How to use your LinkedIn Account to Better Yourself and Your Business

I am sitting here writing this opinion article nearing my ten thousandth follower and looking back over the past year in retrospect as to "was it all worth it" and "how did the community and myself benefit from our acquaintances?

LinkedIn is supposed to be a social media site for business and a place for professionals to meet and exchange ideas while developing relationships. I am not going to argue whether it is a dating site or any other manifestation it has or has not evolved into.  My focus is how to benefit the community and yourselfer with the contacts and relationships you have developed. Before I start I want to first state my intention by quoting a guiding principle of Rotary International. For those of you not familiar with Rotary; think of it as what LinkedIn was supposed to be like (before the internet). Rotary was the first service club in America and has over 1 million members internationally. Let me get to my point. Rotarians start each meeting b y reciting the “4-way test” of everything they say, think and do. When considering any project, decision, or relationship they ask themselves....

 Is it the truth?

Is it fair to all concerned?

Will it build goodwill and better friendships?

Will it be beneficial to all concerned?

If you answer no to any of the above guiding principles then they will not do it. When entering into a social media relationship on LinkedIn; we as professional will on occasion have a chance to do business and benefit ourselves or our companies. With this in mind I offer my first suggestion on how to use LinkedIn by suggesting that you use the 4-way test before you act or react to "just connecting" with fellow professionals on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is about connecting to other professionals and creating a network of interconnections. I never really understood why I would get messages about "do you really know Mr._________? The whole reason why I joined LinkedIn was that I did not know Mr. ____________ and I do want to know him or her! So, first order of business..... make my profile public and don't limit who can contact you or “send you invitations”. Imagine if you told your CEO that you really wanted to increase your company's customer base but you only wanted to be contacted by customers you know. If that was the case then I suggest that you stick to email and let me know how long the line is at the unemployment office! If you are not willing to let people contact you then why are you connected to social media? I hear from many people that they are "on LinkedIn" only because they were told that they have to have an account, but they don't really get involved in that "tech" stuff! Instead of using one of my smart-aleck remarks, I will look at it from their perspective. People who say that are generally scared because technology and social media are strange and new and they have put up a mental block of "I can't learn that stuff" or " I hope nobody finds out that I don't know about that stuff". That attitude or fear of the unknown is like being stranded on a small island with a flashlight. They are afraid to use the flashlight to signal passing ships only because if they use up the battery; then they will no longer have a working flashlight to signal passing ships. In the military we had ROAD officers. These individuals were Retired On Active Duty.  In other words, they were happy not rocking the boat with change because they were getting ready for retirement, all they had to do was make it through another year, and they would be fine!

Next on my list is dating your cousin..... well not really. What I mean is putting a photo of yourself on your profile so people will know who they are talking to. Please ..... just a head shot. I don't care if you are not the greatest looking person on the planet. I generally don't even respond to individuals that can't seem to include a photo of themselves. Again, let us keep this into perspective. A cute shot of the family dog or you and a child or spouse is great if that is the message, you want to convey. Remember what your parents said about first impressions? Your LinkedIn photo says a lot about the person I want to professionally connect with. I am not saying that any of the above is bad.... just consider what impression you are trying to give your next client or boss!

So we have a profile with a photo and have set our settings top public.... what's next? Let's fill out your profile. Remember to put the most important thing last when inputting your data because it will be the first thing people see when they look at your profile. Why would they look at your profile? Well, you have connected with them and they want to know a little about the person they are connecting with! This is the first (and many times last) chance you have to make a good impression and say.... "you really want to know me"....... and here are the reasons why! People like to associate with people that are like themselves or with people they believe will be of benefit to them professionally.  I will use myself as an example: I am the Director for the National Center for Environmental, Health, and Safety Education (NCEHSE). What that means to you is that if I make a comment about safety, the environment, workplace health, or OSHA; you can generally accept it as a fact or at least an informed opinion. Why should you get to know me? Well everyone needs safety training, so I might be able to point you in the right direction of a qualified trainer. Many times people don't want to call OSHA and ask them a question or they don't want to let their co-workers know that they don't have a clue about what they are talking about. They call me and most of the time I can give them an answer or at least point them in the right direction to find the answer. My former students call me to many times just verify their decisions are in-line with the OSHA regulations. Why do I give away this knowledge for free? Well it is about building relationships and confidence in one another. It is no big deal for me to answer a question because I teach OSHA regulations every day and use to be a former State Inspector.  I know that when their company needs training..... guess who is going to be at the top of the short list of providers.

So, fill out your profile as if you are filling out a resume. People look at your profile to determine if they want to know you. I get about 25 people read my profile everyday! That is 25 people that I may be able to help or 25 future students.    

 Next we figure out who is on LinkedIn around us. First, we need to know where we are. LinkedIn is set up into regions (sometimes hundreds of miles wide) across the country.  Look at your profile and see where LinkedIn places you. I am in Roswell, New Mexico but LinkedIn only recognizes a couple big cities in New Mexico. So they have me located in El Paso Texas. I am far enough from El Paso that if a nuclear bomb hit the city, I would not feel the blast in Roswell. Over 3 hours away (driving at 80mph) that is the closest LinkedIn could place me. So ask yourself….. if face to face contacts are what you need then concentrate your efforts locally. If you don’t mind long distance acquaintances then a more open search for contacts would be in order. 

To get started “linking” to others you should first import your email contacts list. This is pretty simple so just follow the instructions on LinkedIn concerning how to do it.  Once that is done you can start by doing a simple search. There is a search bar at the top center of the main page. You can search for people, jobs, companies and more. To do a search for people with the same type of job you have (fellow colleagues) simply type in the profession. We will use “safety technician” as our key search. LinkedIn will suggest “people with safety technician as job titles” . Click on that heading and you will see a list of people who are connected with you across LinkedIn.  You will notice a blue box by each person’s name that says’ “Message” or “Connect”. The message box identifies people that you are already connected with. If you click on the box you can send them a personal message (there is a limit). If you click on the connect box then it will send a connect request.

Before you get click happy let’s refine your pool of acquaintances. If you look to the left hand side you will see search refinement filters. Under relationships there are 1st connections (people who are linked to you directly), 2nd connections (friends of your friend), Group members (people who are in groups you belong to) and 3rd / everyone else. The default is “all” and give the greatest number of returns but is the hardest to deal with. The reason I say this is because if you click on a “connect “ and the person has their profile set to “private” or not “everyone”  on the invitations filter then you will get a lot of “how do you know _________” pop up messages. All and 1st connections has quite a few of these. My suggestion is to just stick with 2nd connections.  The next filter is location. The default is the world so I would suggest a smaller pool. Click on the +add button and type in a city. You can keep adding cities (for some reason states don’t work) until you are happy. If you will look just above the top photo of the list of contacts then you will see the possible number of contacts or results. This number can be quite large.

Here comes your first dilemma; you could click on every name on your list but I would not suggest you do that. I would suggest that you read each person’s position and profile snippet and determine if you know them or want to know them. Keep in mind that everyone you click on may or may not accept your invitation. They will probably go and read your profile before they decide if they know you or want to know you.  Once you have sent out a comfortable number of invitations then the real work comes into play.

Aside from making connections and networking, LinkedIn is good for interesting articles and the ability to publish your own opinions and materials for your networks enjoyment. I would suggest that you find a couple of groups to join that focus on your interest. Once in a group, they will want you to contribute by writing or joining in a discussion. What they frown upon is blatantly advertising your product or service in the groups. What normally happens is someone will ask a question and everyone normally gives their two cents of opinion towards the answer. Why this is important is that many people will read your responses and determine if you are someone they want to follow or if you are an idiot. With that in mind…… act professional!

Where you can really make an impact is by publishing posts and articles.  To do this, simply click on “publish a post” from your home page. Add an image from your computer, a title, and write your article. Before to post it, add three tags (key words) to make your article easier to find and if you had set up and linked your Facebook and twitter account to LinkedIn it will ask you if you want to post there as well. You will want to see how your post does over the next three days. You will notice that certain types of post do well at certain times of the day. After the third day (from your home page) click on update status (next to publish a post) and update or comment on anything from the original post. You can also add a photo (should be the same photo) from the original post and make sure you include a hyperlink to the original post. After two days, upload a photo (the same one used in the post). The upload button is between the update and publish button. Add a comment that applies to the original post and hyperlink to the original post. Using this approach will get you approximately 1500 average views on your post. Not great, but not bad either considering that it cost you nothing. The next week, start the process all over again.

LinkedIn postings have about a 7 day life cycle (at best). If you really want to reach a lot of customers, you will need to link to a YouTube account (if you have videos or PowerPoint presentations) and a company website (I prefer Wordpress.com) so important content has a home that your customers can visit.  

The important thing is to keep linking back to your website on everything you do. Keep your branding in mind when you write articles, and above all else…. keep professional. There is really no such thing as “delete” on the internet. Once it is out there it will be copied, retweeted, and commented on forever.

Michael O’Berry is the Director of The National Center for EHS Education (NCEHSE). He can be contacted at www.ncehsedu.com or by calling 575-624-7381