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On the 7th episode of the Construction Industry Podcast I share how to unleash the power of LinkedIn, specifically for us in the construction industry.
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The Power of LinkedIn for Construction Professionals
According to their own website, “LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 120 million members and growing rapidly. LinkedIn connects you to your trusted contacts and helps you exchange knowledge, ideas, and opportunities with a broader network of professionals.”
In a way, it is like Facebook. It allows you to create a profile and then connect with people you know. The main difference is that LinkedIn is solely a professional network, and you can only connect with people you’ve done business or went to school with. If you’d like to connect with someone you don’t know, the way to do it is to get introduced by a common contact.
LinkedIn is great for a number of reasons:
It helps you stay in touch with professional people you know
By connecting with your contacts in LinkedIn, you can see what they have been up to, and reaching an old colleague is just a few clicks away.
It facilitates networking
LinkedIn really shines when it comes to ways to network. You can network by:
- Connecting with people you already know: they can see what you are up to and who you are connecting with.
- Joining groups: find a LinkedIn group that is related to your industry and join in the conversation. This is a great way to connect with new professionals, ask and answer questions, and establish yourself as an expert in your field. This can be done by freely sharing your knowledge with the community.
- Sharing good news! Use your status update to share news with your contacts. Let them know when your company gets an important contract, when you get a promotion, or if there are some important news related to your industry.
- Sharing your physical location: if you are going to be travelling, let your network know. You might get invited to local events.
It helps with market research
Look into groups to see what people are talking about and get a sense of what’s going on in the market. You can also closely monitor your competition to see what they are up to recently.
It helps with lead generation
You can see what people are posting about in their status updates and in their groups. Usually projects and opportunities will be mentioned.
Check out the full episode by clicking the orange “play” button at the top of this post as I go into further details on how to accomplish these tasks.
And don’t forget to check out this weeks tech tip at the end of the episode, when I speak with John Finn of Vertetek.