Getting Connected with

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1 Getting Connected with Created by Justin Davies and Emily Wilson T M E justin@

2 Getting Connected with Copyright Notice This document is the property of Emergination. All information may be shared however Emergination must be acknowledged, with a link to the website. The LinkedIn logo and trademark is the property of LinkedIn. Revision History Version Date Who Details Emily Wilson First draft Justin Davies Second draft Justin Davies Third draft - released for external review Justin Davies Fourth draft- incorporating feedback Justin Davies Updates to content Getting Connected with LinkedIn 1

3 Table of Contents The Purpose of This Guide 3 What is LinkedIn? 4 7 Reasons to Use LinkedIn 4 Step 1: Get Started by Creating An Account 5 Step 2: Fill In the Details About You 6 Write about your current role 6 Add your prior roles 7 Add your education 7 Add your specialist expertise. 7 Specify how you want to be contacted 8 Upload a photo 8 Step 3: Build Your Network 8 Here is how to get started: 9 Adding Contacts 9 Step 4: Recommendations 11 Step 5: Setup a Company Profile 12 Step 6: Join a Group 12 What next? 14 Appendix: 15 How to Create a Successful LinkedIn Group 15 Getting Connected with LinkedIn 2

4 The Purpose of This Guide This guide has been written for people in small and large business who have posed the same concerns: I ve heard about LinkedIn, but I don t know enough about it to know if it is for me I m on LinkedIn. I probably should be doing more with it, but I don t know where to start I keep getting connection requests but I m not sure what to do I think LinkedIn is great, but I m not sure who I should or shouldn t connect to Won t I be making a mistake if I let everyone know who my contacts are? I m really busy and I m not sure I m going to get any value out of this If you have asked any of these questions, or other questions about LinkedIn, then this guide is for you. If you have any feedback, suggestions or your own experience that would be valuable to add, please contact us at Getting Connected with LinkedIn 3

5 What is LinkedIn? LinkedIn is the social networking site for the professional world. It is unique in its focus on helping people in business work with each other. It isn t just another social networking site such as Facebook or Myspace. LinkedIn contains over 100 million members in more than 200 countries over the world and is still growing. But how can it help you? LinkedIn connects you to people you trust and allows you to view trusted networks, which helps you to expand your own. It helps you to exchange your ideas, knowledge and business opportunities with a larger network. LinkedIn is also a great way of keeping in touch with your business colleagues, clients and suppliers. 7 Reasons to Use LinkedIn It is FREE - no cost to sign up and use the service It is quick and easy to join It is easy to use, and easy to begin connecting to people you know You can expand your network. Find out who in your network knows important contacts that can help you build your business You can easily build trust in your network by discovering whom you know that your colleagues know through circles of influence You can generate new customers through promoting your business LinkedIn can be a really fast way to set up meetings strangers become friends, friends become customers Seth Godin, Permission Marketing Getting Connected with LinkedIn 4

6 Step 1: Get Started by Creating An Account Creating your LinkedIn account is easy and fast - it only takes about 2 minutes. As LinkedIn is free to join it wont cost you a cent to try it Go to Click Join now Fill in your details e.g. name, , password To finish click join now at the bottom of the page You will receive an confirmation Getting Connected with LinkedIn 5

7 Step 2: Fill In the Details About You This step is creating your profile which is a summary of your skills and expertise. You can edit your profile anytime, and build it up as you go. You don t need to complete all of these steps at once. You may find this step much quicker if they have their resume or Curriculum Vitae handy so that you can cut and paste the information. You might find that the roles read better if you consider them as headlines eg Owner of Specialist Sales Training practice, SalesTrainers Write about your current role Add your job position or business, your responsibilities, and some key successes. There is no need to be bashful - nor do you want to wildly overstate your successes either. This is where looking at the profiles of colleagues can really help you as a basis for describing your expertise and experience. This doesn t need to be long - a paragraph or two will suffice, and bullet points are fine to use. If you are unsure of how to write a profile visit linkedin.com/in/justinkdavies or linkedin.com/in/ emilywilson for examples. It is also worthwhile searching for people in your profession or colleagues that you know so you can see ways in which they have written their profiles for some creative inspiration. Getting Connected with LinkedIn 6

8 Add your prior roles The description of these roles should be more succinct than your current role. The value of adding the prior roles is that: People that have worked with you some time ago will be able to connect to you more easily - they will be certain it is you Some people will search for colleagues by searching for the company name It demonstrates breadth and range of experience Add your education You can add your education - university degrees and higher learning, as well as secondary school information. Again, this provides a means of broadening the network. Add your specialist expertise. You can now list up to 25 keywords with your specialities Getting Connected with LinkedIn 7

9 Specify how you want to be contacted You can include your , phone and your website. Depending upon the settings you choose, you can have this information publicly available, or only available to your connections. You can also add links to your blog if you have one, as well as Twitter or other social networks. If you don t have a blog or are not on Twitter don t worry - we recommend you concentrate on building your LinkedIn profile and connections (so keep reading on...) Upload a photo Photos create an important visual connection, and also increase the likelihood that your contacts, as well as others that view your profile will contact you. Professionally taken photos are best. Your photo should be head and shoulders shot with you smiling and in your normal business attire. You should err on the side of being more formally dressed if you are uncertain as what to wear in the photo, and your attire should be in keeping with your industry. Step 3: Build Your Network The real power of LinkedIn comes from the connections you make - you will be continually surprised the people that are only a one or two connections away in your network. You may have heard of the phrase 6 degrees of separation, Six_degrees_of_separation LinkedIn collapses 6 degrees to a much smaller number and makes it easier to connect. Getting Connected with LinkedIn 8

10 Here is how to get started: The first step is to decide who to connect to. Some people choose to only connect to a small number of people - some will connect to anyone that invites them. In our view, a connection implies a tacit approval or recommendation of that person - in other words, you are implying that you have met this person and if the appropriate opportunity arose you would undertake business with them. If you don t know them, or don t trust them - don t connect. Adding Contacts There are 3 ways of adding contacts to LinkedIn. You can add each one manually. This is a great way to get started by manually adding a couple of connections so you can get the feel for how the process works. You can search for a contact, then add them You can export some or all of your contacts from your address book, upload these to LinkedIn and connect that way. Upload your existing contacts from your . Follow these links for step by step instructions on Outlook, Mac Mail, GMail. Suggestions: Once you have added some contacts, LinkedIn will begin to suggest connections based upon people that your colleagues are connected to, LinkedIn prioritises these suggestions based upon the number of links to that person. For example, if 3 of your colleagues are connected to John, it is more likely you will know John as well. Once you start connecting to people, their contacts will be notified that you have connected to them. As a result you will start receiving connection requests soon. Follow the steps to accept the connection. Getting Connected with LinkedIn 9

11 You can also browse through your contacts connections to see who they are connected to. Getting Connected with LinkedIn 10

12 Step 4: Recommendations Recommendations are testimonials written about you by your colleagues and friends that appear on your profile. Recommendations are really valuable for building trust within your network and with people that view your profile who may be interested in contacting you. A recommendation provides a personal insight into the type of person you are to deal with, and are much more powerful than trying to write a really strong personal profile. The best way to get a recommendation is to provide one first, in the same way that BNI works - givers gain. Write recommendations for colleagues Submit your recommendation and request a recommendation in return. Getting Connected with LinkedIn 11

13 Step 5: Setup a Company Profile Set up a profile within LinkedIn for your company and invite your team to connect to the profile. Company profiles are a great way to allow prospective customers to see the people behind your company, and provide a human side to your organisation. Company profiles also are a great way of researching companies that you wish to do business with as well. Step 6: Join a Group Joining groups is a great way to converse with like minded people who share specialist expertise. It also provides you and your business with additional exposure, and access to ideas - as well as providing a means of contributing your own expertise and build your profile. When joining groups, it is important to pick groups that are relevant to your industry - as well as your location. Whilst many groups operate worldwide for purposes of discussion, if what you are really chasing are people to connect to in the city that you work in, it wont make sense to join a group where most members are thousands of kilometres away. Getting Connected with LinkedIn 12

14 When you join a group you can set how you are notified of information from the group, including whether you want to receive notifications, a weekly digest or notification every time someone joins or posts information to the group. As an example join the linkedin BNI group Getting Connected with LinkedIn 13

15 What next? Congratulations! If you have made it this far, then you should have a LinkedIn profile, and some great connections. Aim for a minimum of 100 connections - the more you have the greater your reach - and this works exponentially. For example: 6 connections provides you with links to 318,433 people. 825 connections provides links to 7,597,226 Emily Wilson s network - just as she was getting started Getting Connected with LinkedIn 14

16 Justin Davies network - as you can see, he has been doing this for a little while... Appendix: How to Create a Successful LinkedIn Group The Smell of Good Business blog 16 March Interview with Michael Field Michael Field is a strategic marketing consultant with a record of achieving business growth through innovative marketing strategies. Based in Sydney Australia, his skills include authoring and implementing business and strategic marketing plans, start-ups including funding, market segmentation and driving business growth through the utilisation of new technology. His professional experience includes director and executive positions across listed and private companies including publishing, online, start-ups, business to business, not for profit (NFP) and member services organisations. He has created on of the most successful groups in Australia on LinkedIn - Next Director - focussed on helping company directors secure new directorship roles, as well as encouraging discussion on best practice. Emergination partners with Michael Field where appropriate on national projects. Introduction Recently many people have been asking how to harness the power of social networking in a business context. An example of how to do it right is a group called Next Director, a group for emerging and current company directors to share information, founded by Michael Field. I asked him about his experience in creating this group, and what he found worked for him in doing so. Justin: What is it about being a company director that interests you? Getting Connected with LinkedIn 15

17 Michael: Being a company director for me is about the opportunity to apply your skills toward enhancing the performance of an organisation. Of course there is a great deal more to the role and responsibility of a company director, but the opportunity to influence and guide strategy to deliver performance is what drives me personally. My experience on not-for-profit (NFP) boards has to some extent provided greater challenges, with even greater rewards. The opportunity to work with exceptionally talented people, grapple with complex problems and focus on a common objective is intellectually stimulating and personally rewarding. Justin: What sparked the idea for this group? Michael: The idea for Next Director developed as a result of my observations of the Australian director community. My views were further informed through connecting with directors in other countries through social networking sites such as LinkedIn. Analysis of the director market shows that there is a significant number of company directors whose needs are not being met by traditional member services organisations. There are many reasons for this, but the evidence is in the tragically low membership of director organisations compared to the total director population. Some research indicates that market penetration is as low as 4% in Australia. The idea behind the group is to harness the collective expertise of a global director market, deliver meaningful services, information & interaction and utilise technology to increase participation and reduce cost. Justin: What has been the most surprising thing for you about the group to date? Michael: The surprises have mostly been pleasant and to some extent were hoped for but not expected. The stand-out experience for me has been the incredible generosity of the group when it comes to answering questions posted by another member. Although it is common for people to experience this in social networking sites such as Twitter, I had not yet tested it in the professional, member services market and was pleasantly surprised by the outcome. Justin: How do you manage the issue of people self promoting? This is an interesting question and a significant challenge for all social networking sites and open groups or forums. While it is difficult (and often counter-productive) to be excessively restrictive with rules, the general approach is: 1. Membership is not automatic. The CV, work history and/or educational experience of the applicant needs to demonstrate their suitability to the group. For example, if there is inadequate information on the applicants LinkedIn profile, they are asked to update their profile to reflect their director interests. 2. All posts, questions and answers are monitored and moderated regularly to ensure that they are focused on director issues. Where a post is obvious self-promotion, or completely off-topic for directors, the group member is asked to remove the post or it is deleted by a moderator. Getting Connected with LinkedIn 16

18 Justin: What tips do you have for others that want to create similar groups online? Michael: Be clear about the audience that you want to attract and the specific subject matter that you wish to focus on. General information groups tend to get flooded with self-promotion and irrelevant clutter. The key to success I believe is having a clearly defined objective and then managing closely to that objective by eliminating content that is not relevant to the group. Although you run the risk of occasionally offending an individual (if you remove a post for example) there is greater damage done by allowing the groups focus to be diluted with irrelevant material. Justin: What is your experience with other social networking group tools, such as Facebook, Twitter and any others? I use different social networking sites for different audiences and different businesses. Twitter has been an excellent networking tool to connect with key influencers in the technology, online, marketing and innovation space. As an example, I recently connected with an iphone application developer and we are now collaborating on a different project. LinkedIn has been the test-bed for the Next Director project and has been enormously successful. I have used facebook for more consumer-focused businesses with a degree of success, although it has been less successful for next Director. Justin: How frequently do you need to post? Michael: The Next Director community is very active and to a large extent self-sufficient. It is not uncommon for me to log-on and notice a dozen detailed response to a members question from other members. Although this does not reduce my responsibility to keep the group active and continually provide new information, it does however supplement it and allows the group to choose their own topics of interest and post accordingly. I log on every day, approve new members, monitor and moderate posts and submit new news articles or add to discussions where I can add value. Justin: Has this generated any business for you? Michael: My intention with the Next Director was not to develop business for my strategy consulting business, but rather to build a platform where aspiring and emerging company directors could engage with each other, seek & contribute advice and share ideas & information. To that extent it has been a great success, however I have started to develop more direct relationships with the group members to enhance the experience of social networking. Justin: How has this helped your profile? Michael: I see the benefits of participating in selected online communities more as an opportunity to connect with interesting people, be at the leading edge of information exchange and technology developments, and enhance the community experience by contributing ideas and expertise. Getting Connected with LinkedIn 17

19 Justin: Thanks for your insights Getting Connected with LinkedIn 18

20 Getting Connected with Written by Emily Wilson and Justin Davies T M E justin@