Are you using LinkedIn? If not, you’re missing a trick or two on developing social networks online.
While we all network well face to face, using online networking sites like LinkedIn can help enormously in a few different ways. Here are a few of them.
1. You get to showcase your background and working history which will lend credibility to your online profile.
2. It increases your online visibility ‘footprint’
3. You can use it to look up other professionals you might be meeting and take a closer look at their background before you meet.
4. You can share documents with other professionals you are linked with and even invite those you aren’t yet linked with to take a look as well.
5. You can look up people you have just met and request to ‘connect’ thus building up your professional database of competitors, synergistic companies that you might want to work with on projects and those you simply want to know more about i.e. identify prospects
6. Watching competitors teaches us about our own business and we can learn from them
7. You can connect with other members connections to increase your own database via invitations sent through your own connections i.e. with a personal introduction which increases trust factor and validity
8. You can find your old connections from past companies you have worked at or with and your old school friends (Where did they all end up?)
9. You can add questions to create forums where connections can comment and create dialogue
10. You can research and add polls, find out what people are saying about your business and your profile
All in all LinkedIn is a powerful networking tool for all professionals.
