BLT (*) – “HOW DO YOU USE LINKEDIN TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS?”

“ As of April 2017, LinkedIn had 500 million members in 200 countries, out of which more than 106 million members were active. Most of the company’s revenue comes from selling access to information about its members to recruiters and sales professionals”

– Source: Wikipedia

LinkedIn has become the defacto social media tool for the business community. Whereas Twitter is too fleeting, Facebook too personal, and Instagram too artistic….Linkedin ticks most of the professional boxes. Or does it?

Asking around the table, 100% of people’s hands went up when asked if they had a Linkedin profile. However, when asked who used Linkedin actively to grow their business, only about 20% of hands stayed up. When asked who had done so successfully and we were down to about 5%!

So, was it us who were failing….or LinkedIn who was not delivering?

Q. Would you accept a stranger’s LinkedIn request?

“I’ll connect with somebody I don’t know if there’s a valid reason and it could be good for my business”

“What have I got to lose?”

“Only if there is a personal message attached”

“I say no to people from overseas – I’m not going to ever sell them anything so why bother?”

“The same rules apply to LinkedIn as networking in the real world – don’t be too quiet, but don’t be too salesy”

USING LINKEDIN TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS?

“Did you know LinkedIn started off as purely an IT recruiting tool?”

One of our BLT members was one of the first 50,000 people to sign up to LinkedIn back in 2003 when it was first launched. This was because he was working at the time in California for an IT company, based virtually (by which I mean physically!)  next door to LinkedIn’s offices. Back then, LinkedIn was solely used as a recruiting and networking tool for IT professionals. 

Fast forward 15 years: Linkedin’s membership has grown 10,000 fold and is now the subsidiary of a global multinational (Microsoft).

But is it any better?

Reasons NOT to use LinkedIn to grow your business:

1. People have 1,000s of connections but how many know their connections ‘well’? 

• Round the table it ranged from ‘almost all’ to ‘less than 10%’ – almost by definition, those with larger networks knew a lower percentage of their connections ‘well’.
• Interestingly, in larger corporates, people tend to use LinkedIn for job opportunities, and hence are reluctant to use their work email. So, you’ve got a whole slew of personal contacts, plus these people are less likely to look at LinkedIn during the working day.

2. There is too much noise

• The larger your number of connections and the more groups you belong to, the more alerts and messages you will receive….and this is before you consider fake bots and ‘suggested’ articles.
• Hence, the more noise there is, the harder it is to get noticed, especially when you are looking to grow your business via people you may not know already

3. Everybody is becoming more tech savvy

• There are numerous online and delivered training courses available and the combination of growing numbers, better LinkedIn knowledge and more sophisticated product updates means much higher volumes of traffic…not necessarily higher quality.
• As people become more advanced, LinkedIn has become like an arms war!

CONCLUSION

Membership of LinkedIn is a ‘hygiene factor’; i.e. it would look strange nowadays if you were in business and were not a member.

How to make it ‘work’ for you though is a different matter entirely – it all comes back to basics though; as LinkedIn becomes more ‘impersonal’, the trick is to make your LinkedIn more ‘personal’. 

Ironically, this is how LinkedIn first started out – connecting specific people together (IT professionals) and valuing personal relationships….funny how things usually come full circle eh?

ANY OTHER NEWS

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Contact Mark Wójicki: studio Stanley

(*) BLT is a free fortnightly networking group that meets from 7:15-8:45, every other Thursday at The George & Dragon, Marlow.

For more details, please leave me a message – new networkers are always welcome.

The next meeting is Thursday 26th October