Technology in Marketing: Cultivating Relationships Using LinkedIn

LinkedIn can be a useful tool for finding an “in” with a particular person or company, is helpful for background and intelligence gathering regarding executives and companies, and can also help you keep track of clients or colleagues who change jobs. This article, originally published in MLF in October 2009, provides an update to recent LinkedIn functionality changes, and highlights other features that are worth reviewing.

Essential #1: Creating and Updating Your Profile

Maintaining an up-to-date and professional profile is a key factor in leveraging your activity on LinkedIn. Keep in mind that your LinkedIn profile is also indexed by Google and other search engines, so maintaining a robust profile is essential to raising your visibility and opening doors for networking and business development opportunities.

When adding content to your LinkedIn profile, make sure you provide sufficient detail. Your profile should summarize your experience, but also highlight your professional and community activities. Use the “Summary” section of your profile to describe the types of clients with whom you work, the types of cases or matters you want to be referred, cases you are currently handling, past matters and the like. Additionally, including prior employment, as well as university and high school education, helps LinkedIn users connect the dots with respect to things you may have in common. Unlike your firm Web site bio, your LinkedIn profile gives you the opportunity to connect with those affinity groups from your past. The “Specialties” area, which follows the “Summary” section, should be used with care as this may violate attorney advertising rules if an appropriate disclaimer is not included.

Once your profile is completed, familiarize yourself with LinkedIn's “Settings” options, found in the upper right corner of your LinkedIn home page ' hover over your name to see “Settings” in the drop-down box.

Essential #2: Understanding Your Network and
Connections

The people in your LinkedIn network should be those with whom you have a real relationship, most notably, clients, referral sources and other business colleagues. Ideally, these people know you and can say great things about you if contacted offline without your knowledge. Further, they should be able to make an introduction if you need one. Once a link or connection is established, you can see your contacts' connections and they can see yours. Be strategic in your efforts to link to people and when accepting invitations from others. Those whom you do not want in your network are direct competitors, anyone you don't know very well, and also vendors who can use your connections for their own sales process.

When setting up LinkedIn, do not select the feature that allows it to send invitations to all of your Outlook contacts; there are probably a number of people you do not want to connect with for various reasons. Additionally, do not select the option to send an e-mail blast to everyone in your network inviting them to connect. Inviting people into your network is best done one-on-one, with personalized e-mails to each recipient.

Keep an eye on the “People You May Know” section of your home page. LinkedIn matches data on your profile to other LinkedIn users with similar data ' some of those individuals may be people with whom you want to connect. One of the recent changes to LinkedIn involves third-degree connections. Basic (free) LinkedIn account users no longer have the ability to view the full name of third-degree connections (only the first name is revealed). However, there is a way around this ' using a search engine to find the person's public LinkedIn profile usually does the trick.

Essential #3: Fine-Tuning Your Privacy and E-mail Settings

The “Settings” feature of LinkedIn also lets you control certain privacy settings. One important feature to understand is the “Connections Browse” setting. You may prefer to turn off the connection view feature. There are good reasons for doing this. If you have a large network of referring professionals (accountants, investment advisers, bankers, brokers or the like), you might not want all your referral sources to see how many other competitors of theirs you have as connections. Similarly, if you represent a number of clients that are highly competitive with each other (real estate, insurance, consumer products and food/beverage niches are good examples), you might not want to make that obvious by allowing your connections to view each other. While this strategy may irk some LinkedIn users, it does protect your connections from being viewed by competitors, and also protects you from others trying to use your network to identify business opportunities without your involvement. Keep in mind that even though you may turn off the connection viewing feature, users of LinkedIn will still be able to see if you are a connection to someone via the “How you're connected” window, so the networking value is not lost. Additionally, people in your network will always be able to see any shared connections they have with each other regardless of your connection browse setting.

Another recent change LinkedIn has implemented involves the “Profile View” setting, which lets you select whether or not a LinkedIn user sees that you looked at his or her profile. LinkedIn users no longer have the capability to be “stealth” in viewing individual profiles. In order to use this functionality, you must have your profile view set to “visible,” which includes your full name and headline (which is the title you are using).

You also have control as to how your updates are communicated. While you cannot control the daily or weekly e-mails from LinkedIn telling you each time someone in your network updates his/her profile, you can turn off this functionality for your own profile. Use your “Profile and Status Update” settings to control this feature.

Last, the “E-mail Notifications” controls under “Settings” allows you to manage how you are contacted by LinkedIn users. The “Contact Settings” feature allows you to indicate what type of invitations you are seeking or not seeking. If you are inviting potential client or referral inquiries, make sure you have the “consulting offers,” “new ventures,” “business deals” and “expertise requests” boxes selected. The “Receiving Messages” feature allows you to control how people contact you, with what frequency and what types of messages you want to receive.

Using LinkedIn to Cultivate Relationships

Selecting individuals whom you want in your network should be a strategic decision. LinkedIn should not be viewed as a popularity contest (he/she with the most connections wins). Rather, choose those with whom you connect carefully. Here are some tips for how to better leverage your connections to cultivate relationships:

Connection Etiquette. This is important to understand when using LinkedIn. Take note of how individuals want to be contacted, which is found under the “Contact” heading of the person's profile. If you see that someone is not open to In Mail or E-mail contact, then you will need to use the second-degree connection contact as an introduction point. Attorneys need to be careful when using LinkedIn for introductions, particularly with respect to business development intentions, as this can violate solicitation rules governing lawyers. For individuals who are not close contacts, take the time to customize each connection request you send to ensure that the person remembers you or has a frame of reference for why connecting would be beneficial.

Client Connections. What about clients in your network? There are a lot of advantages, the biggest being that you have access to your clients' LinkedIn contacts. However, connecting with clients opens the door to other individuals connecting with your clients through your network and not necessarily with your knowledge. Clients who are arch rivals can also pose problems if they are in your LinkedIn network, which is why some attorneys opt to make their connections private.

Recommendations. These are very useful for enhancing your credibility and credentials. However, recommendations can create possible liabilities, including having perceived favorites among referral sources or clients. Recommendations may also present issues in client development situations, particularly when pursuing competitor companies. Additionally, be mindful that LinkedIn recommendations can be construed as testimonials, the use of which are prohibited in some states by the rules governing lawyers. LinkedIn does let you edit recommendations (the individual for whom you are providing the recommendation will have to approve the recommendation, as well as any subsequent edits, before it appears on their profile). You can withdraw a recommendation at any time and LinkedIn will not notify the individual, your recommendation will just disappear from his or her profile. Bottom line, select those you recommend and who you want to recommend you very carefully, they should be individuals you know and trust.

LinkedIn Group Activity. LinkedIn groups are designed to be discussion forums for people who have similar interests. They are very useful for obtaining perspective on an industry or issue, or identifying someone who has particular expertise. Group discussion also presents attorneys with an opportunity to demonstrate knowledge on particular subject matter. However, keep in mind that regardless of whether the group is an open one, or managed by an administrator, group discussion should be considered a public forum. To that end, be careful not to provide what could be construed as legal advice. Reporters can also be members of groups and be following the conversation as background for a story, so take care with the questions you pose and the responses you give.

Managing Connection Requests. If you receive connection requests from individuals you are not interested in connecting with, best to ignore the request. Use the “I don't know this person” response only if you want to punish the person requesting a connection, as LinkedIn will suspend the account of anyone who gets five of these responses (think of it as labeling someone a LinkedIn spammer). If you connect with someone and later decide to disconnect, you can do that from the “Connections” section of your profile. LinkedIn will not contact the person to let him/her know you disconnected.

Conclusion

Bottom line, only you can decide how best to use LinkedIn for your networking and visibility goals. But as great as online networking can be in playing the “who knows whom” game, it cannot take the place of face time activities, so integrating interpersonal interaction is essential for building and enhancing your name recognition, networking and client development efforts.

Nancy Roberts Linder is the Principal of Nancy Roberts Linder Consulting, a law firm business development and client relationship management consulting practice located in suburban Chicago. She can be reached at 708-482-0760 or via e-mail at [email protected].

LinkedIn can be a useful tool for finding an “in” with a particular person or company, is helpful for background and intelligence gathering regarding executives and companies, and can also help you keep track of clients or colleagues who change jobs. This article, originally published in MLF in October 2009, provides an update to recent LinkedIn functionality changes, and highlights other features that are worth reviewing.

Essential #1: Creating and Updating Your Profile

Maintaining an up-to-date and professional profile is a key factor in leveraging your activity on LinkedIn. Keep in mind that your LinkedIn profile is also indexed by Google and other search engines, so maintaining a robust profile is essential to raising your visibility and opening doors for networking and business development opportunities.

When adding content to your LinkedIn profile, make sure you provide sufficient detail. Your profile should summarize your experience, but also highlight your professional and community activities. Use the “Summary” section of your profile to describe the types of clients with whom you work, the types of cases or matters you want to be referred, cases you are currently handling, past matters and the like. Additionally, including prior employment, as well as university and high school education, helps LinkedIn users connect the dots with respect to things you may have in common. Unlike your firm Web site bio, your LinkedIn profile gives you the opportunity to connect with those affinity groups from your past. The “Specialties” area, which follows the “Summary” section, should be used with care as this may violate attorney advertising rules if an appropriate disclaimer is not included.

Once your profile is completed, familiarize yourself with LinkedIn's “Settings” options, found in the upper right corner of your LinkedIn home page ' hover over your name to see “Settings” in the drop-down box.

Essential #2: Understanding Your Network and
Connections

The people in your LinkedIn network should be those with whom you have a real relationship, most notably, clients, referral sources and other business colleagues. Ideally, these people know you and can say great things about you if contacted offline without your knowledge. Further, they should be able to make an introduction if you need one. Once a link or connection is established, you can see your contacts' connections and they can see yours. Be strategic in your efforts to link to people and when accepting invitations from others. Those whom you do not want in your network are direct competitors, anyone you don't know very well, and also vendors who can use your connections for their own sales process.

When setting up LinkedIn, do not select the feature that allows it to send invitations to all of your Outlook contacts; there are probably a number of people you do not want to connect with for various reasons. Additionally, do not select the option to send an e-mail blast to everyone in your network inviting them to connect. Inviting people into your network is best done one-on-one, with personalized e-mails to each recipient.

Keep an eye on the “People You May Know” section of your home page. LinkedIn matches data on your profile to other LinkedIn users with similar data ' some of those individuals may be people with whom you want to connect. One of the recent changes to LinkedIn involves third-degree connections. Basic (free) LinkedIn account users no longer have the ability to view the full name of third-degree connections (only the first name is revealed). However, there is a way around this ' using a search engine to find the person's public LinkedIn profile usually does the trick.

Essential #3: Fine-Tuning Your Privacy and E-mail Settings

The “Settings” feature of LinkedIn also lets you control certain privacy settings. One important feature to understand is the “Connections Browse” setting. You may prefer to turn off the connection view feature. There are good reasons for doing this. If you have a large network of referring professionals (accountants, investment advisers, bankers, brokers or the like), you might not want all your referral sources to see how many other competitors of theirs you have as connections. Similarly, if you represent a number of clients that are highly competitive with each other (real estate, insurance, consumer products and food/beverage niches are good examples), you might not want to make that obvious by allowing your connections to view each other. While this strategy may irk some LinkedIn users, it does protect your connections from being viewed by competitors, and also protects you from others trying to use your network to identify business opportunities without your involvement. Keep in mind that even though you may turn off the connection viewing feature, users of LinkedIn will still be able to see if you are a connection to someone via the “How you're connected” window, so the networking value is not lost. Additionally, people in your network will always be able to see any shared connections they have with each other regardless of your connection browse setting.

Another recent change LinkedIn has implemented involves the “Profile View” setting, which lets you select whether or not a LinkedIn user sees that you looked at his or her profile. LinkedIn users no longer have the capability to be “stealth” in viewing individual profiles. In order to use this functionality, you must have your profile view set to “visible,” which includes your full name and headline (which is the title you are using).

You also have control as to how your updates are communicated. While you cannot control the daily or weekly e-mails from LinkedIn telling you each time someone in your network updates his/her profile, you can turn off this functionality for your own profile. Use your “Profile and Status Update” settings to control this feature.

Last, the “E-mail Notifications” controls under “Settings” allows you to manage how you are contacted by LinkedIn users. The “Contact Settings” feature allows you to indicate what type of invitations you are seeking or not seeking. If you are inviting potential client or referral inquiries, make sure you have the “consulting offers,” “new ventures,” “business deals” and “expertise requests” boxes selected. The “Receiving Messages” feature allows you to control how people contact you, with what frequency and what types of messages you want to receive.

Using LinkedIn to Cultivate Relationships

Selecting individuals whom you want in your network should be a strategic decision. LinkedIn should not be viewed as a popularity contest (he/she with the most connections wins). Rather, choose those with whom you connect carefully. Here are some tips for how to better leverage your connections to cultivate relationships:

Connection Etiquette. This is important to understand when using LinkedIn. Take note of how individuals want to be contacted, which is found under the “Contact” heading of the person's profile. If you see that someone is not open to In Mail or E-mail contact, then you will need to use the second-degree connection contact as an introduction point. Attorneys need to be careful when using LinkedIn for introductions, particularly with respect to business development intentions, as this can violate solicitation rules governing lawyers. For individuals who are not close contacts, take the time to customize each connection request you send to ensure that the person remembers you or has a frame of reference for why connecting would be beneficial.

Client Connections. What about clients in your network? There are a lot of advantages, the biggest being that you have access to your clients' LinkedIn contacts. However, connecting with clients opens the door to other individuals connecting with your clients through your network and not necessarily with your knowledge. Clients who are arch rivals can also pose problems if they are in your LinkedIn network, which is why some attorneys opt to make their connections private.

Recommendations. These are very useful for enhancing your credibility and credentials. However, recommendations can create possible liabilities, including having perceived favorites among referral sources or clients. Recommendations may also present issues in client development situations, particularly when pursuing competitor companies. Additionally, be mindful that LinkedIn recommendations can be construed as testimonials, the use of which are prohibited in some states by the rules governing lawyers. LinkedIn does let you edit recommendations (the individual for whom you are providing the recommendation will have to approve the recommendation, as well as any subsequent edits, before it appears on their profile). You can withdraw a recommendation at any time and LinkedIn will not notify the individual, your recommendation will just disappear from his or her profile. Bottom line, select those you recommend and who you want to recommend you very carefully, they should be individuals you know and trust.

LinkedIn Group Activity. LinkedIn groups are designed to be discussion forums for people who have similar interests. They are very useful for obtaining perspective on an industry or issue, or identifying someone who has particular expertise. Group discussion also presents attorneys with an opportunity to demonstrate knowledge on particular subject matter. However, keep in mind that regardless of whether the group is an open one, or managed by an administrator, group discussion should be considered a public forum. To that end, be careful not to provide what could be construed as legal advice. Reporters can also be members of groups and be following the conversation as background for a story, so take care with the questions you pose and the responses you give.

Managing Connection Requests. If you receive connection requests from individuals you are not interested in connecting with, best to ignore the request. Use the “I don't know this person” response only if you want to punish the person requesting a connection, as LinkedIn will suspend the account of anyone who gets five of these responses (think of it as labeling someone a LinkedIn spammer). If you connect with someone and later decide to disconnect, you can do that from the “Connections” section of your profile. LinkedIn will not contact the person to let him/her know you disconnected.

Conclusion

Bottom line, only you can decide how best to use LinkedIn for your networking and visibility goals. But as great as online networking can be in playing the “who knows whom” game, it cannot take the place of face time activities, so integrating interpersonal interaction is essential for building and enhancing your name recognition, networking and client development efforts.

Nancy Roberts Linder is the Principal of Nancy Roberts Linder Consulting, a law firm business development and client relationship management consulting practice located in suburban Chicago. She can be reached at 708-482-0760 or via e-mail at [email protected].