We received a number of requests for details on Peter Coombs of FRONTLINE Training and Consulting recent discussion on using LinkedIn to expand business opportunities.
Coombs spoke at our monthly “Social Media for Business” Meet Up meeting at Panera Bread in Latham, and we’re taking this opportunity to provide a summary in this blog post.
My biggest take away was that a key focus of networking should be the friends of your friends. You can see and connect with all of your friends' friends on LinkedIn. That makes for a lot of opportunities.
According to Coombs, if you figure you have 100 friends who average 150 friends each that's 15,000 potential friends and prospects. That's a pretty powerful application if it's used correctly, plus you could get your friends to provide you introductions to these potential new prospects. Not bad!
Suggestions were also providing on finding “Friends,” joining “Groups,” and especially on how to make improvements of one’s “Profile Page.” The goal is to improve your profile because it’s the primary marketing tool for new jobs or business. Announcing your “Book Lists” with the books you are currently reading is another very popular feature.
Lastly, Peter provided information on the relatively new V-Card which allows you to upload all of a contact’s V-Card information into your Outlook data base. With categories & email available, this is a very useful function.
We thank Peter Coombs for his presentation, he demonstrated a number of ways LinkedIn can be any effective business tool.
Tags: efficiency, Larry Zimbler, Liberteks, LinkedIn, quality, small business, social media