Learn how to gain more business leads with the world’s most powerful free lead generation tool, LinkedIn.
transcript
1. The Power Formula for LinkedIn Success Kick-start Your
Business, Brand, and Job Search Wayne Breitbarth
2. ContentsIntroduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 I Never Even Wanted to Be
on LinkedIn!Chapter 1 A New Way to Look at Social Media . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 The LinkedIn Power Formula Your
Unique Experience Your Unique Relationships The ToolChapter 2 The
Million-Cubicle Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
LinkedInMaking the Invisible VisibleChapter 3 Wheres the Beef? . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 The LinkedIn Profile:
BasicsChapter 4 Your 30-Second Bumper Sticker . . . . . . . . . . .
. 27 The LinkedIn Profile: Personal Identification Box Your Name
Your Photograph Your Headline Your Location and Industry
3. viii The Power Formula for LinkedIn SuccessChapter 5 Resume
on Steroids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 The
LinkedIn Profile: Experience SectionChapter 6 Arent You Any Good? .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 The LinkedIn Profile:
Recommendations How Many Recommendations Should I Have? What Should
My Recommendations Say? Why Are Recommendations So Important? Tips
for Getting RecommendationsChapter 7 Hyperlinks to Hot Leads . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 The LinkedIn Profile: Additional
Top Box Items Education Websites Public Profile URLChapter 8 Thats
My Boy! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
The LinkedIn Profile: Summary and Specialties Sections The Summary
Section SpecialtiesChapter 9 Not Your Average Joe . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . 61 The LinkedIn Profile: Must-Have
Applications and Tools Box.net Files Google Presentation /
SlideShare Amazons Reading List Events Giving (and Getting)
AnswersChapter 10 Who Do You Want to Find? . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . 71 Searching on LinkedIn Saved Searches
4. Contents ixChapter 11 I Found YouNow What Do I Do with You?
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Contacting
the Person You Just Found The Introduction FunctionChapter 12
Theres Gold in Them Thar Hills . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Expanding Your Network Importing Contacts Connecting with
Colleagues Connecting with Classmates The Outlook Toolbar People
You May Know Accepting or Declining Connection Requests Connecting
with Competitors Monitoring Your Growing Network Tags Whos Viewed
My Profile?Chapter 13 Keywords Are King . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . 101 Maximizing Your Ability to Find and Be Found by
Others Exact Phrases The And Function The Or Function The Not
Function Keyword Optimizing Your ProfileChapter 14 How Do Companies
Fit into the LinkedIn Landscape? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . 107 Researching Companies on LinkedIn and Other
Company-Related Matters Social Media Policies and ProceduresChapter
15 Revving Up Your LinkedIn Efforts by Joining Groups . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 The Power of
LinkedIn Groups
5. x The Power Formula for LinkedIn SuccessChapter 16 Show Me
the Money! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 What Are the
Power Users Doing on LinkedIn?Chapter 17 Your Account, Your
SettingsYour Way . . . . . 129 Setting Your Preferences and Using
the LinkedIn Help Centers Paid vs. Free Accounts LinkedIn Learning
Center and Customer Service CenterChapter 18 A Job Seekers New Best
Friend . . . . . . . . . . . 135 LinkedInThe Worlds Largest
Internet-Based Resume DatabaseChapter 19 Ready...Set...Go! . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 A Six-Week, Two-Hour-per-Week
Road Map to Results Weeks 1-6 Managing Your Time on LinkedInChapter
20 Conclusion (Or Is It Just the Beginning?) . . . . 153 Which Camp
Are You In?Bonus My Kids Are Already on FacebookChapter Cant They
Find a Job There? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Why College
Students Need to Be on LinkedInAcknowledgments . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165Index . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
169About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . 179
6. C h apt e r 1 2 Theres Gold in Them Thar Hills Expanding
Your NetworkAs you can tell from previous chapters, the winner of
the searchingaspect of the LinkedIn game is the person who has a
lot of con-nections. However, please continue to keep in mind my
recom-mendation that you only add to your network people whom
youknow and trust, because when you add a new contact, you putyour
extremely valuable network in his or her hands. Remember,it is your
network. It is a possession you have worked your entirecareer to
build, and when you add a connection on LinkedIn, it islike handing
your Outlook database to that individual and trust-ing him to treat
it professionally as you would treat his. I recommend you have an
ultimate goal of acquiring at least200 to 250 connections (muskie
size), as opposed to the 20 or30 connections (minnow size) that the
vast majority of LinkedInusers acquire. If you want your searches
to be useful, you reallywant to consistently add connections. This
chapter will show you
7. 88 The Power Formula for LinkedIn Success how to find new
people to add, accept or decline the requests youll get, and gather
interesting information about your expand- ing base of contacts.
Once youve built your muskie-sized net, when you go fishing, youll
be sure to come up with lots of poten- tially valuable connections.
The most common way to add connections is one at a time. You do
this by clicking Add Connections on the top toolbar (see Figure
12.1). All you need is the persons e-mail address, and then you can
use LinkedIns standard invitation to invite your friend or
colleague to join your network The preferable way, however, to add
a person to your network is to search for her by name and then
click Add [her name] to your network at the top right corner of her
profile. Once you make this selection, you must then tell LinkedIn
and the per- son how you know her by selecting one of the options
LinkedIn shows you: colleague, classmate, etc. I prefer this method
of add- ing connections rather than the option mentioned in the
previous paragraph because it allows you to enter a short personal
note explaining why it would be beneficial for the person to allow
you to be part of her network. In my opinion, the standard Id like
to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn is very lame.
Figure 12.1: Adding connections one at a time is as easy as 1-2-3.
Welcome, Wayne Breitbarth Add Connections Settings Help Sign Out
Profile Contacts Groups Jobs Inbox (7) More... People Advanced the
Life You Deserve - If you must work, work from home. Earn
$500-$1000 Month to start. From Susan LaurinoEdit My Profile Add
Wayne to your network Forward this profile to a connection ors,
where we have served the office and Linkedin Trainer Furniture
8. Theres Gold in Them Thar Hills 89Remember, you are adding
this person to your group of trustedprofessionals. Therefore, you
should add a personal touch to yourinvitation. Customizing the
connection request will get you amuch higher response rate. Now I
am going to show you how to add a lot of connectionsat the same
time. Even if youre starting out with no contacts, youshould be
able to get to 50 or 60 connections within three or fourdays by
following the four steps that follow. If you currently have 30or 40
connections and follow these steps, you should get to over
100.Importing ContactsThe first step is to import contacts (see
Figure 12.2). Click Con-tacts on the top toolbar. Then select
Imported Contacts. Atthat point LinkedIn will be searching your
entire database forcontacts. It searches Outlook by default, but it
can do any otherdatabase or e-mail account, including ACT,
GoldMine, Yahoo,Gmail, or even a simple Excel file with name and
e-mail. LinkedInwill sift through the entries in your database,
looking for e-mailaddresses that match those of people who are on
LinkedIn. WhenFigure 12.2: Press the button and relax while
LinkedIn findsconnections for you. Account Type: Basic Home Profile
Contacts Groups Jobs Inbox 262 Companies My Connections Imported
Contacts Profile Organizer Network Sta Filter Connections Select:
All, None A Smith, John 199 All Connections (1624) Owner Media
Company Tags Manage
9. 90 The Power Formula for LinkedIn Successits done searching,
you will see the screen shown in Figure 12.3.What youre looking for
is the little blue square that says in.That icon indicates the
contacts in your database who are alreadyon LinkedIn. What do you
think the odds are that they will wantto connect with you once you
send them an invitation? Probablyclose to 100 percent. Check the
boxes next to the names of the contacts you wantto connect with and
click the button labeled Invite selected con-tacts. This will send
a group invitation to the people you haveselected, and you will
have to be fairly creative in crafting yourpersonalized message,
since it is going to many different people.You could do something
like this: Hi. I just read a great book by Wayne Breitbarth on
LinkedIn, and I finally understand how powerful this thing is. I
would love to have you join my network. John DoeFigure 12.3:
Quickly connect with trusted professionals who arealready using
LinkedIn. View & edit details L M Jones, Jerry
jerry.jones@business.com N President O View & edit details P Q
Jones, John john.jones@business.com R Business Consultant S View
& edit details T U V Knight, John john.knight@business.com W
Client/Administrative Manager X View & edit details Y Z Gray,
Gary gary.gray@business.com # View & edit details
10. Theres Gold in Them Thar Hills 91Connecting with
ColleaguesThe second step to building your network is adding
colleagues.Click Add Connections on the top right toolbar, and then
click onColleagues (see Figure 12.4). LinkedIn will then take all
the jobsyou have included in your profile and create a
comprehensive listof the people on LinkedIn who were employed at
those companiesduring your tenure (another benefit to listing all
jobs you have had).If you perform this same search at a later time,
the list will includeonly people who have been added since the last
time you searched.Figure 12.4: Past and present colleagues can be
extremely valuableconnections. Basic Account: Upgrade Welcome,
Wayne Breitbarth Add Connections Home Profile Contacts Groups Jobs
Inbox (7) More... People Add Connections Colleagues Classmates Get
more value out of LinkedIn by inviting your trusted friends and
colleagues to connect. See Who You Already Know on LinkedIn Enter
Email Addresses Searching your email contacts (hotmail.com,
gmail.com, yahoo.com, aol.com) is the easiest Enter email addresses
of people to way to find people who already know on LinkedIn. Learn
More each address by a comma. Email: Password:Connecting with
ClassmatesThe third step, connection with classmates, is funit will
feel likeyoure on Facebook. Click Classmates (see Figure 12.5).
Select aschool and the years you attended that school, and LinkedIn
willgive you a list of all the people who said they attended this
schoolduring the years you indicated. You will probably get quite a
largenumber of potential connections, but if you say to yourself,
Well,thats too many; thats going to take me too long to review,
then I guess
11. 92 The Power Formula for LinkedIn Successyou dont really
understand why you are even on LinkedIn. Ratherthan viewing this
process as a hassle, treat your search for valuableconnections as
if you were hunting treasuretell yourself, Theresgold in them thar
hills. Your classmates present a tremendous oppor-tunity to make
some important connections. These are people whowill remember you
from your college days, and you will now be ableto tell them what
you are up to today. Reconnecting with old friendsis fun, but it
can also be very productive; some of your old drinkingbuddies may
now be presidents of the companies with which youare trying to do
business. Many others will likely have nice databasesof Number 1
connections, which could lead to great connections atthe second or
third level for you. You just never know.Figure 12.5: Connecting
with a classmate may lead to that million-cubicle deal. Basic
Account: Upgrade Welcome, Wayne Breitbarth Add Con Home Profile
Contacts Groups Jobs Inbox (7) More... People Add Connections
Colleagues Classmates Get more value out of LinkedIn by inviting
your trusted friends and colleagues to connect. See Who You Already
Know on LinkedIn Enter Email Addresses Searching your email
contacts (hotmail.com, gmail.com, yahoo.com aol.com) is the easiest
Enter email addresses of people to way to find people who already
know on LinkedIn. Learn More each address by a comma. Email:
Password:The Outlook ToolbarThe fourth step is downloading the
Outlook toolbar, which youcan get by clicking on Tools at the
bottom of any LinkedInpage. Click Download it now in the Outlook
Toolbar box (seeFigure 12.6). This will download a piece of
software to your com-puter, which, going forward, will search all
the e-mails you receive
12. Theres Gold in Them Thar Hills 93for contacts who are in
the LinkedIn database. The program willalso tell you when people
you have in your Outlook database joinLinkedIn. In addition, when
you are writing an e-mail to a newcontact in Outlook, a pop-up box
will tell you whether the recipi-ent is a LinkedIn member and how
many connections he cur-rently hasand it will give you the option
to add the person as aLinkedIn connection.Figure 12.6: The Outlook
Toolbaryour virtual assistantlooks forpotential connections
24/7.People You May KnowOn your LinkedIn home page, youll see a box
on the right labeledPeople You May Know (see Figure 12.7). LinkedIn
has a specialformula for putting people in this section, and
although they havenot revealed how it works, you will be amazed at
the names youfind here. From my observation, these people typically
fall intoone or more of the following categories: They are
connected to someone in your network. They attended a school that
you also attended. They are a member of a group to which you
belong.
13. 94 The Power Formula for LinkedIn SuccessFigure 12.7:
LinkedIn helps you find new connections. People You May Know Kristy
Sears 2 nd Invitejob advice Apr 16 take action Owner - K & S
Lawn Service, LLCReschedule Apr 13 take action Katie Henry 2 nd
Invitetraining Apr 9 take action Systems AnalystEvent: Investment
Conference-2nd... Apr 1 take actionendorse me? Mar 18 archive Gary
Smith 2 nd Invite Lean Manufacturing Expertils (3), See all
messages See more You will find these suggestions not only useful
but also some-what entertaining. LinkedIn has helped me find a
number ofguys I used to drink dime taps (10 beers) with during my
col-lege days! Do not overlook the usefulness of this feature in
find-ing new connections.Accepting or DecliningConnection
RequestsPeople frequently ask me what they should do when
somebodythey dont know invites them to connect on LinkedIn. This
willbegin to happen with greater frequency as you become more
activeon LinkedIn, especially if you decide to join larger groups.
Somepeople assume that because you are members of the same
group,you will want to connect with them on the first-degree level.
When you receive an invitation from someone, you will seethe screen
in Figure 12.8. Lets go through the six options youhave when
responding to an invitation: Accept. The person will immediately
become a first-degree1. connection.
14. Theres Gold in Them Thar Hills 95 Reply. People often
overlook the option of using the Reply2. feature. If you hit the
Reply arrow, you can send a com- munication to the requesting
individual without allowing him to become part of your network. If
I have had an inter- esting meeting with a person and we belong to
the same group or club, I can send a message saying something like,
At the next meeting, lets make sure we connect and get to know each
other better so we can join each others Linked- In networks.
Delete. The invitation will be moved to the trash.3. Archive. The
invitation will be stored in your archive file,4. which gives you
the ability to reconsider accepting the invitation at a later time.
I use the archive function quite often, but there is one thing I do
before I archive some- ones invitation: I look at his profile and
see whether he is somebody I should at least consider having a
meeting with. Remember, this person found you, so he is probably
inter- ested in building a business relationship with you. Look at
his profile to see if there is something interesting there before
you put his invitation in your archive file, where you may forget
about it entirely.Figure 12.8: Consider all of your options when
responding to an invitation. Messages ? Invitations 224 Search
Inbox Reply Forward Archive Delete Compose Message Join my network
on LinkedIn Inbox John Smith - Director, Growth Capital To: Wayne
Breitbarth Message detail Date: July 9, 2010 Sent John Smith has
indicated you are a person theyve done business with at Growth
Capital: Archived Id like to add you to my professional network on
LinkedIn. Trash - John Smith You are using the new Inbox. Send us
feedback > Accept Ignore
15. 96 The Power Formula for LinkedIn Success Ignore. The
invitation will be put into the archive file and5. marked Ignore.
Before deciding to ignore an invitation, follow the same procedure
that I suggested for archiving invitations: Check out the persons
profile to determine whether there might be a reason to meet him or
her. After selecting Ignore, you will have two additional options I
dont know them or Report as spam. This allows you to report to
LinkedIn that this individual might not be using LinkedIn
appropriately. Forward. If you wish to make an inquiry concerning
this6. person before you decide whether to accept his or her invi-
tation, you can forward the invitation to any of your first- level
connections who might possess useful information.Connecting with
CompetitorsOne question that comes up quite frequently is, Would
you letcompetitors be connected to you at the first level? My
immedi-ate response is No! It does not make good business sense
toallow your competitors to have a list of the people who are
mostimportant to you. You are basically handing them your
Outlookdatabase. There are, however, certain industries in which
yourcompetitors may also be your suppliers or vendors, and you
willneed to weigh the risk and reward of allowing those individuals
tobe part of your network. One of the few times I used the I dont
know them optionwas when one of my direct competitors, whom I had
never met,attempted to connect with me on LinkedIn. There was no
wayI was going to give her access to the network I have worked
sohard to develop over the course of my lifetime. So I
promptly
16. Theres Gold in Them Thar Hills 97told LinkedIn I dont know
her. Something tells me she was notsurprised by my
response.Monitoring Your Growing NetworkOnce youve started to build
your LinkedIn network, you caneasily keep track of the number of
new people added to yournetwork since a certain date. Select
Contacts on the top tool-bar and then Network Statistics to view
information aboutyour total number of connections (see Figure
12.9). You will beamazed at how quickly you continue to add people
to your net-work, not only at the first level but also at the
second and thirdlevels. You will find a summary of this information
on the rightside of your home page. I typically pick up about 8,500
peopleper day. Although I am not aware of the names of these
peopleor who in my network has connected with them, I do know Iam
8,500 people closer to finding that million-cubicle job thanI was
yesterday. Even when I am at the beach or hiking in theRocky
Mountains, I am adding about 8,500 people per day tomy network. Now
doesnt that bring new meaning to the word vacation! And there is no
question in my mind that one day theseconnections will pay off in a
big way.Figure 12.9: You will be amazed by how quickly your network
grows.
17. 98 The Power Formula for LinkedIn SuccessTagsOnce youve got
all these connections, youll want to use tags tosort them for easy
reference. LinkedIn defines tags as simple key-words that you can
create to organize your connections for quickfiltering on LinkedIn.
To use this feature, go to Contacts on thetop toolbar, then click
My Connections, and then click Tags.Once you have tagged all of
your connections that fall into a par-ticular category, LinkedIn
will create a list of those connections.Examples of tags that I
have found useful include bankers,insurance agents, and customers.
As you spend time using thisfeature, you will find more ways to use
tags to help you organizeyour network, which can save you time when
you need to locateor contact a particular person or group within
your network.Whos Viewed My Profile?LinkedIn also allows users to
see how many people are looking attheir profile with the Whos
Viewed My Profile? feature, whichyoull find in the column on the
right side of the LinkedIn homepage (see Figure 12.10). This is an
interesting box to click on fromtime to time, but dont expect to
see the name of the person wholooked at your profile. You may
instead see any of the follow-ing information about the person: job
title, type of company orindustry, company name, or location. From
this information, youcan sometimes guess who viewed your profile
and perhaps may beinterested in meeting you. The Whos Viewed My
Profile? section can also help youidentify whether you are
increasing your activity and presence onLinkedIn; it will display
information like Your profile has beenviewed by 22 people in the
last 3 days. Yesterday, you appearedin search results 7 times. As
with all networking, increasing your
18. Theres Gold in Them Thar Hills 99activity has the potential
to increase relationships, which may leadto increased
business.Figure 12.10: More looks at your profile should create
more businessopportunities. Whos Viewed My Profile? 21 Your profile
has been viewed by 21 people in the past 3 days. 29 You have shown
up in search results 29 times in the past 3 days. Taking advantage
of the features explained in this chapterwill enable you to quickly
add a large number of connections.Youll be on your way to building
that big muskie net, so thatwhen you search for new contacts, you
will have plenty of peopleto choose from. Applying the Power
Formula aking connections using the steps outlined in this chapter
M may take you six to eight hours to complete, but its well worth
the effort. Every one of your unique relationships gives you lots
of Number 2s and 3s, and any of them could be the person you want
to meet. hese steps work more effectively when you have thoroughly
T outlined your unique experience in the Experience and Education
sections. If you fail to list a job or an educational experience,
you will miss out on potential credibility as well as the
opportunity to make valuable connections with people you met while
gaining that unique experience.
19. The Power Formula forLinkedInSuccessfree resources I hope
you enjoyed this sneak peek into my new book! Some of the other
resources I provide are: Customized corporate training classes and
social media strategy consulting Keynote and workshop presentations
for conventions and association meetings For Sale: LinkedIn
training DVDs for beginners and intermediate users For daily tips,
follow me on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/WayneBreitbarth
Preorder my book now at Amazon.com Wayne C. Breitbarth Author of
The Power Formula for LinkedIn Success: Kick-Start Your Business,
Brand and Job Search (March 2011, Greenleaf Book Group)
www.powerformula.net www.Linkedin.com/in/waynebreitbarth
http://twitter.com/WayneBreitbarth