly a certainty that there are some business owners and/or managers that will consider this approach as a salve for some of their business problems. I’m not one of them in any way. Walling off employee access to certain websites and social networking is simply a terrible idea.

The idea of restricting access during the workday in order to ‘get people back to work’ will quite possibly have the opposite effect. Pretty soon companies that take that tack will ask employees to leave their mobile devices at the door when they come to work. After all many people now can adroitly access the web and social networks from their iPhone or other smart phone. Take away the websites and social media check-ins and employees will spend more time trying to find a way around it. So exactly how will that approach make things better?

Companies that restrict internet access are telling their employees – ‘We don’t trust you’. “We don’t respect your ability to make appropriate choices on how you spend your time during the work day.” And what kind of bright young minds would be interested in joining a company that approaches its business in that manner?

I’m not so naïve that I think employees always act in the most productive manner every minute of the work day. But is that really the goal of an employer? No I don’t wish that members of our team spend 3 hours a day on Facebook, LinkedIn or looking for a job on Monster or Career Builder, (apparently we had one that did that while here). But I ask those companies that think restricted access is a good idea – do your employees receive and respond to emails before and after the workday? On weekends? For many companies including ours the answer is an unequivocal yes. Granted our company is a smaller one with less than 25 people. But even if we were the size of, oh say Microsoft or Wal-mart, would the restriction of access to the web create a better and more productive working environment?

My take is if you cannot count on having smart, motivated people on your team who know the difference between what is appropriate and what is not, then you have the wrong team in place. It can sometimes be the job of managers to teach employees the difference if they don’t know it already. But forbidding access and censoring sites sounds a bit China like to me.

I wouldn’t want to be a part of a company like that – would you?

By now those of you who have read some of my posts know that I have no real use for Plaxo (although I am a ‘member’) but am a regular user of LinkedIn. I have yet to become what I see a number of people are which is what I call a ‘serial networker’. Those with more than 500 contacts fit this moniker. I have over 300 and personally know and have met almost every single person in my network. This is unlike Twitter on which I have nearly 600 followers but have met under 30. More on following large groups of people on Twitter in a subsequent post.

But I really think LinkedIn provides are great tool and service for business people. Since the information is self-provided it is generally accurate if not a bit embellished. (Save for the prevaricators that are no doubt members as well but hopefully not in my network). Whenever I am given a new contact via referral the first thing I do is type their name into the search function of LinkedIn. It does not work every time since there are still many folks who are not on LinkedIn or there are times when there are too many John Smiths to figure even if you know the geographic location. Since the information is what people provide on their own and when you do get a proper profile you get a snapshot of their location, career path, education and even a few interests. This is BEFORE you have even LinkedIn with them. And answering questions in specific areas does build your standing and reputation as a resource which has helped me and our company gain business.

But it gets better than that. Search by company can provide position locations for job searches. Industries can be investigated by category. And people with whom you have lost touch can be found (yes this is done on Facebook and other social networks as well). Of course you can get great information via Google and Yahoo but I have found LinkedIn to be faster and quite reliable.

Did I mention that Linkedin is free? They do have a revenue model for enhanced access and the ability to send messages to people with whom you would like to be in touch but have no contact. More importantly introductions via people you are connected to work out really well as there is a level of inherent trust built in.

I don’t understand why anyone would not want to be listed on LinkedIn. The days of reveling in ones anonymity are over. People can find out things about you in many other places. Just ask and read about Justice Scalia this past week. Wouldn’t want them to find out things about you from your own perspective?

Have a great holiday weekend.