The Power of LinkedIn Status Updates
With over 60 million users, LinkedIn has become the most powerful online tool for professionals to win new business.
Most users now know how to create an effective profile (hint: for most professionals, it shouldn't be used like an online CV.
The people most likely to read your profile are potential clients checking you out - so make sure your profile is client friendly and reflects the value you can bring to them).
They know how to connect to others and use LinkedIn for referrals.
But there are few areas where most users still under exploit the potential of LinkedIn.
One of these is the LinkedIn status update.
You can use status updates in a couple of ways to help grow your relationships with contacts and establish new ones.
The first is with your own status updates.
LinkedIn status updates are a nice way of helping to stay top of mind with contacts.
If you were to call or email all your contacts any time you did something small but interesting, it would quickly become seen as pushy or spammy.
But updating your status is an non-intrusive way of getting a gentle reminder out.
Depending on their settings, your contacts will get a regular email with a summary of the status updates of their contacts.
And they will see the updates on their LinkedIn homepage.
Mostly it will just be "so and so updated their profile" type messages.
So if your status update has something interesting in it ("Ian has just run a seminar on consultative selling skills") it will remind them of the sort of thing you do and may even trigger them into action.
You can also usefully use the status updates of your contacts.
If your contacts view something as important enough to mention on an update, then it must mean something to them.
And so it's both worth remembering - and remaking on.
You can send them a comment back on the update - or even a direct message.
This can lead to deeper conversations and real engagement with someone you perhaps had fallen out of touch with.
Look out especially for when they connect to new people.
It just may be that these new people would be great contacts for you.
Absolutely the best time to ask for an introduction is when they've just connected themselves.
leave it too long and they will most likely fall victim to the trap of not communicating with them after the initial connection.
And then it will be embarrassing for them to make contact to introduce you.
So overall, while status updates aren't going to ever be your primary business development tool - far from it, they can help you establish and grow relationships which could lead to good new business.
Most users now know how to create an effective profile (hint: for most professionals, it shouldn't be used like an online CV.
The people most likely to read your profile are potential clients checking you out - so make sure your profile is client friendly and reflects the value you can bring to them).
They know how to connect to others and use LinkedIn for referrals.
But there are few areas where most users still under exploit the potential of LinkedIn.
One of these is the LinkedIn status update.
You can use status updates in a couple of ways to help grow your relationships with contacts and establish new ones.
The first is with your own status updates.
LinkedIn status updates are a nice way of helping to stay top of mind with contacts.
If you were to call or email all your contacts any time you did something small but interesting, it would quickly become seen as pushy or spammy.
But updating your status is an non-intrusive way of getting a gentle reminder out.
Depending on their settings, your contacts will get a regular email with a summary of the status updates of their contacts.
And they will see the updates on their LinkedIn homepage.
Mostly it will just be "so and so updated their profile" type messages.
So if your status update has something interesting in it ("Ian has just run a seminar on consultative selling skills") it will remind them of the sort of thing you do and may even trigger them into action.
You can also usefully use the status updates of your contacts.
If your contacts view something as important enough to mention on an update, then it must mean something to them.
And so it's both worth remembering - and remaking on.
You can send them a comment back on the update - or even a direct message.
This can lead to deeper conversations and real engagement with someone you perhaps had fallen out of touch with.
Look out especially for when they connect to new people.
It just may be that these new people would be great contacts for you.
Absolutely the best time to ask for an introduction is when they've just connected themselves.
leave it too long and they will most likely fall victim to the trap of not communicating with them after the initial connection.
And then it will be embarrassing for them to make contact to introduce you.
So overall, while status updates aren't going to ever be your primary business development tool - far from it, they can help you establish and grow relationships which could lead to good new business.
