And where do you strike a balance between the quality and size of your network? Says Sanjay Negi, CIO at Technology for Business Solutions: “You can have a huge network loosely and statistically interacting with you, or you can have a small network with intense interchange of ideas and information. An optimal approach would be to have a large loose network for broad coverage and then a smaller focused group for taking ideas to conclusion.”
2. LinkedIn Q&A: A global focus group
The most popular feature of LinkedIn is its ‘Answers’ section—a forum to exchange expertise and knowledge, and meet new people to connect with. You can also call it a global focus group giving you access to some of the best minds in the business. And if your answers get rated the best, you gain expertise points which get reflected in your profile.
3. Finding people and staying in touch
LinkedIn is a repository of talented and smart professionals you may want to connect with; use it to find people you share interests with or those who can help you at work; it even reconnects you with former colleagues and classmates by matching profiles.
4. Hiring
The best people are usually not the ones looking for a job actively; the chances are you will find them on, or through, LinkedIn, and not on job portals. The site has become a happy hunting ground for recruiters who use their network for this purpose or choose the paid advertising options to cast the net wider. If you have a good network, why not make some money on the side by charging a finder’s fee from recruiters or your own internal HR?
5. Finding a job
If you can hire people through LinkedIn, why not get yourself that dream job too? Keep your profile updated, participate in the Q&As and work on improving the quality of your network—the next break will not take too long coming. The current CEO of LinkedIn, Dan Nye, did not post his resume anywhere, but was picked by the founder Reid Hoffman through the site itself!
6. Branding and marketing yourself
Did you know your profile is optimized to come up on search engines such as Google? If the world is looking at you, you might as well put your best face forward. Your profile, quality of contacts and what you say in Q&As all determine your personal brand equity. As do recommendations that can be left on your profile by those who have worked with you.
7. Sales and brand building
For T. Balaji, vice-president and head of the global division of Feedback Business Consulting Services, LinkedIn is his professional lifeline. “My job entails business development overseas, and it is not easy to identify who does what in large companies in the West; my LinkedIn network often does this for me. I met 30 people on my last trip to the US, all appointments coming through because of LinkedIn. And I expect at least 10 to give us some business,” he says.
With LinkedIn full of decision-makers and influencers, it is attracting more users by the minute for its ability to provide sales leads on a global scale. Users themselves, mostly the higher-income group, are a market tough to emulate; they are also the right target group to help create a buzz about your brand. Go get them.
8. Finding vendors and service providers