Using LinkedIn Search to find Business Critical Contacts
Find Business Critical Contacts using LinkedIn Search
I’m not sure why, but in my opinion, people and businesses here in the UK don’t really use LinkedIn for anything more than connecting with people they know and I can’t help thinking that they should use it for much more than that and in particular they should be exploiting LinkedIn Search!
Believe it or not, LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 100 million members and growing rapidly. Social Networking on LinkedIn allows you to connect to your trusted contacts and helps you exchange knowledge, ideas, and opportunities with a broader network of professionals.
LinkedIn is a powerful tool but is not used as much as its famous contemporaries – Facebook & Twitter. Many say that LinkedIn has not been able to replicate the success of its contemporary sites. However, Social Networking with LinkedIn may be the most powerful tool available. In fact this article published over on Marketing Profs, reports “In the midst of an uncertain business climate, 59% of active social networking users say LinkedIn is their most important social account, up from the 41% who said so a year earlier, according to a report by Performics and ROI Research. Twitter is ranked second among most important social accounts (58%), followed by YouTube (55%) and Facebook (53%).
In 2010, Facebook was viewed as the most important social account (56%) with LinkedIn and Twitter trailing, 41% and 40%, respectively.”
So What is LinkedIn?
This short video explains in simple terms what LinkedIn is.
Perhaps Social Networking on LinkedIn is THE most important Social Network of All?
I like to think of LinkedIn as the place to network with Business people, and I use it to keep in touch with my professional connections and to answer peoples questions about subjects that I have knowledge about. I know of some business owners that use it to recruit employees others use it to find like minded business people to joint venture with… Whatever your reason for doing Social Networking on LinkedIn, it also provides you with an opportunity to promote yourself and your business.
Social Networking on LinkedIn is not the same as Social Networking on Facebook
When Social Networking on LinkedIn, you adopt a more business like/professional approach, whereas on Facebook much of the communication can be more ‘light-hearted’ in nature.
Most users of LinkedIn have an account and tend to do very little with it. Quite a few business owners I know with an account fall into this category. They have added their contacts and occasionally add a new one, but for most part… They don’t do anything with their LinkedIn account!
These users tend to keep their contacts pretty much a ‘closed’ group. Sadly, this means that they are missing out!
Let me let you into a secret… “LinkedIn is THE most powerful business social network!” At least it is in my opinion.
My reason for this statement is attributed to the LinkedIn Search feature. LinkedIn Search enables you to find contacts that you already know, but more importantly, enables you to find business contacts that you need to get to know that may be able to help you and your business grow.
When you use the LinkedIn Search facility to do a ‘People Search’ you will notice that LinkedIn tracks the connections of all their network of users and what’s cool is that they can tell you ‘how many degrees of separation’ there is between you and another individual. As a means of explanation this is what the Degrees of Separation are:
- 1st Degree – You already know them
- 2nd Degree – You know someone that knows them
- 3rd Degree – You know someone that knows someone that knows them
- You get the picture?
How to use the LinkedIn Search Feature to Find Business Critical Contacts on LinkedIn
When I talk to small business owners I teach them to use ‘LinkedIn Search’ to find business critical contacts on LinkedIn. Here is a real life example:
We are involved in setting up a service that “Benefits Charities, Local Businesses & the People that donated to Charities and Good Causes!… Wow what a product!” (It does exist, if you are in and around Lytham St Annes, ask me about it! Drop me a note)
Anyway, we needed to contact Charities to get them interested in what we are doing. Our first thought was to get them on the phone or to go and see them. But who were they? Who Should we Talk to?
Instead of proceeding blindly, we went to LinkedIn Search to try to help us answer those questions and did the following:
First we wanted to find charities and non-profit organisations here in the UK. So we entered the following into the ‘LinkedIn Search Companies’:
- LinkedIn Search Results
LinkedIn Search - Find People
This initial LinkedIn Search gave us a list of 94 Charities that are registered on LinkedIn. This information was useful, but we wanted to find real people that worked for specific charities…
So, we next decided to get a little more creative with our search…. We switched to the ‘LinkedIn Search People’ and entered the information that you can see in the image on the left:
This revealed 23 people that worked at Breast Cancer Care here in the UK and were involved in Fundraising. Exactly what we were looking for!
All 23 of the people listed were 3 degrees of separation away from us, which was a shame, but we could use the LinkedIn ‘InMail’ system to make contact.
InMail is a contact method provided by LinkedIn to its ‘Upgraded Accounts’. It’s a really effective form of communication because it comes with a response guarantee. Which is a really good thing. If you don’t get a response in 7 days, they re-credit your account with another InMail to send.
Depending on which LinkedIn account you have, depends on the number of InMails you are allowed to send, so check at the LinkedIn website for more information to determine the type of account you need.
InMails should be used sparingly because you only have a finite amount, but if you need contacts in a specific industry they can open the door.
There are many ways that LinkedIn search can be used to enable you to connect with the right people. If you are interested in finding out more about LinkedIn Search and the ways it can be used in Business please get in touch.
Simply use the comments area below or click here to use our contact form. Of course you can find me on Twitter and on Facebook… Oh, and of course on LinkedIn.
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