LinkedIn is an online professional networking platform with over 80 million users. It allows users to connect with colleagues and professionals in their industry, exchange contact information, follow career updates, and expand their professional network. The document provides tips on how to effectively use LinkedIn, including creating a complete profile, connecting with contacts, joining relevant groups, sharing content and updates, and managing social media use professionally.
Today, we will cover what LinkedIn is, why it’s important, and how to use it to your advantage. At the end, I will take your questions regarding LinkedIn. Please hold your questions until the end. Thanks.
What is LinkedIn? LinkedIn is one of the many online networking options. There are online social and business networks and even more specific interest and industry networks. According to Mashable, the social media guide, there are over 350+ online networking sites. Although facebook is one of the most popular online social networks, LinkedIn has emerged as the preeminent online business network. You can explore the variety of online networks, since most all of them offer some form of their services free of charge. Beyond time commitment, it does not hurt to set-up accounts on several and figure out, which fits and serves your purposes best.
LinkedIn is only 9 years old, but this free service grew from 8.5 million users in 2007 to 42 million users in 2009 to 80 million users in 2010. LinkedIn has a growing international membership and over 1 million company profiles. Due to its sheer enormity, it is the clear, established leader in business networking. It’s popularity is most likely due to its simple, user-friendly interface and steadily increasing functionality with add-on applications. It’s own popularity also leads to more popularity. In addition, it is, most importantly, searchable, internally and externally. On the site, you can search for people, companies, and groups. From any search engine, you can also search people and often find their LinkedIn profiles at the top of the search results, even above their company biography page.
Briefly, sites like LinkedIn and Spoke are just an online manifestation of what businesspeople have been doing for centuries offline. Many of the networking activities that would start at a conference or awards dinner are replicated in the online environment, like meeting people, finding common interest, reconnecting with contacts from alma maters, trade associations, and other organizations, and referring relevant business or contacts. Through LinkedIn, you can track people you know as they change positions and companies. You can also find out who they know and build bridges to prospective clients through your connections and your connections’ connections.
On the right is a visual to show how you relate to first, second, and third level connections, as well as the wider universe of all LinkedIn users. In the bottom left corner are stats on how my 450 direct connections connect me to a network of over 3.5 million people.
Why is LinkedIn important? LinkedIn is important, because increasingly people are moving online to get information, particularly on products and services. An example of this phenomenon is how the process of researching a vehicle has changed over the years. Once a very hands-on experience, you can now virtually test drive the Toyota Yaris from the comfort of your home. An extreme example, for sure, but it is very indicative where things are moving. It is not any different in the legal field, where the use of online networks is rapidly growing.
Not only are more attorneys on online networking sites, but they and other prospects are also using these sites to find attorneys, retain legal services and refer business.
How do you use LinkedIn? Now, whether you choose LinkedIn or any other business networking site, it’s only as productive as you make it. You get out of it what you put in. Again, it’s like real world networking. If you stand on the wall at a networking event or stay within your familiar group, you probably will not get as much out of it. However, if you get off the wall and talk to new people or people you have not spoke to in a while, you will more likely expand your network and increase your opportunity for new business.
There are some common sense caveats that business people and, specifically, attorneys should follow regardless of which social networking sites they choose to use. Most social networks have privacy settings. You can choose what is open to the public and what is only seen by connected people. You should set your privacy settings accordingly. However, I would also caution that you should not post anything you would not want to become public, regardless of your privacy settings. Like a phone conversation could be recorded, the information you post online can be recorded with screen snapshots, cached and recorded in online archives. You must make common sense decisions about what you post and what and how you respond to items. Also, you may have to monitor what others post and how it links back to you on certain online networking sites, like facebook. As an attorney, you must always be mindful of the ethical rules of the profession. You have to be mindful of confidentiality, privacy, attorney-client privilege and so forth. As an employee of NMM, you also must be mindful of the company internet usage policy, which states, in part: Any e-mail or other communication sent or received via the Internet must be appropriate for the workplace. Remember that e-mail is a relatively permanent form of communication. Do not transmit anything in an e-mail message that you would not be comfortable writing in a letter or memorandum. *** All Employees have a responsibility to use Company’s computer resources and the Internet in a professional, lawful and ethical manner. The electronic mail system and Internet usage is not to be used to create any offensive or disruptive messages.
First step, you have to create and complete your profile with pertinent and as much information you feel comfortable with sharing. From a business networking sense, you need to give your elevator speech in your profile, telling old and new connections who you are, what you are doing now and why they should send business to you. You should share your experience and build up your credibility with recommendations and honors & awards. With applications, you also can share alerts and articles (where you have rights) and PPT presentations. You can also share your interests and involvement in any groups or associations. You should definitely provide a link back to the NMM website, but you can also include a direct link back to your bio on the firm website.
We can populate your profile with information from the NMM website and other collateral, if you provide email address you used to set-up your account and your password. However, you may need to clean up specific dates and add information to which we do not have ready access. For instance, you should definitely include past positions and not just dates and titles, but what you did in each position. I recommend you add, at least, one or two past positions to your profile. This allows contacts that knew you from different position you held identify you more easily, adding another dimension to connect with you, and optimizing searchability of your profile.
The next step is to find connections. A quick and easy way to start is to import contacts from your email address books. LinkedIn is compatible with Windows Live Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo!, AOL and Microsoft Outlook. After you have exhausted that function, you should explore “Colleagues” and “Classmates” tabs under “Add Connections.” These tabs will help you find contacts from your current and past positions and classmates from your alma maters from the time period you were there, if listed on your/their profile. Lastly, you can manually search for people to add to your network. To add a nice touch, you should personalize the add message, instead of using the cold, standard message (examples in next two slides). This way, you can immediately jump-start more substantial communication, especially for contacts that you have fallen out of touch with or know more loosely and would like to further develop a relationship. If you “happen to come across an article” discussing awards or a move to a different company, you can use that contact to congratulate them or mention and/or ask about their move. The next level would be to find second and third level connections and ask for introductions from your first level connections. Another layer is groups. You can join alumni and trade association groups and industry-related inGroups. In this way, you can expand your network by finding and connecting with individuals within groups with whom you would otherwise not have a touch point.
This is the standard message.
This is an example of a more personal/customized message.
Communicating is the way to continue to cultivate opportunities from LinkedIn. There are a multitude of ways to communicate on LinkedIn, including, but not limited to, inMail messages, answering questions in Answer section, joining inGroup discussions, sending articles, inviting connections to upcoming events and updating status. Add-on applications, like SlideShare and BlogLink, let you share your presentations and blogs, respectively, on your profile. For example, Tim McKeown shares his blog posts on his LinkedIn profile through the WordPress application. Communication is integral to succeeding in an online environment as it is networking offline. It creates opportunities to establish your credibility and put yourself in other minds as their go to person in your field.
The Events section of LinkedIn is a relatively new function. It’s exciting to me, because I believe it’s a way to translate your online networking into offline networking, face to face, in a non-invasive manner. By posting and sharing speaking engagements you have booked or events you will be attending, you can make plans to meet up at the event with connections and LinkedIn users, who will also be attending. Specifically, with regards to speaking engagements, a connection might not be able to attend an event, but may be piqued by your topic. Now, there is an opportunity, because you have information on what would be useful to them. You can invite them to have lunch or a one-on-one call to discuss your event topic. You can send them your materials from the event. You can invite them to your future speaking engagement on the same or similar topics. By helping them, you help yourself. You communicate your “expertise” and, directly and indirectly, put yourself in line for future business or referrals.
First, check to see if the organizer has already posted or plans to post the event. All NMM events will be posted to LinkedIn by the Marketing Department. If the organizer has posted the event, you can note if you are attending, presenting or exhibiting at the event. If the organizer has not posted the event, adding the event to LinkedIn is a simple and straightforward process. It’s like completing any online form, a couple clicks, a little typing and some copying & pasting. With very little effort, you have opened a door for meaningful networking. Although the Event section is easy to use, it is not as easy to find. [Go to LinkedIn for Show & Tell.] If you need help accessing the Events Section, please feel free to contact Shana.
In addition to the functions of LinkedIn, LinkedIn has partnered with developers to add Applications that you can choose to use to “enrich your profile, share and collaborate with your network, and get the key insights that help you be more effective,” as LinkedIn explains. SlideShare and Google Presentations let you upload and share presentations. You can connect your blog to your profile with BlogLink and WordPress, as I mentioned earlier. Box.net and Huddle Workspace are online collaboration tools.
LinkedIn Polls, Company Buzz and My Travel are other applications offered on LinkedIn, which are all briefly described in this slide.
Once you are logged in, you can get to account settings by clicking on your name in the right hand top corner. Here, you should decide who you want to see what, as it relates to your account.
You will find your Privacy Settings under Settings. Under Privacy Settings, you can select what you want people to see. [Go to LinkedIn for Show & Tell.]
Now, it bears repeating. There are some common sense caveats that business people and, specifically, attorneys should follow. Although there are privacy settings on LinkedIn and you can technically choose what is open to public and what is only seen by connected people or what you send directly to connected people through messages and inMail, you should use caution and not post or send anything you would not want to become public, regardless of your privacy settings. Communicate responsibly and respectfully …
… and reap the benefits of using LinkedIn to expand your influence.
In summary, here are some great LinkedIn tips.
These are some tips on how to manage your LinkedIn profile and account.
Now, I am open to answer any questions you might have about LinkedIn. Thanks for your time and attention.