Presentation delivered at the Profile Network Lunchtime Q&A Seminar
20 January 2016
Boodle Hatfield, 240 Blackfriars Rd, London SE1 8NW
More information: http://www.justpractising.com/events/linkedin-strategy-property-professionals/
4. 400,000,000+
members worldwide
UK: 18,000,000
UK Construction & Property:
1,080,000
Construction 584,000
Real Estate 173,416
Civil Engineering 117,695
Architecture/Planning 104,884
Building Materials 81,303
Comm. Real Estate 23,376
Jan 2016
So Why is Linkedin so important to a company when you have a website?
But much bigger than a telephone directory – In October they announced membership had exceeeded 400 million worldwide.
Of these over 18 million in the UK and over 1,000,000 UK construction and property professionals, over 18000 UK companies
Its visitors also have a higher level of education and a higher net worth than the average internet audience. More business people, more professionals.
Linkedin is not a substitute for your real life network.
It won’t take the place of meeting people.
Not either/or but Both/And
What’s really interesting is here where linkedin meets your real life network. This is what its for.
The people in your real life network you connect to on linkedin become more valuable to you.
What is more because it is a network of people who know each other, it connects people who aren’t even on Linkedin, reaching much further than its actual membership.
Lets have a look at the basic anatomy.
When you join Linkedin you are asked to enter your career history – what you do, where you have been and where you want to go. As we’ve seen, this profile helps people find you and know who you are.
Linkedin then asks you who you know
(enter names or upload email addresses, it tells you who is using Linkedin).
You will be surprised.
Connect to the people you know and then they can see each other. They find out they have you in common.
And you can see their contacts too.
In fact you can see their contacts contacts – three levels of separation.
In fact you can see their contacts contacts – three levels of separation.
Also, because no. 2 is a trusted contact of my trusted contact no.1, I can check him out with confidence, and perhaps be introduced.
Also, because no. 2 is a trusted contact of my trusted contact no.1, I can check him out with confidence, and perhaps be introduced.
He becomes my contact too,
and I can see his contacts contacts. This is how we build a network online.
It is important to remember that each of these nodes is a professional, known to those who know you.
Why connect like this? Because linkedin makes connections VISIBLE
Here are the people that your contacts know who are on linkedin.
Because they are on Linkedin they are visible.
This means that you can look people up and find out if someone you know, knows them.
Lets just look at the second degree – people your trusted connections know DIRECTLY.
Using Linkedin I can find 12 construction journalists my contacts know, 44 property developers…
These aren’t just people on a list either, they are professional people within my network.
The quality of the relationship is important as well as the number of connections, because the value lies in that quality.
Each person has a network like this, each one is unique to the person. With Linkedin you can begin to use that network more effectively.
Why is this important? Because in the business environment, we operate a referral culture. People buy from people they know and trust.
In professional services we know this because inspite of the procurement processes that aim to anonymise the system, people still statistically will have had a relationship with the prospect before they are asked to quote.
Here’s an example. Many UK construction people play Golf.
Golf is a physical manifestation of a social construct which is about introducing people who don’t know each other well, in a safe semi-business environment.
If you get on you do business together, if you don’t, never mind.
Golfer A says to golfer B ‘my site won’t stack up so I don’t want to go in for planning, I don’t know what to do’
Golfer B says you just need a second opinion – my architect is good at getting in extra units, I’ll give you his phone number. His name is Peter Wells.
So Golfer A calls up Peter Wells. Doesn’t he?
Nope, before he does that he Googles him. Don’t you?
Notice that we’re talking about an individual here
If they have a properly prepared profile on Linkedin, this is what happens next.
Because Linkedin is so big and public profiles are indexed by google, its the best way to be found by google, which is where everyone looks.
This listing appeared 24 hours after we tweaked his profile – in a week it was right at the top.
If the person who doesn’t know Peter Wells clicks through on the strength of what he sees here, this is what he sees.
The public profile tells a visitor everything they want to know about Peter.
Is this the right Peter Wells?
What does he do?
How do I get in touch or find out more?
On the left of the page that appears is a preview of how your website looks to google (and to non Linkedin users who find it via google).
On the right you can turn on and off various sections of your profile.
Make sure your photo, websites, summary and as much else as you dare is turned on – it will all help you to be found.
Linkedin profiles have come a long way in the last few years. Try this out:
Add rich media – pdf files, video, slide decks/slideshare files, images and links to your profile
Linkedin profiles have come a long way in the last few years. Try this out:
Add rich media – pdf files, video, slide decks/slideshare files, images and links to your profile wherever you see the blue box with the plus sign.
Further down your profile you can add projects.
These have the added advantage of connecting other people to your profile, with whom you’re working on a project.
The other people have to consent. They can be colleagues, clients, other consultants, as long as they are on Linkedin and consent to being added.
Second thing to do when you get back in the office is Talk to HR
Board Everyone has a profile, HR Director uses Linkedin every day. Why? Because their stock in trade is people and
You can’t do Social Media on your own. You can’t do it solely with a corporate account. You need to integrate it into the activities of your people, because People are what make social media work.
Recognise this person? Charlotte Proudman. September last year. Connected to a senior solicitor who sent her a rather over complimentary message on Linkedin. She took offense at this (as is her right) but then she did something really interesting. She posted a screen shot of the conversation on twitter.
HR and Comms meet in social media. There are no silos. Everyone who works for you has to realise that everything they write on social media is visible – even if only to one other person, so they need to bear this in mind.
The approach we use is
Have a social media policy that sets boundaries, but enables rather than restricts employee use of social media. If it is too restrictive they won’t use their networks to help you.
Implement three levels of training.
Firstly awareness, so that everyone in the organisation knows what you are doing, whether they will participate or not.
Secondly teaching people how to be safe and sensible online (this takes about an hour – I use a 12 word social media policy for this)
Thirdly provide specific training for those who are client facing, to help them use the platforms you are advocating proactively, helping them use their initiative.
We can’t control what our employees say on social media, but we can provide them with guidance and boundaries so they know what is expected of them and want to participate.
Second thing to do when you get back in the office is Talk to HR
Board Everyone has a profile, HR Director uses Linkedin every day. Why? Because their stock in trade is people and
The other reason to talk to HR is because they know how to use Linkedin. They know how to do this.
HR will be visiting people’s profiles anonymously, so that the person can’t see who has visited their profile. Why would you want to do this?
Linkedin is the only major platform which tells someone you’ve looked at their stuff, but you can become anonymous if you wish.
Do this by visiting your settings page, from the avatar on the top right. BTW You must do this using the browser version of Linkedin.
On the front page of the settings, choose ‘Select what others see when you’ve viewed their profile’ and choose to make yourself anonymous.
Whilst you have this setting set to anonymous, people will only be able to tell that an anonymous Linkedin user visited their profile.
Turn the setting back to identify yourself when you’ve finished snooping around.
There are benefits to not being anonymous - you’ll only get to see who’se viewed your own profile when you aren’t anonymous, and letting people know you’ve checked them out is sometimes a good idea.
Now you can Go hunting – in a pack.
Work as a team to grow your network in the direction of your target audience.
Your team can be colleagues and advocates in other companies who want to work together. Your whole network can be your team – get them organised.
Quick 20 minute search (with anonymity on and using advanced search techniques)
The other reason to talk to HR is because they know how to use Linkedin. They know how to do this.
HR will be visiting people’s profiles anonymously, so that the person can’t see who has visited their profile. Why would you want to do this?
Linkedin is the only major platform which tells someone you’ve looked at their stuff, but you can become anonymous if you wish.
Last Conversation Piece by Juan Munoz Photo by Cliff (nostri-imago)
Something is "borked" when it doesn't work correctly or misbehaves, generally due to negligence by the person(s) that are responsible for it.
The first is your company home – your Company page on Linkedin – an outpost of your company.
Linkedin introduced company pages gradually, from early 2010.
But they have really taken off as Linkedin has invested in helping companies interact on the platform like individuals do.
Company pages are extremely powerful and their potential is just beginning to be realised.
What is really important to this outpost, however, is still the people and the visitors relationship with them.
And before we mention the other assets, there’s time for another poll.
A key part of the hunting process is posting status updates on Linkedin.
Status updates are the starting point for conversations on social media. They are the process by which conversations happen.
They exist on all the platforms – here they are on Linkedin, Twitter and Google Plus, for example.
If you do share social objects on Linkedin, and do it right, people will comment, like and share on your content with other people.
Here is why its important.
Status updates are posted on my profile in chronological order, so people can read them there.
But they are also shared on the home pages and read by the people I’m directly connected to, in chronological order, interspersed with those from other people.
I’ve got a home page too where I see the status updates from my connections in the same way.
But its when I like, comment on or share a status update from one of the people I’m connected to that the real magic happens.
By doing this I pass on the content they have shared, with them attached, to the other people in my network, thereby subtly introducing them to my network.
Each time Adrian comments on my status update it shares it in his stream, with his network.
He also chose to share the link with his network directly, which generated more discussion and passed the link on to people to whom I’m not connected at all.
You must have the three key elements:
Useful social objects for your target audience
People who trust you and value useful content
A proactive approach to sharing.
Each time Adrian comments on my status update it shares it in his stream, with his network.
He also chose to share the link with his network directly, which generated more discussion and passed the link on to people to whom I’m not connected at all.
You must have the three key elements:
Useful social objects for your target audience
People who trust you and value useful content
A proactive approach to sharing.
You can see the effect on Linkedin using Linkedin’s ‘Who’s viewed your updates’ featureHere’s an example with an update I shared on Linkedin last November.
I took some screenshots of the viewer outcomes within a week of my sharing the update.
Views are people who visited their homepage when my update was on the page.
If I hover over the centre circle I can see that 193 of the people who saw it were people I know, people directly connected to me.
Of those people I know, 5 liked the update.
When they liked it, they shared it with another 280 people whom I don’t know.
And one of them liked it too
And shared it with another four people whom I also don’t know. By liking the update, and by commenting or sharing it, these people are introducing me to their network in a much more efficient and time saving way than meeting or even email.
Social objects can be all sorts of different things, but To work, Social Objects must be
useful to your target audience,
Entirely opt in (don’t push them on people)
Self contained like a web page, a youtube video, a pdf file so they can be
Shared easily when you’re not there.
And they must be free.
Social objects can be all sorts of different things, but To work, Social Objects must be
useful to your target audience,
Entirely opt in (don’t push them on people)
Self contained like a web page, a youtube video, a pdf file so they can be
Shared easily when you’re not there.
And they must be free.
I’d like to leave you with this thought.
If everyone in the construction industry is using Linkedin, what differentiates us is how we use it.
I don’t think it will be long before candidates will be employed on the strength of their Linkedin networks.
Its already the case that prequalification questionnaires are being cross referenced against Linkedin profiles.
Think about how you can use Linkedin to your own individual and corporate benefit, before they all catch up.
I’d like to leave you with this thought.
If everyone in the construction industry is using Linkedin, what differentiates us is how we use it.
I don’t think it will be long before candidates will be employed on the strength of their Linkedin networks.
Its already the case that prequalification questionnaires are being cross referenced against Linkedin profiles.
Think about how you can use Linkedin to your own individual and corporate benefit, before they all catch up.