Hello and Welcome Back:
For the past two weeks, I have been sharing with you the results of my 2010 Midyear LinkedIn Survey. Today I will be giving you some final thoughts on those results. As promised, I have a little blast from the past, so here goes.
Let me start with a trivia question from the mid 1970s:
“What do the following names/words have in common: Lee Majors (Steve Austin), bionic, Office of Scientific Intelligence, Lindsay Wagner (Jaime Sommers), 20:1 zoom lens, cyborg?”
If you guessed these are all people and/or terms from the TV series “Six Million Dollar Man” and the subsequent spinoff “The Bionic Woman,” you are right. Congratulations. That means you are still using some of your precious grey matter for random facts that probably won’t help you in your business life, unless you write a trivia book—Just kidding. In case you are too young to know what this series was about or have forgotten (I certainly had to Google it), let me remind you that these two individuals (Steve Austin and Jaime Sommers) had certain man-made body parts that helped them fight crime in an extraordinary way.
I am sure many of you who have met me are probably saying, “I always knew Wayne was a bit off center, but now I know he has gone over the edge, and I am going to unsubscribe to this email. I was expecting help on LinkedIn, and instead he is rambling on about some ‘70s TV show, the Bionic Man and Bionic Woman.” Before you hit the “Reply & Unsubscribe” button, hang in there, because I have some very helpful, highly requested, solid, usable information from the latest LinkedIn user survey that I know you don’t want to miss. This tip is entitled:
The Bionic LinkedIn Couple
What Would a LinkedIn Power User Look Like?
Think of my fictitious Bionic LinkedIn couple as a composite of two separate and distinct LinkedIn users who have found the keys to maximizing LinkedIn productivity. I will describe the characteristics of each, with the goal of helping you compare their characteristics and habits to yours so you can become a bit more “bionic” (effective) with your time spent on LinkedIn.
LinkedIn Bionic Man – He represents all the people (50.9% of the respndents) who gave an answer of either 4 or 5 to the survey question: “How important is LinkedIn in your efforts to grow your network and develop your business or help you find employment?” (5=extremely important). In other words he is a composite of all the people that said that LinkedIn is really important to them and I interpret that as being something they really find useful and is helping them accomplish their goals regardless of whether those goals are growing their business or finding employment.
LinkedIn Bionic Woman – She represents all the people who when answering the survey question “Which of the following would you say LinkedIn has helped you with?” (20.4% of the respondents) selected “Generated identifiable business opportunities.” In other words these are the people who have made money that they can directly attribute to something they did or are doing on LinkedIn.
So together they make up my fictional couple, (Steve and Jaime) that are revealing that LinkedIn has worked well for them and they find it very useful, thus I would consider them Power Users.
I think you will find the information below straight forward and understandable, but the entry “Most helpful features” needs a bit more explanation. What am showing here is which features were selected as “helpful in executing your strategy on LinkedIn” at a much higher frequency by the bionic couple than by all the respondents of the survey. In other words what features are they saying are useful at a significantly higher rate than the group in total. I interpret this as the potential keys to the success they are having on LinkedIn. The (%) shown after the feature description is difference between the % of people in the total respondent population that selected that feature and the sample represented by the bionic person. So for example sixty-two percent more people selected Saved searches as an important feature in the bionic man group than the total respondents in the survey. So this represents one of those features that we all should take note of and see if it might be helpful to us.
So let’s see what they are made of that makes them bionic.
| LinkedIn Bionic Man
(Network growth/business/job) |
LinkedIn Bionic Woman
(Generated business) |
|
| Years on LinkedIn | 2.1 | 2.0 |
| Number of Connections | 271 | 346 |
| Profile 100% Complete | 51.5% | 56.1% |
| Hrs/Wk spent on Linkedin | 3.1 | 3.5 |
| How important is LinkedIn to you
(5=Extremely, 1=Not at all) |
4.4 | 4.0 |
| Top 5 features (ranked) | People search
Groups Company search Review network updates People You May Know |
Groups
People search People You May Know Company search Review network |
| Most helpful features | Saved searches (+62%)
Twitter interface (+44%) Following companies (+40%) Introduction (+32%) |
Saved searchs (+62%)
Q & A (+128%) Events (+111%) Network updates (+75%) Introduction (+68%) Twitter interface (+66%) Review 1st Degree connections (+47%) Who’s Viewed My Profile (+37%) People You May Know (+34%) |
| % more likely to be using other social media sites than average user | +17% | +35% |
| Using Facebook | 77% | 70% |
| Using Twitter | 48% | 63% |
| Using You Tube | 25% | 33% |
| Blogging | 21% | 26% |
My Two Cents
- · I consistently suggest that people need to get at least 100 connections in order to get a meaningful group of people selected when you do an advanced people search, which after all is the most useful feature on LinkedIn. I think it is really interesting to see just how many connections our two bionic LinkedIn users have and my encouragement to you is to keep growing that network because every single new first level connection bring you lots of second and third level connections.
Don’t forget also that joining groups helps you also increase the number of people you find when doing an advanced people search.
- · The average user spends 0-2 hours per week on LinkedIn. The bionic users spend 3+ hours per week. What I hate about this is that I really never wanted LinkedIn or any other social media site to tie all of you down to your computer any more than you have to so I am bummed out when it looks like an extra hour a week might turn you into a “power user” on the other hand like most things in life extra efforts means extra results. Sorry about that, please don’t shoot the messenger.
- · Look at the features listing above, and consider trying a few things from the list that you are not currently using. Remember – every time you begin to use another feature on LinkedIn, you are leveraging what you have already established on LinkedIn, and that is your network and your profile. I would start by using saved searches, not just because I think it is the greatest free virtual assistant you can have but because it shows up as the #1 emphasized feature for both Mr. & Mrs. To find out what these features are and how to use them the best thing to do is to click “Help” on the right of the top toolbar and then type in the feature name. LinkedIn provides good explanations of the features available. Then give it a shot, I have to believe this is just the way that Mr. & Mr. Bionic started with these advanced features.
Either you thought this week’s tip was a big waste of your time (sorry about that) or you thought this was really interesting and useful information, albeit a bit “geeky.” But let me tell you the two reasons why I am so excited to share what I feel is potentially groundbreaking information with you.
- 1. I am frequently asked, “Wayne, you see and talk to a lot of power users. What are they doing (that I’m not doing) on LinkedIn to build their brands, grow their networks, find jobs, and make money?”
- 2. Sometimes our habits and routines cause us to lose track of the fact that others may be doing things differently and possibly better than we are. I often say to my audiences, “Take a look at what is going on around the country in your industry, and bring some of those ideas and best practices to your own market. After all, we haven’t cornered the market on “smart” here in our town or region.” This whole LinkedIn/social media thing is constantly evolving. You may have already gained a lot of knowledge about it, but there is always something new to learn. Be on the lookout for new information, and listen as others share their stories of success.
As you probably know by now, my approach each and every week is to encourage you to be more strategic (and thus more effective) in your LinkedIn usage. I want your time spent on LinkedIn to be well worth the effort. What works for someone else may not work for you. Try new things. Keep tweaking your strategy until you are consistently getting the results you desire.
Now compare yourself to Steve Austin and Jaime Sommers, and see how you might want to be more “bionic” in your LinkedIn efforts.
Miscellaneous News and Notes
Some of the other resources I provide are:
- Customized corporate training classes
- Keynote and workshop presentations for conventions and association meetings
- Corporate social media strategy consulting
- For Sale: LinkedIn training DVDs for beginners and intermediate users
- For daily tips, follow me on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/WayneBreitbarth
Here is my upcoming schedule for teaching/speaking so you can share with friends, relatives and business associates. Follow link or paste into your browser for additional details and registration information.
Wed Aug 18, 2010 Wayne's LinkedIn Power Formula Training for Beginners
M&M Office Interiors; 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
http://budurl.com/auq5
I hope you enjoy “bionic” powers this week in your LinkedIn efforts.
Wayne
Wayne C. Breitbarth
President
M&M Office Interiors, Inc.
W233 N2833 Roundy Circle West Suite 100
Pewaukee, WI 53072
office 262-781-2600
cell 414-313-7785
