Jesper Åström - Ideas worth keeping to yourself» LinkedIn http://jesperastrom.com Where information is free, application & tactic becomes key Mon, 10 Oct 2011 23:39:19 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 LinkedIn adds More Network features http://jesperastrom.com/linkedin/linkedin-adds-more-network-features/ http://jesperastrom.com/linkedin/linkedin-adds-more-network-features/#comments Mon, 12 Apr 2010 18:45:59 +0000 Jesper Astrom http://jesperastrom.com/?p=2729

As you can see from my “random” partial screen print (yes you can do that if you own a mac), LinkedIn has added a new little feature on the company profile page. If you know people at the company, they have always been visible on top in the current employee box. However, now they have added the smallest of small texts saying “In common:” underneath each professional.

This feature is a small change, but also a great change. Finally you can easily browse if you know someone at a company before deciding who to contact to make a pitch or apply for a job. Sometimes greatness isn’t spelled with a capital G but with the smallest of sneaky improvements.

Basically it is a new kind of display, much like this one was previously:

I must say at this point that I am stalking neither Elin Lager or Judith Wolst. They just happened to be a part of my example as I was stalking the Midasplayer AB profile on LinkedIn after some interesting clicking behavior from that “network host” on my blog. I am just using them as a part of my example, and I hope they don’t mind.

That’s besides the point though as anything is fair in the name of Tutorials!!!!! :)

Have you been able to find any other updates to LinkedIn lately? YouTube are on a spree of updates and I will post more about them later here on this blog.

//Jesper

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]]> http://jesperastrom.com/linkedin/linkedin-adds-more-network-features/feed/ 0 5 Easy Methods to Build Business through LinkedIn http://jesperastrom.com/linkedin/5-easy-methods-to-build-business-through-linkedin/ http://jesperastrom.com/linkedin/5-easy-methods-to-build-business-through-linkedin/#comments Wed, 03 Feb 2010 18:33:53 +0000 Jesper Astrom http://jesperastrom.com/?p=2058

It is nice to see how LinkedIn has managed to maintain their professional status amongst the social networks. Other networks such as Plaxo and user customized Ning communities have a tendency to turn into friend quarters. Being a friend quarter you have to compete against Facebook, Orkut, vKontakte or wer-kennt-wen which means you are probably dead.

But what is to earn from engaging in or letting your employees engage in LinkedIn. Personally I use LinkedIn when I want to find companies and people who can deliver online services to me when I have too much to do myself. If you have a business and work with YouTube, Social bookmarking promotion (quality, no quantity submission) or social platform development, then please connect to me here: Jesper Åström on LinkedIn

1. Professional pages & LinkedIn interaction ethics

Don’t be a retard and disallow your employees to register profiles on LinkedIn. If you have a good work environment then you don’t have to worry about all the recruiters roaming the LinkedIn sphere. Instead encourage all of them to register profiles and give them a LinkedIn “how to” guide. This way you ensure that they know how to work and how they will reflect your company values in this professional environment.

Your how to guide should include instructions on:

  1. Profile picture instructions
  2. Education level & Previous work
  3. What a description should include + the link to company website and anchor text they should use
  4. Good ways in which to make new contacts and how to contact unknown people
  5. What applications to add and what accounts to connect to them (company presentations, company blog etc.)
  6. Recommended groups they should join
  7. Amongst other things ;)

2. Company profile

Nothing makes less sense than if all of your employees use different names for the company they work for. Second to less sense is if you have a company profile that is badly produced. The simplest way you gain value from your employees activities on LinkedIn is when you put your brand name on their profile page. If your company profile that the brand name links to looks bad or lacks information, then your turnover from these kinds of activities will be much less than if you have a professional and thought through profile.

Good things to include in your Company profile:

  1. A link to your website (yes loads forget this)
  2. What business you are selling/buying
  3. Two sentence description of values
  4. Three sentence description of what separates you from the competition
  5. A good looking company logo in the correct resolution
  6. A press/sales contact person available through LinkedIn – this person SHOULD have a professional account so that they can see the leads just roaming around in their profile

On average, I get about 10 visits a week to my LinkedIn profile by potential clients. They are probably doing research about me or my company. Being an ad agency in Stockholm the potential value for each client is quite high. The professionalism a well executed LinkedIn setup communicates is at least worth the time it takes to set it up.

3. Using VIP Groups to Invite important people

A group on a topic that you are an expert on or you are selling your products in, can be of great use as an introduction tool.

  1. Create a group
  2. Introduce a discussion topic asking people to write a short presentation of themselves
  3. Give it a “VIP name” such as “Social Media Conversion Specialists”
  4. Invite some knowledgeable people from your sector – consultants or good people you already know
  5. Remind them to write a short presentation of themselves and ask them to promote some blog post they think is relevant for the group
  6. Make contact with the person you want to connect to
  7. Tell them that their expertize really would contribute to the knowledge base of the group

I promise you that if this person is in any way active on LinkedIn, they will at least respond to your inMail.

4. Q&A Section

The most time consuming yet effective way to engage clients on LinkedIn is to work throught the Q&A section. You can either work through asking “leading questions” or answer questions that interesting companies ask. Work with pace and with easy questions in the beginning, then move to more complex issues. Your goal with answering questions is to get someone to rate your answer as the best. That way you get the stars next to your name and the little “expert” emblem, giving you a higher authority than other users.

You’ll soon find out that the LinkedIn community works a lot like other communities. It requires an initial volume of hard work and hustle to get some reputation. Then the questions will come to you and you won’t have to search for them.

This is a good tactic on how to get there:

  1. Identify important people, and connect with them
  2. Put up a monitoring on the questions aimed at your section
  3. Invite people who ask questions to your “professional group on the topic”

Remember, as long as you build relationships of value you will gain a lot of trust. Even though you recommend a competitor. If you focus on your specialty then you will do great in the Q&A section where “best answers” count more than anything else.

5. Recruitment

There is no activity more spirited on LinkedIn than recruitment. You simply cannot miss the opportunity. Especially if you are recruiting to a larger business. There are several neat features on LinkedIn that you can use to identify a suitable employee for you.

  1. The best is when you want a person from a specific company. You just use the advanced search functionality. Search for people who have been listed to work at that company. You can then look at with what degree of separation you are away from this person making it easy for you to use a common connection to get introduced.
  2. If you know a bit less, but you know what competencies you want. Go fetch in the Q&A section or just search for that type of competence. Perhaps you have heard a specific name and you want to research their qualities. LinkedIn works extremely well for these kinds of check ups.
  3. One nice component of the profile are the recommendations. But don’t spend to much time looking at how many recommendations a person has. Look instead what the people that have written the recommendation has written. Most of the time it is in a positive context, so don’t expect to find the dirty stuff there. On the other hand you can quite quickly get an overview of the stronger sides of the persons profile you’re looking at.

There are several other ways to use LinkedIn for recuritment purposes. Basically it gives you a name, face and CV of a person before even having to make the initial contact. This can naturally be used by people coming to an interview as well. They can check you up and get prepared for what kind of answers you might like ;) .

That’s all for this post on LinkedIn. Please ask questions or connect with me through the link on top.

//Jesper

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]]> http://jesperastrom.com/linkedin/5-easy-methods-to-build-business-through-linkedin/feed/ 2 Guilty by association – LinkedIn Spammers delight http://jesperastrom.com/social-information/guilty-by-association-linkedin-spammers-delight/ http://jesperastrom.com/social-information/guilty-by-association-linkedin-spammers-delight/#comments Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:48:55 +0000 Jesper Astrom http://jesperastrom.com/?p=825

Have you had a distant colleague who tried to add you on LinkedIn? Perhaps a person you do not know, and most of all didn’t know worked at the same company? Congratulations, YOU are a victim of the latest LinkedIn spam.

Virtually their tactic is like this:

  1. They sign up for an account on LinkedIn
  2. They compose a very short profile, usually without a picture
  3. They write that they represent the same company as you do
  4. They add a couple of people from that company – usually they add a couple of other spam accounts for that company, then they start adding “real people”

As people are often polite, they generally add these “as you are person I trust” invites. BUT have caution as this is one of the most dangerous types of online spam there is. As LinkedIn has grown to become one of the most trusted B2B social platforms online, it can have devastating effects if a person is able to hijack your brand by association.

The spammers often use a “ready” account (ie. an account that seems to be associated with a brand as it is connected to a lot of people from that brand) to start sales dialogues with other people. They extract important information that they then put in a CRM and sell to sales databases around the world. It is an excellent business as the Cost Per Lead in some industries can be ranging between 20 USD to 500 USD.

I hope you take care of yourself out there :)

//Jesper

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]]> http://jesperastrom.com/social-information/guilty-by-association-linkedin-spammers-delight/feed/ 1 3 Rules of LinkedIn Recruitment http://jesperastrom.com/social-communication/3-rules-of-linkedin-recruitment/ http://jesperastrom.com/social-communication/3-rules-of-linkedin-recruitment/#comments Tue, 05 May 2009 15:30:35 +0000 Jesper Astrom http://jesperastrom.com/?p=506

Are you looking to recruit people through the web I suggest you have a look at LinkedIn. The past week I have been contacted by three recruiters through that community. One was very professional, but the other two were horrible. I will describe below what the good example did. I will however not mention who it was or from what company. Perhaps I will add that later on if I get ok from the person.

Anyways, here we go!

The First Rule of LinkedIn Recruitment - The subject and introduction
Try to be to the point. It should be obvious in the subject what your intentions are. Phrases such as “Recruitment opportunity” or “Job opportunity” or similar, the title of the position followed by the name of the company hiring.

A perfect title should look like this:

Job Opportunity : Social Media Manager – CompanyName

The opening line is very interesting. This sentence should focus on how you came about contacting the person you are mailing. Preferrably it should make it seem as though you’ve researched the person you are trying to get in touch with. It should also make obvious your position. For this example I will take the first two sentences of the good example from the past week.

Please let me introduce myself, my name is [firstname lastname] and I am a Senior Recruiter at [CompanyName]. I specialise in Marketing and Online recruitment and came across your details through a colleague on LinkedIn.

The Second Rule of LinkedIn Recruitment – SHORT!! To the point
This is probably the most natural part for any recruiter namely, describing the position. Remember that you will loose the interest of the reader REALLY fast if your are unclear. Try to keep to bullets or to a maximum of 250 characters. If you exceed this limit you will come across as a person who does not really knowing what you are recruiting for.

It is ok the first time you get an inmail on LinkedIn about recruitment opportunities, but if you are head hunting in a very narrow segment -> then it is cruicial that you only aim to spark curiosity in the first contact rather than explain all details. It doesn’t hurt if you spend one of those cherished lines boosting the ego of your potential candidate (bolded below).

Here is a good template which is also from the good example from last week:

I am currently looking to hire qualified and experience [something] and [something] Specialists to work in [Location] across all brands, I noticed you were connected and active on Linkedin. We are specifically looking for people with additional languages (French, German, Italian OR Swedish) I wanted to see if you knew anyone that was looking for a new venture with a cutting edge organisation that’s focused on both Technology and [Something].

The Third Rule of LinkedIn Recruitment – Keep a secret
Never disclose the full details of what kind of person you are looking for, or for what position. Why? Well basically because even though you have seen the persons resume, he or she still might be a nut case and you should wait for the response before you pass any kind of information to this person.

However, the main reason for this being that depending upon how fast and detailed the person replies, you can basically determine the level of interest in the person. If you disclose all information you might not get this indication, if any indication at all. Perhaps the person is interested in switching jobs, but perhaps not the one you are offering. That knowledge can also be profitable with the right kind of contacts.

Good example from last week on how to go about not disclosing all info in a good way:

If possible I’d like to send you the job description so you can review in more detail. Please feel free to forward to any colleagues that may have the suitable skills and requirements.

Conclusion
Well, what I am trying to say is that there is some net-i-quette when trying to contact people. Even if you do it through a professional network as LinkedIn. There are loads of bad examples, but I like showing people how to do stuff rather than complain at others.

Now, this is my perspective. Other people would possibly like to be contacted in a different way. But by obiding to the above rules, I am sure you’ll not step on anyones toes.

Related Posts on the topic

//Jesper

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