Part 5 finally arrives. Sorry for the delay but client’s have to take preference over the blog. Plus I’ve recently switched to a Mac and much of my time has been spent migrating to the new computer.
In part 4, Expand Your Reach on LinkedIn we covered building through direct connections and groups. Today we talk about Building Credibility on LinkedIn.
When I lived in New Orleans a good friend of mine had an uncle named Joe. Everyone in the neighborhood knew him and everybody loved him. I don’t know anybody who would trust him as far as doing what he said he would. Great guy, just not dependable.
For a business you want to be known and liked, but before the cash register start ringing you have to establish trust. Trust might be strong enough to over come someone not liking you, but with enough options, this combination is not likely to be viable.
On LinkedIn you start your account off with none of the three. As you start to connect on LinkedIn you’ll pop up on people’s radar. Your activity is displayed on people’s home page so with enough participation you’ll start to get known.
To take the next step the most effective way to do so is to share value. In a small network you may be able to establish this outside of LinkedIn. But for those people that only know you through LinkedIn, they’ll make their decision based on how they judge your interaction and the value of the information you share.
Trust only occurs as people positively evaluate your interactions and content over time. Trust can take a long time to build and disappear overnight. So how do you use LinkedIn to take the steps from Known to trusted? Here are some ways.
- You LinkedIn ProfileYour profile is often the first opportunity to introduce yourself to others. Some key pieces of the puzzle are do you have a professional or relevant photo, do you list and explain your current and former employment, do you have summary that talks about how you help others.Another great way to build trust through your profile is the applications. You can feed in your blog which allows others to gain a better perspective of you. Boxnet allows you to share white papers, brochures, and other informational pieces. Slideshare let’s you add a PowerPoint presentation. All of these take your profile from two dimensional to 3 dimensional.If your profile visitor leaves and still has questions about who you help or how you can help them your profile did not do it’s job. Done right and your prospects may contact you.
- What Others Say About YouRecommendations are one of the key ways to build credibility. When a client takes the time to tell other what a great job you did, your credibility rises. You don’t have to toot your own horn.You don’t have to push your product or service, you don’t have to say you’re great, you don’t have to sell. The recommendation is doing that for you. Multiply the effect by securing at least 10 client recommendations.Business partner and colleague recommendations provide value as well, just not to the degree that on from client does.One way to build your recommendations is to be proactive and request them. If you do this keep a few things in mind. Don’t request a recommendation from anyone that you don’t know. Don’t request a recommendation of your work from someone who isn’t client. Don’t request a recommendation if the work you did was not above and beyond expectations.
- How You Interact with OthersThere are several places you can interact with pother on LinkedIn…Answers, Discussion Posts, and News Article comments. On LinkedIn your name is associated with your comments. This isn’t a college football forum where people make disparaging remarks while hiding behind a user name. Here what you say is directly tied to your brand.Remember that everything you do on LinkedIn either adds to or subtracts from your brand. LinkedIn is a professional social network so I don’t think we need to discuss what not to do. I’ve caught myself typing up a response to a comment (more than once) and realized that this would not add to my brand, so I deleted my response.
- The Value of the information You ShareOne the the best places to share value on LinkedIn is Answers. Here you get to help others while demonstrating your expertise. You want to make sure that you provide a well thought out answer. I usually spend at least 5 minutes on a response to make sure that my answer is one that adds to my brand.If you ever look at the top experts for the week you’ll see that there are some people who choose to answer a lot of questions. The top person this week has answered 366 questions. What does this say about that person?I’m sure their impression is that they are building their credibility. I look at this and think that if someone has the time to answer 366 questions they’re either not providing significant value or they’re lacking work to have the time to answer over 70 questions per day.Discussion questions in groups are a great way to start conversations and engage fellow group members. Discussions can lead to new client’s, new connections, and new knowledge. They add significant value to the group.
News articles allow you to share information that you have written or that you discovered. Everyone benefits. Just make sure that the news you share in a group is relevant to the group purpose. You don’t even have to post an article to provide value. You can comment on an article and share your knowledge, thoughts, and opinions.
Wrap Up
There are numerous ways to build credibility on LinkedIn. You simply need to identify which vehicles will help you build your credibility. As you do you’ll find that you’re beginning to build brand awareness(know), generating a favorable perception(like), and generating new business (Trust).
How have you used LinkedIn to build credibility?
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About Sean Nelson
This was the best, so far, in your series. I really took away some great ideas. I was also told that recommending someone, might reciprocate a recommendation your way.
Thank you!
As usual, good stuff. A susinct summary of the steps toward a successful LinkedIn profile and related activities.
Angela,
now you’re putting the pressure on me to top this one. Hopeefully the next five keep getting better.
Sean
Thanks Tom for the comments and for reading.
Sean
Sean your insight and ability to explain how to use LinkedIn is a blessing. Your LinkedIn MBA book is powerful. This series brings even more ideas. Thanks for sharing. Bob Berry
good post. enjoy your linked in tips — do/don’ts==
andrea
Tom,
Your specific narrative has really helped set the framework of my LinkedIn program. I am newer at this form of networking and am thouroughly convinced that the use of this medium in general and the LinkedIn forum specifically, are an essential component in my successful professional development.
Aaron
Andrea,
Glad to be of service.
Sean
Aaron,
Thanks for the comments. I’ve used it successfully with my insurance agency. I just released the Insurance Brokers Guide to LinkedIn which can be found by clicking on the Books tab above.
Sean
Sean – Having only recently found your website & LI profile (thanks to the upcoming NorvaxU in Atlanta), I’m way behind the curve w/ all this “social networking.” I’m finding this quite interesting (though a bit overwhelming) and hope to learn, use, & grow from it. Thanks for the informative post! (Now, I’m heading back to read what I missed in the earlier posts….)
Hopefully we’ll have a chance to meet at the Norvax conference.
Sean
I really like your point about showing how you help people … and it has me thinking. I tend to showcase the community service work I do on my website/blog, but I like the idea of showing how you’re a team player and it invites people who could use your help to ask.
Tina,
Thanks for the comments.
Sean
Sean,
This is some very practical and relevant advice. It is important to recognize that your brand is impacted every time you respond. People build a composite picture of you based on what you respond to, what you respond with, and how your response comes across.
Also, as Angela points out, providing valid and appropriate recommendations for others can sometimes lead to valid reciprocal recommendations from them.
LinkedIn is not just about overt selling — it’s a vehicle for demonstrating value in the long-term.
-ASB: http://xeesm.com/AndrewBaker
Providing Competitive Advantage through Effective IT Leadership
Andrew,
Thanks for the comments. The one thing I would caution about is the reciprocal recommendation. Recommendations should only be given when earned, not as a Thank You back to someone in exchange for their recommendation.
Sean
Hi Sean,
Thank you for the tips. This will encourage me to use Linkedin more effectively. Very good article.
Frankly, listing a recommendation on Linkedin is of little value. Most people know that this has for the most part become a reciprocal process. I think there are much better ways of confirming the abilities of a person of interest.
Orland,
Glad the tips are proving useful. Keep reading through the articles to learn more.
Sean
Jim,
Thanks for the comments. I still think recommendations can powerful part of the credibility process, though I tend to view those from client’s as more worthy than the others.
Recommendations aren’t the end all, they are simply part of the equation when evaluating the bits and data available.
Sean
I often see articles, comments and other posts on LinkedIn (and elsewhere) which are interesting and thought-provoking but lose credibility because they contain bad grammar, punctuation (particularly apostrophes), or spelling.
Contrary to what appears to be a popular belief that “it doesn’t matter”, there are many of us who think that lack of attention to detail in written material indicates lack of attention to detail in other matters. Why would I want to work with somebody who can’t get the detail (or in some instances the basics) right?
It is very simple to improve your credibility on LinkedIn: improve the quality of your posts! Most web-browsers have a spell-checker (which judging by many posts, a large number of people do not know how to use!). MS Word has a spell- and grammar-checker: it is very easy to compose posts in Word and then copy and paste them once they have been checked.
I saw a post recently from a senior BNI executive which actually spelt “Givers Gain” as “Giver’s Gain”. Not only is this grammatically incorrect (a simple plural never, but never, contains an apostrophe), but it’s not even a true representation of a BNI registered trademark which encapsulates the single most important philosophy of the organisation! What sort of impression does that give?
Why not distinguish yourself from the rest by being better than the rest? That seems to make sense to me.
Alan,
Thanks for the comments. This is one area where I often run into trouble. I write my posts in Word (now Pages since I switched to a Mac) and use spell check but that misses when I spell a word correctly but its the wrong word (can instead of can’t, etc.) There’s a reason professional writers have editors.
I’ve found that much of my time and energy goes into writing the articles and once done I’m probably the worst person to edit the document. Things that others see clearly I’m blind to. I think part of it is that the focus is on the overall message and not the mechanics. Also each article takes roughly an hour of my time to write and additional time to post, and once done I’m needing to quickly get back to the real job.
These aren’t excuses for errors because you are correct that they can impact credibility. I personally hope that the information is informative enough that the reader will cut me a little slack when there are an error or five.
Sean
Thank you for your help!
Hello, Sean. Thanks for publishing such a good article. I joined LinkedIn less than 3 weeks ago…Is it possible for me to have access to the previous articles? I have created 2 groups on LinkedIn and feel it would be to the groups' advantage for me to share with them.
Anything you can do will be appreciated.
Tina,
If you look on the left side of the blog page you will see a Archive Drop Down. From there you can access posts all the way back to January of 2008.