Linked Intelligence

This week we’re having some fun in the b5media Business Channel doing a “blog scramble”, with everyone doing guest posts on another blog in the channel. My guest blogger is the inimitable Liz Strauss of Successful Blog, explaining how a well-done blog can enhance your network.

How My Blog Turbo Powers My LinkedIn Connections
a guest post for Linked Intelligence by Liz Strauss

I’ve been on LinkedIn for more than 2 years now. I’ve got my fair share of connections, though you would never call me an Open Networker. I’m belong to a forum for LinkedIn members from Chicago and will be attending my first event next week with that group. Yet, If you ask, I’ll tell you the most powerful connection I have to LinkedIn is sitting in my profile in this section.

It’s my blog.

If you want to know who I am, what I look like, what I know about business, marketing, social media, my blog is a 3,000 page organized archive library that serves as an interactive resume. It’s by no means a writing project or a magazine. Blogging is relationships. People stop in for a conversation in the comment box we get to know each other well and deeply enough that often we find ways to do business.

Most of the connections and all of the recommendations on my LinkedIn account are folks that I’ve met though my blog. Blogging offers a chance to share thoughts about business and get responses from intelligent readers. It’s a share something I know and have a conversation about it. The people I meet on my blog often become friends and colleagues. I find them daily on the other end of telephone conversations. They are the folks who are my LinkedIn connections.

When I look at LinkedIn, I see a powerful tool for leveraging connections. That leverage is so much more powerful when first-level connections all have been part of a shared conversation. Then when I ask for an introduction or a recommendation, the folks in my network know who they’re sending and what to say to highlight my best impressions.

My blog has extended the number of my authentic relationships exponentially. I’m talking about people I know and people who know me — not Vcards. Those authentic relationships are my LinkedIn Network. They’re the ones who support me, introduce, and connect me to other great folks much like they are. It’s that base of people who know me that make my LinkedIn Network solid, fun, and sleek to navigate. It’s turbo-powered by the relationships that started on my blog.

Liz Strauss, community builder, product analyst, and social web strategist, writes for Successful-Blog.

My favorite LinkedIn-related quote of the past few weeks is from Erik Dafforn at ClickZ, who asks, “When does social media matter in SEM?“:

LinkedIn has been a workhorse of social networking sites, sort of a baked potato to FaceBook’s bag of Skittles. People likely spend less time per visit on LinkedIn than they do on other networking sites. This is fine for most of its users, as LinkedIn is designed to work for you while you’re doing your job, rather than trying to avoid it.

I love that last line! (my emphasis)

Erik then goes on to offer some very sound advice for companies:

Your HR department or some other official body must get into LinkedIn to consolidate and verify certain issues. Chances are that scads of your employees already use the site and have listed your company in their profiles but have been inaccurate in describing the company. As a result, LinkedIn company profiles are only as accurate as the details individual users have added.

An employee’s profile is not “owned” by their employer, but it’s perfectly reasonable — in fact, I’d say it should be obligatory — for companies to review employee’s profiles and make sure that they are representing the corporate brand correctly and consistently.

There’s a fine line here — you don’t want all your employees sounding like robots programmed to recite the company’s mission as a mantra. You want to give employees leeway to offer their own unique personal perspective on the company. But you also want to reinforce the corporate brand.

Just handle with care. Think of it as a training opportunity.

Image: Jesse Sneed via Flickr

Over the past few weeks I’ve been collecting some more great ideas from the blogosphere to add to my collection of 100+ Smart Ways to Use LinkedIn. Here are the recent additions:

Warm Calling via LinkedIn - Alex Iskold

As part of his excellent “Guide to Business Development 2.0″, Alex says that cold calling is dead:

LinkedIn has become an indispensable tool for business introductions. [...] An introduction received via LinkedIn is much warmer than a cold call, because it comes with a bit of trust. You are no longer a stranger trying to upsell things that no one needs, instead you come with a recommendation, however light, from a person that the receiver is connected to. And even if you can’t find a path to connect to someone, sending a direct message via LinkedIn is better than sending a cold email. The reason is that LinkedIn implies business context, and so the person you’re trying to reach likely is not going to be as surprised or angry about the unsolicited ping.

Five Ways IT Managers Can Get More Out of LinkedIn - Shane Schick

This is a great post focused on how senior IT managers and executives can use LinkedIn to do their job more effectively (and not one of them has anything to do with recruiting/hiring). I particularly like #5, which is applicable to everyone — not just IT managers:

Treat the network like a network. IT infrastructure only functions as well as all the parts that comprise it. The same holds true for your LinkedIn network. As you establish contacts, monitor them for new people they’re meeting, new projects they’ve started on, and contribute whenever and however you’re able. In compute terms we call this kind of thing “load balancing.” That’s what LinkedIn, and social networking in general, is all about.

Five Ways Authors Can Profit from LinkedIn - Mahesh Grossman

LinkedIn has created unprecedented levels of access to agents, acquisition editors, authors and others in the publishing industry. It’s been an invaluable tool for me for all my book projects. Any author who’s not already a best-seller is nuts if they’re not using LinkedIn.

Secrets LinkedIn Can Tell You About Your Customers - Matt Asay

As Matt points out:

One of the frustrating things about an open-source business is you don’t generally know who is using your software. The paid customers you know, of course, but generally this represents a small fraction of the total user base.

He then goes on to explain how a search on LinkedIn for his company’s product turned up a wealth of information about people using it that he wouldn’t otherwise have known about. Note that this isn’t applicable just to open-source products, but any off-the-shelf software product.

Searching the Hidden Job Market for Opportunities - Debra Feldman

CIO Magazine says that the nature of recruiting is changing:

Employers are extremely cautious and selective, and recruiting proceeds at an unusually slow pace. Job hunting has literally become a contact sport. That is, you need contacts—lots of them—to expedite the process of landing your next job. In particular, you need connections inside the companies you’re targeting. Why? Because employee referrals are becoming a proportionately bigger source of new hires.

Market Your Company on LinkedIn - Gordon Choi

Gordon offers an in-depth look at LinkedIn’s new corporate profiles.

The following article came up a couple of times in my Google Alerts in the past few weeks, and I thought it was truly excellent. The author gives free reprint permission, so I thought rather than link to it, I’d just provide it directly here.

By the way, I’ve used LinkedIn for several of these myself. I found my agent for The Virtual Handshake indirectly via LinkedIn, and have used it in more ways than I can count to support my books. If you’re an author and you’d like more ideas beyond just LinkedIn, check out my article, Online Networking for Authorpreneurs.

5 Ways Authors Can Profit from LinkedIn

By Mahesh Grossman

LinkedIn, the social network for professionals, just changed my life.

To be honest, until a few weeks ago, I never took it seriously. From time to time a friend or an acquaintance would ask me to “link” with them, and I would, but I didn’t understand what to do with my network. In fact, I’m not sure I ever invited anyone to link with me.

Now I understand some of the power of this tool–and it’s especially useful for authors. So here are five ways you can use LinkedIn to help you write, publish, and promote your book:

1) Ask for help with your content, including websites and people to interview.

LinkedIn has a feature where you get to ask questions, either of your network or of people in a particular industry. I am working on an e-book that will be a list of a particular group of sites. I asked the network where to find more of these sites and I got an amazing response that made this e-book my top priority. But you could also ask a question like “Do you know how I could find people to interview for my book who have a successful arranged marriage?”. Not only would you get suggestions on where to find people to interview, anyone with a successful arranged marriage would be likely to offer to be interviewed.

It’s also possible that people have already asked questions on your topic, so if you search the Answers section using appropriate keywords, you are likely to find some usable information as well.

2) Get introduced to famous authors and ask for testimonials.

I am shocked at how many famous authors are on LinkedIn. I have a few bestelling authors as direct links myself–and I am only one introduction away, meaning someone in my network can introduce me–from several authors who have sold more than ten million books–and there aren’t that many authors who have done that. So if you were to join LinkedIn and link to me, you would be one level away from the bestselling authors I know, and two people away from these authors who have sold massive quantities of books. That’s pretty amazing. So if you have high quality work that has been vetted by a professional coach (one that has been published by traditional publishers!), you could approach a very big name author through LinkedIn.

3) Have a particular agent you want to be introduced to? There are 326 agents on LinkedIn.

I did a search on the term “literary agent” and found 326.  I wouldn’t try to get introduced to all of them, but you do your homework and find a particular agent that is the most likely to be interested in your work, it could be a good way to make a connection. Once again, you have to really have studied the publishing business and know what you are doing to make this work. But it is an interesting strategy. (And I know of a number of editors from major publishing houses who are also on LinkedIn.)

4) Want publicity? There are lots of  periodical editors and TV producers you can network with.

I know several publicists on LinkedIn, and some are connected to top editors and producers. Want to get in Time magazine or Sports Illustrated? There are writers and editors from those publications. Want to get on national television? Once again,  you  can reach out and try to connect with these folks, who are also on LinkedIn.

5) Want to connect to people who might help market your book? Ask the right question.

Once again, LinkedIn Answers gives you the opportunity to ask how to do something, and let people volunteer to help you.  Ask a question like “I’m the author of a book about living a balanced life. I would like to be interviewed on 50 teleseminars this year. How do I find people who might want to host me on a teleseminar?”  Whatever your goal is, ask how you can do it, or find people to help you. Some good Samaritans will come forward and say, “I’d be happy to have you on a teleseminar.”

So those are five ways to work with LinkedIn.com. The bigger your network, easier it is to get help.
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You may post or send this article to anyone you want as long as you credit Mahesh Grossman as the author AND it includes the following information at the end of the article:

Mahesh Grossman is the author of Write a Book Without Lifting a Finger (www.writeabooktoday.com) and President of The Authors Team (www.AuthorsTeam.com), a company that helps credible business experts become Incredible Business Authors, through ghostwriting, editing, coaching, publishing, publicity and marketing.  For a free list of more than 400 agents as well as a newsletter with tips on planning, writing, publishing and marketing your book, go to www.getanagentnow.com.

Image: Billy Alexander via stock.xchng

Problogger’s Darren Rowse has declared Monday, April 14, Blogger Appreciation Day, saying:

I’ve been chatting with a few bloggers of late who’ve been feeling a little down in the dumps about their blogging - so perhaps everyone could do with a little lift.

Lets spend today doing a few random acts of kindness and encouragement for our fellow bloggers.
…
[T]ake a moment to email another blogger and to thank them for something that you’ve appreciated about what they’ve done lately. In a sense it’s a ‘Pay it Forward’ exercise.
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We’re in it together, blogging is about collaboration and together going further than we can by ourselves - so why not help another blogger today by shooting them a word of encouragement, a pep talk, a congratulations, an idea to help them improve or some other positive constructive message. Better still, do it publicly on your blog and tell the world about another blogger who you appreciate.

Great idea. This is something we should really be doing all the time, but it’s nice to have someone highly visible provide a reminder and some focus on it.

Here are a couple of ideas on how to implement this with LinkedIn:

1. Connect with the bloggers you know. Now just because you read someone’s blog doesn’t mean they know you well enough to feel comfortable connecting on LinkedIn. If you do know each other well, just send a LinkedIn invitation (remember to personalize it — make it your thank-you message). If you’re not sure about it, contact them via email first and ask them if they’d like to connect.
2. Give them a recommendation. Show your appreciation publicly — put it on their profile. Be specific and relevant — don’t just gush. Be sure to read Naina Redhu’s LinkedIn recommendation tips first. Also, I generally recommend that people put their blog as a separate position on their profile, unless it’s an integral part of their primary job. If the bloggers you’re connected to haven’t done that, you might like to suggest that to them so that you can make a recommendation in the context of their blog rather than their primary job.

Image by Liz Hiers via stock.xchng