15 years on LinkedIn, 15 reasons to be grateful

It was 15 years ago that I got that first invitation to connect. In a split second, my journey on LinkedIn started. At first, I was just intrigued and curious at this new platform with its bold ambition to create a global online business community. The intrigue has since been replaced with a sense of sheer gratitude for the immense professional, personal and financial benefits I’ve reaped through LinkedIn. Here are the top 15 ways I’ve benefited in a corporate role, and now as an entrepreneur.

Financial gains

For the past two years, I’ve been a Premium member of LinkedIn. While some people complain about having to pay a monthly fee for features that used to be free, I don’t. Because I earn more than $500/hour from LinkedIn! Yes, a few years back, I actually did a rough calculation of the revenues my business earnt as a result of new LinkedIn connections, divided by the number of hours I spent on LinkedIn (at an average of half an hour a day). The result was impressive!

Further evidence of financial gain was when I launched my business (Matchboard) in 2012. I scored 3 clients on Day 1, through a simple LinkedIn post, asking my network to share the launch.

Digital Loudspeaker

I have a policy as a business owner not to send newsletters or email campaigns more than once a month, as we all suffer from email overload. So LinkedIn is effectively my digital loudspeaker, enabling me to communicate my news, blogs and thoughts to anyone who cares to read them. And through shares, likes and comments, my posts are amplified to a much broader network.

Trust

Speaking of likes and comments, LinkedIn is a great way to build trust. The more people that like what you have to say, the more recommendations and endorsements you receive, the more people will trust you as a credible business partner.

I’ll never forget a lunch event a few years ago, where the Managing Director of LinkedIn Australia said his team had analysed the list of 500 or so business leaders registered, and the person with the most endorsements was me.

This exposure to the C-suite of many of Australia’s largest companies was gold.

I was quick to leverage the moment, by following up with invitations to connect with many of the executives in the audience.

A free lunch

For my first 12 years on LinkedIn, I was not a paying member.  I’d always say, “there is such a thing as a free lunch, it’s called LinkedIn!” And it was true. The benefits of building a network, sharing content, and becoming a thought leader was at no cost. In startup mode, the ability to do all these things with a marketing budget of zero was like a gift – in those early days, I’m not sure I could have gained the momentum needed in my business without LinkedIn.

The domino effect

As I’ve gone from 2,500 to 16,000 followers over the last 6 years, I’ve noticed the domino effect – for every new connection gained, another group of invitations to connect follow. And the more connections, the more profile, post and article views, creating more visibility, more clients, and a bigger personal brand. Further, the more people engage with your posts, the more LinkedIn will start prioritising your content in connections’ feeds, in a virtuous circle.

More website hits

Every time I publish something new on Matchboard’s website, I share it on LinkedIn. This draws thousands of new visitors to the site. Once people are on the site, for example reading an article or press release, they will often snoop around other pages, and before you know it, Google analytics is showing a beautiful uplift in traffic, and conversion on new business goals set.

Sherlock Holmes mode

One of LinkedIn’s most popular features is viewing who’s clicked on your profile. Often these are just clicks of curiosity, particularly if you’ve sent an invitation to connect. But sometimes it’s a clue that a potential employer is taking your application seriously, or you have caught the eye of a competitor or potential partner.

Likewise you can check out others to make for more productive meetings – for example, if you are meeting an important prospect for the first time, you may discover from their LinkedIn profile that you both speak a certain foreign language, or both have an interest in a particular cause, or even went to the same university. These little commonalities are great ice-breakers, which make a big difference in relationship-building.

If you are an administrator of a company page, you can also see analytics on competitors’ pages – and benchmark your progress in adding followers and building engagement.

Keeping track of colleagues

Never underestimate the power of your network of ex-colleagues.

These people are much more likely to like/share your content, endorse you for skills, and write recommendations, because they have worked with you for years. Without LinkedIn, it’s hard to keep track of all your colleagues, so for me this has been a major benefit of the platform.

Access to the C-Suite

At last count, I had more than 4,000 CEOs/former CEOs in my network. I’ve found connecting with CEOs first on LinkedIn to yield much better results than starting with a cold email. If you have a strong LinkedIn profile, you may be surprised at the ease with which you can create a C-level network – with one proviso: it’s worth investing an extra minute of your time to personalise the invitation as this will maximise the chances of invite acceptance with these invaluable contacts.

Does anyone know…?

People who use LinkedIn a lot tend to be open to helping others where they can. So you can save yourself hours of research by pinging your network to ask for recommendations or tips – for example, “how can an Australian business open a bank account in the UK?” 

Many suppliers on Matchboard, including digital content writers, SEO consultants and graphic designers, have joined our community through LinkedIn recommendations – which I’m happy to recommend to others!

The front-of-mind factor

On today’s crowded information superhighway, it’s reality that we are all easily forgotten, so I’ve used LinkedIn to stay front of mind. This usually involves a few posts a week, which for some may seem oversharing, but for me is just the right balance to ensure I am front of mind when people need a service Matchboard can help with.

Learning from others

While it’s true there are a lot of distractions on LinkedIn, it doesn’t take long to skim through your daily feed to find at least one interesting article or video where you can learn from others. My favourite two posters of late are Monica Rosenfeld, a PR guru, who posts short weekly videos on how to get mass media coverage and become the go-to person for your industry, and digital marketing guru, Neil Patel.

The online-offline bridge

I try to meet LinkedIn connections in person where I sense a synergy or business opportunity, or just a connection with a thought leader in their field. It’s simply not time-feasible to meet all your connections, so it pays to be very selective. But there’s no question that it’s more effective deepening a relationship in person rather than limiting yourself to the online world.

The Social Selling advantage

Having spent most of my career in business development, I’ve observed the trend towards social selling skills as being a differentiator and indeed a success indicator for sales people. The era of just cold calling prospects has gone. It’s been replaced with a more complex web of trust and authority building through a combination of digital channels and face-to-face relationships. In B2B, LinkedIn is the digital platform of choice. You can check out your Social Selling Index (SSI) score on Linked and explore opportunities to improve.

Every connection is an asset

Most importantly of all, I’m grateful to all the human beings (no bots, thank you!) who have joined my LinkedIn network and provide support and new perspectives on a daily basis. My network is one of my greatest assets, consisting of advocates, clients, partners, suppliers, ex-colleagues, and just interesting people in all corners of the world. To you, and to LinkedIn, I say thank you!