Wiley 978-0-470-94854-5 Scheda Tecnica Scaricare il pdf (Pagina 10)

Part I: LinkedIn Basics

can really learn more by finding past employees of a company and interview-

ing them about their previous job. LinkedIn now has thousands of detailed

Company Profiles that not only show company statistics but also recent

hires, promotions, changes, and lists of employees closely connected

with you.

Imagine if you could pick the brains of tens of millions of professionals

around the world about almost any topic. Well, now you can, using a system

called LinkedIn Answers. With LinkedIn Answers, you can post a question

about a certain topic, mostly business- or LinkedIn-related. Other LinkedIn

members can browse the questions by category and write free responses —

from the one-line response to the three-page essay — to share their thoughts

and answer your question the best they can. There’s no think-tank to pay,

no prequalifications or lag time in your data gathering. Typically, you start

to see people responding within one to two business days. I talk more about

LinkedIn Answers in Chapter 7.

Best of all, LinkedIn can help you find specific information on a variety of

topics. You can do a search to find out the interests of your next sales pros-

pect, the name of a former employee you can talk to about a company you

like, or how you can join a start-up in your target industry by reaching out to

the co-founder. You can sit back and skim the news, or you can dive in and

hunt for the right facts. It all depends on what method best fits your goals. I

discuss search in greater depth in Chapter 6.

Expand your network

You have your network today, but what about the future? Whether you want

to move up in your industry, look for a new job, start your own company, or

achieve some other goal, one way to achieve these goals is to expand your

network. LinkedIn provides a fertile ground to reach like-minded and well-

connected professionals who share a common interest, experience, or group

membership. The site also provides several online mechanisms to reduce the

friction of communication, so you can spend more time building your net-

work instead of searching for the right person.

First and foremost, LinkedIn helps you identify and contact members of other

people’s professional networks, and best of all, you don’t have to contact

them via a cold call, but with your friend’s Recommendation or Introduction.

(See Chapters 8 and 5, respectively, for more information.) In addition, you

can find out more about your new contact before you send the first message,

so you don’t have to waste time figuring out whether this is someone who

could be beneficial to have in your network.

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Wiley 978-0-470-94854-5 Scheda Tecnica Pagina 10