LinkedIn Success Stories

I received a lot of feedback to a recent blog post entitled ‘LinkedIn Maintains its Place in Social Networking’ after distributing the link on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. One of the questions I raised in the earlier post was whether anyone had ever leveraged LinkedIn to get a job or land a business opportunity.

A LinkedIn success story

Of all the comments regarding preferences and uses of LinkedIn, Barbara Maldonado responded on Twitter that LinkedIn was the key to landing her current job as business development director for Marketing Resources Incorporated near Chicago.  

Barbara Maldonado is a LinkedIn advocate

Ms. Maldonado describes herself as a ‘gigantic advocate’ for LinkedIn. Her original strategy was to participate in group discussions. As group members posed questions instead of offering a self-promoting response, Ms. Maldonado says she would provide answers based on her knowledge or expertise of the subject matter. “Answering the question shows thought leadership,” said Ms. Maldonado.

Ms. Maldonado says LinkedIn is a wonderful tool for reputation management. She remains visible and active in discussion groups and integrates LinkedIn with her presence on Twitter. It has worked to her advantage as she is being sought out by high-level marketing executives to connect on LinkedIn. Ms. Maldonado also uses LinkedIn as a credibility check by including a link to her profile in her email communications. “I want people to access my profile and know that I am serious about doing business with them,” she said.

How to leverage LinkedIn

Ms. Maldonado’s story is an illustration that LinkedIn is one of many strategic methods to gaining new employment, especially in a market where job candidates are seeking to break through the clutter to get noticed.  

Social media expert Nathan Kievman, wrote an e-book about how to make the best use of LinkedIn to advance your career. Mr. Kievman offers five strategies to get noticed and strengthen your expert status:  

1. Own (or start) a LinkedIn group
2. Create and share high quality valuable resources – post links to a blog or resources, videos, white papers that will be of value to LinkedIn users
3. Post relevant news topics –  post links to a blog or news articles, again that create value to users
4. Post answers to questions – be brief, compelling, relevant and professional
5. Create engagement and conversation – build trust through open communication

Reputation management and personal branding will become increasingly more relevant in 2010. LinkedIn is perhaps one of many channels to consider as a way to add value, help others, engage others and connect with others.

TaylorYou is written and managed by Cathy Y. Taylor, managing director for Vocii, LLC a brand consultancy that focuses on filling the gap between human resources, marketing and communications to align employee behaviors with company strategies. The Vocii mission is to help companies engage employees and customers in conversations that help to build long-term trust in the organizational brand.