Have you ever thought about reasons for relying on your LinkedIn connections?

Our LinkedIn connections are the lifeblood of our LinkedIn experience. However, much of the time we neglect to utilize their full potential.

 

Some Reasons to Tap into Your LinkedIn Connections

  • Help a job seeker who wants to conduct some informational interviews. Let’s say a friend of yours is thinking about going into a new line of work. You may have LinkedIn connections in that field. By using search filters, you can find LinkedIn connections your friend can contact to arrange such an interview.
  • Discover people working at a company where a job seeker you know has applied for a position. Find out from the job seeker what types of people they would like to talk to at the company. You can search within your connections to find these people.
  • Identify possible referral partners to help grow your business. For example, let’s assume that business coaches refer you more business than other professionals. You can use LinkedIn’s search capabilities to find additional business coaches to develop relationships with.
  • Grow the membership of your business or community organization. Maybe your organization is for women business leaders. You could search within your connections using that phrase.

 

Search Using a Key Word or Phrase

The instructions for LinkedIn searching described in this blog post are geared toward using the site on your computer.

  1. Type a word or phrase into the search box at the top of the screen. Put quotation marks around the phrase. For instance, you can search for “business coach.”
  2. Hit enter and click on “see all results.”
  3. The search filters will show at the top of the screen. Click on “People.” Now you will see the filters called “Connections,” “Locations,” “Current Company,” and “All filters.”
  4. Click on “Connections,” click on “1st” and then “Show results.” Then you will see a list of all your 1st level connections who include the words “business coach” somewhere in their profile.
  5. You will find additional filters (anywhere from past company to industry) when you click on “All filters.”

 

About Joyce

Joyce Feustel helps people, especially those age 55 and up, to become more effective using social media, especially LinkedIn and Facebook. She works with business owners, nonprofit organizations, job seekers, consultants, and many others. Find her www.boomerssocialmediatutor.com