LinkedIn #3: Recommendations, endorsements

(Last of three parts)

Stuff, or fluff? Praise, or craze? Sincere, or cheer? Those are the kinds of questions you should ask about any LinkedIn recommendations or skill endorsements that pop up in your e-mail stack before you accept them into your LinkedIn profile. That’ll make it a professionally credible statement of your skills and achievements, rather than a touchy-feely flurry of Facebookish pats-on-the-back and right-ons.

Consider the following about all would-be recommenders and endorsers:

• How well do you know those people?
• What was the nature of your professional relationships with them?
• How closely did you work with them to give them a full, clear, well-rounded idea of the skills or talents for which they’re endorsing you?
• Would you use them as references for job interviews?
• Would they have enough to say about you if your job interviewer were to contact them?
• Do you feel you possess a significant level of the skills or talents for which they’re recognizing you to give you true credibility in those areas?
• How are they wording and phrasing their recommendations? Do they sound like the right stuff to advance your standing, or mere puff pieces to please and appease you?
• How much is too much, in terms of the number of skills (strong or weak) for which you’re being endorsed, and the number of people who are endorsing you for particular skills?

An endorsement page like this may wow your Facebook friends but may give pause to potential employers, partners or clients who may suspect an attempt to gussy up your profile with the equivalent of Facebook fame. So be careful whom and what you include in your LinkedIn laudations.

In his Personal Branding Blog, career development expert Jacob Share recommends these criteria in choosing who to recommend you:

1. The best recommendations are from people who actually employed you, e.g., a client or boss, because they directly observed, received and evaluated the work you did for them.
2. Useful recommendations can come from co-workers or business partners who witnessed your achievements firsthand or were directly affected by them in a positive way.
3. Sometimes useful recommendations can be provided by a friend, family member or fan who was impressed by your work — but be cautious of conflict-of-interest issues that could turn their recommendations into mere puff pieces.

Also be careful about how you solicit a recommendation from a LinkedIn connection. It’s a good idea to ask that person, “Do you feel you know enough about my skills and achievements in this company to recommend me on LinkedIn?” That way, you’re letting them think about what they want to say about you — or whether they’re qualified to say anything at all — before deciding whether or how to recommend you. Thus their recommendations would appear more sincere and would present your skills more believably in your profile.

Be equally careful about how you recommend or endorse others. If you want to recommend someone in the hope s/he’ll reciprocate, do the following:

• Think carefully about your answer. Rewrite it several times. Ask yourself if that would be the kind of recommendation you would want to receive.
• Back up your points about the person with actual achievements and/or skills in action you observed in that person as a client, boss, co-worker, business partner, etc.
• Keep the recommendation brief, say, 2-5 sentences of varied lengths. After all, short paragraphs rule in the attention-span-challenging world of cyberspace. Also, overlong recommendations may rouse suspicion of overpraise in viewers of your recommendee’s profile, particularly potential employers, clients, consultants and partners.

This recommendation is strong (worthy of its frame!), because it comes from the recipient’s client (“the best” on Jacob Share’s list) — who is also a 1st-level LinkedIn connection to her — and describes in specific detail the type of service she was performing for the client (immigration visa applications), the process of her service to the client (“answering every single of my questions”) and the product the client was happy with (“they have written all the reference letter drafts for me”). This lets the visitor know how well the recommendee works with her clients. The checking off of her “Top Qualities” adds extra gravy, as attributes for which to remember her.

This one is weak, indulging in generic generalities and canned clichés (“Industry Leader,” etc.) with no specifics about how the recipient “brings a wealth of knowledge” about the named subjects, or to what or to whom she has brought them. It is also overlong, forcing the visitor to click “more” to read the rest of the ramble. Moreover, the recommender’s relationship to the recipient isn’t specified, thus may not make Jacob Share’s “useful” category.

Finally, please be careful about your endorsements of others. It’s tempting, when the menu at left pops up on your profile, to simply click “Endorse all 4,” then click the same for the following foursome, and the next, and the next, and the next… to ballyhoo the brands of your buddies.

Yours Truly used to do just that, until one of my endorsees bade me to stop, because that person did not possess many of the skills I was endorsing to no end. Since then, I have been very selective about my endorsements. I question whether someone truly does “know about” the area of expertise below his/her name before clicking the “Endorse” button. That way, endorsements can be as credible as well-written recommendations from professional sources.

It’s nice to sweeten up your LinkedIn peers’ profiles, hoping they’ll follow suit for you. But, as candy can give you cavities, flattery can make you fall flat in the eyes of those you seek to do business with or hire you. So credibility, not candy, and surety, not sugar-coating, are key to LinkedIn leverage, rather than Facebook fanaticism, in all professional social media profiles.

— Todd Larson

Thank you for visiting. I welcome your comments!

LinkedIn #2: Searching and making connections

(Second of three parts)

Whether set up as a website prelude, chat channel or notice board, LinkedIn company profiles enable firm project managers or principals to link up with and learn more about other firms they might be interested in forming strategic alliances, proposal teams or development partnerships with, to see if they’d be a good fit.

LinkedIn’s new “Advanced Search” option (see below) lets you track down by job title the specific staff members of those companies you want to connect with, that would have the authority to build the team with you.

For these and other purposes, LinkedIn has a database of connections at your fingerclicks, and a search engine for direct linkage to your desired contacts — which antiquates the Rolodex, that spinaround shuffledeck of card chaos that took up valuable desk space and took you weeks to slog through a thicket of names and numbers from 10 or 20 years ago to find the contact that was hiding from you.

LinkedIn also puts to rest (and to shame) that ’60s connect-and-followup method, as sung by George Harrison:

Carve your number on my wall
And maybe you will get a call
From me, if I needed someone.

If you need someone now, just type in the name in the Search bar at the top of your LinkedIn home page, click the magnifier icon, and presto, an instant roster of John Smiths or whomever you were tracking.

If you need someone by title for recruitment, consultant hiring, design-build teaming or general networking purposes, “Advanced Search is the coolest part of LinkedIn,” said Patrick O’Malley at the May 22 Boston Society of Architects Marketing/PR Wizards meeting. “It allows you to search for people by anything, not just by name — for instance, Vice President of Finance or CFO. Your second-level connections, or friends of friends, will show that so-and-so was vice president of finance and you know him through a first-level connection.”

“LinkedIn is a useful way to make a cold call warm, through a common bond, or through someone you’ve worked together with,” added Julia Corbett Tanen.

To do an Advanced Search, just click “Advanced” at the right of the magnifier, and the Advanced People Search page will come up (click pic for full page):

Then you can type in the title of your desired connection (and the company that person works for, if desired), click Search, and up come folks with that title and company:

At the bottom of each listing is the number of 1st-degree LinkedIn connections you share with that person, for the possibility of being introduced to those title-holders through your direct contacts. Beside each name is the degree of your connection to that person, if any.

However, 3rd-degree connections appear by the person’s first name and last initial only, unless you’re willing to shell out for a LinkedIn Premium account for $24.95/month (Business plan), $39.95/month (Business Plus plan) or $74.95/month (Executive plan). Patrick showed us how to ferret out that last name for free:

1. Open the 3rd-degree connection profile of the person you wish to contact.
2. Open a separate Google Images window on your website browser.
3. Drag the 3rd-degree connection’s profile photo into the Google Images search bar.
4. Click the magnifier icon beside the bar.
5. Click “Search by Image.”
6. Up will pop a list of links with that photo, some likely containing the connection’s last name.

Something to remember about all LinkedIn connections: “Be careful,” said Patrick. “Too often people link in with people they don’t really know or know well. Connect with people you really know and trust, but not with anyone and everyone.”

“Start with the human connection,” said Julia. “Search through people’s profiles and create something they’ll instantly bond with. Exchange messages back and forth before you can say, ‘Let’s have coffee.’ I read profiles in depth, and I look at who recommended them.” She recommends LinkedIn school alumni/ae group pages as safe, trusted ways to connect with individuals who already have something in common with you.

Above all, a LinkedIn connection means little without human substance behind it. Just because someone is LinkedIn with you doesn’t mean s/he’ll remember you later without regular contact with that person over time, in the form of e-mailing articles of interest, e-mail or phone conversations, coffee meetings, offers to help that person, etc. If you connect on LinkedIn but then fall out of touch with someone, that person may end up being like just another name and photo on an overstuffed Rolodex, thus of little or no value to your business or job search goals.

So LinkIn, and KeepInTouch!

— Todd Larson

Next post: LinkedIn #3: Recommendations, endorsements

Not yet sold on social media?

“Working with architects is like talking to cats — each office is in its own little microcosm,” quipped a guest at the Boston Society of Architects Marketing/PR Wizards’ recent meeting on the subject of branding.

That catty remark described my friend’s efforts to turn her firm on to social media. When she came aboard as their Marketing Manager, she immediately discovered an unused text for a company LinkedIn profile buried in her firm’s file-and-forget files. Twitter hadn’t yet flown with them. They were faceless on Facebook. They were blind to blogging. They were still sending snail-mail cards and brochures. In short, they were stuck in the print-and-paper past, skeptical of social media.

For weeks she played cat-and- mouse with the firm’s principals, trying to catch their attention and articulate the advantages of including social media in their marketing so they could stay competitive with their competitors by not appearing as if they had catnapped through the changing times.

She finally got a LinkedIn profile out of them, as well as a Twitter feed, a Facebook page, a MailChimp e-newsletter, and the beginnings of a blog. Now they’re linked in to LinkedIn, their Tweets are a-twitter, they’re face-to-face on Facebook, they’ve gone ape over MailChimp, and their blog has blossomed.

It was a tough sell, but now they’re sold on social media, seeing for themselves how handy it is for promoting projects, events of interest, and discussion ideas to the public without costing them a dime — and how it improved their visibility and brought out their brand more broadly.

Yet, a Building Design + Construction survey of A/E/C professionals found that only 28% were employing social media for marketing, and 61% weren’t using social media, period. Reasons for resistance to social media include:

• doubt about its business-building ability, given the still-slow economy despite social media’s big bang through cyberspace over the last decade;
• not deeming it necessary if a firm is getting enough business through repeat clients, word of mouth and other traditional networking;
• not thinking they have the time to spend on social media, given its addictive powers and the need to avoid distraction from current A/E/C work;
• fear it will leak too much information about the firm to competitors, resulting in stealing of the firm’s ideas and/or hiring away members of their staff;
• concern that that revelation of information will cause recipients to take it out of context, hence spread false rumors about the firm.

Understandable, but sleeping through social media surges and waking to see how cyber-savvy your competition is could balk your business down the road if you look old-cat — uh, old-hat. You’ll seem out of touch with the times, not the thought-leader in your field that social media have enabled your competitors to become.

Also, you’ll be challenged in your capacity to contribute to conversation. The benefits of discussion through social media are fourfold (at least):

1. to share your ideas about design-build techniques, project planning, client relationship building, business partnership development, proposal writing, etc., with others in your field or the general public, thus increasing your reputation for excellence in and knowledge of your profession;
2. to get the latest scoops, feeds and tips on today’s trends in your field, business-building concepts, marketing effort expansion ideas, possible client contacts, job leads, etc.;
3. to share your firm’s success stories in a way that is more accessible to the public and your contacts, thus beefing up your credibility in the industry;
4. to recruit employees by giving them a more direct, pleasurable connection to you and your firm.

For instance, Abigail Carlen, LEED® AP BD+C, has used social media to attract architects and designers as Marketing Manager for Perkins + Will in New York City, and now as Director of Marketing for H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture in New York (which also has an active Facebook page and Architizer profile with a project portfolio), according to Gina A. Bedoya, CPSM.

“Management understands that, eventually, economic times will change for the better, and there will once again be a need to search for talented architects,” said Bedoya, who is president of Bedoya Business Strategies, Inc., an A/E/C business consulting firm based in Fanwood, N.J. “Using social media to showcase their firm’s culture now will position them as a desirable firm to work for in the future.”

Also, social media are a click- away way to link up, team up and build up client relationships and strategic alliances for the support, collaboration and outside resources a firm needs in this still-shaky economy. Through a potential client’s or partner’s blog, Facebook page, LinkedIn or Architizer profile, etc., a firm can learn more about that company’s design/build needs, goals, approaches and/or philosophies to see if it would be a good match.

“More than ever, it is imperative that A/E/C firms constantly network and ‘get to know their neighbors,'” said Sarah Zibanejadrad, Marketing Manager at Oasis Consulting Services in Roswell, Ga. “You would be surprised how many federal organizations, municipalities, and developers are on only a click away on Facebook or LinkedIn.”

Even a civil engineering firm as old-as-the-hills as Burns & McDonnell of Kansas City, Mo. (founded in 1898) has readily adapted social media for these and other purposes.

Click on the icons or links below to see for yourself:

Their Careers Blog has many informational articles on networking, job searching, engineering trends, time management techniques and much more, in a style tailored to the general public interest rather than just industry insiders.

Their Facebook page is packed with stories about their industry, their current projects, volunteer opportunities, and numerous career issues.

They use LinkedIn for employee recruitment and career-related articles like those in their Careers Blog and on their Facebook page.

On Pinterest they post project photos, event notice posters, visual intros to engineering tools, etc., with links to corresponding Twitter and other feeds.

They Tweet about honors they receive, positions they have open, events of interest to the industry, etc.

Their YouTube videos run the gamut from an intern’s testimony on his experience at the firm to an award presentation to a recent summit.

Burns & McDonnell are a model for maxing out their mass-media communication through multiple channels, thus staying firmly in the public and industry eye — to the point of being ranked 26th in FORTUNE’s 100 Best Companies to Work For in 2012, and 18th in 2013.

To convince your firm of social media’s benefits, I recommend a soft-sell approach, to avoid getting caught in a situation like the one on the right.

(This was where my friend fell short, attacking the problem like a raging tiger instead of a serene Siamese. Had the patient purr of a supportive associate not softened her hard-sell, her firm would be far from wearing the cat’s pajamas in their industry today — though they were lions in it all along.)

For starters:

Analyze your competition. Scrutinize all of its social media for visual and verbal content, graphic style and layout, communication of company mission and industry ideas, brand quality and consistency, and so on.
Go beyond the big cats — Blogger, Digg, Facebook, Flickr, Google, LinkedIn, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, Twitter, WordPress, YouTube, etc. — to include industry-specialized social media, e.g., Archello, Archinect, Architizer, Houzz. Make careful notes of the assets and liabilities of each profile.

Present your findings to the principals in a marketing meeting. While showing the best and worst aspects of your competitor’s profiles on your laptop or projection system, use a thoughtful, go-easy tone of voice to explain what works and what doesn’t, what could inspire your firm’s profiles, and what the firm could do to distinguish itself from the competition. This will enable the principals to think for themselves about how their competitors have built better images and how they themselves could do so, capitalizing on their competitors’ sure things and shortfalls.

Assure them that you, the marketer, will handle most of the media. If the principals and associates are concerned that social media usage will eat up billable time on their ongoing projects, let them know you’ll take care of setting up and developing all of the profiles, writing most of the content, and coordinating all staff contributions to it.
Use your weekly marketing meetings and daily dealings with the principals to put forward your profile and content proposals for their review, revision and go-ahead, to make the social media development process as collaborative as possible without being intrusive.

Propose a social media development plan by which profile content, style and format can be reviewed, agreed upon in advance, and practiced regularly to resolve the perpetual puzzles of spamming, oversaturation, stealing of ideas, hiring away personnel, etc., as much as possible. Also, formulate a targeted approach to business solicitation, client or business partner relationship development, industry ideas sharing, and sending out project announcement, holiday greeting and company anniversary e-cards through social media. That way, the principals can rest assured that the media will be used responsibly and efficiently.

Treat social media like a cocktail party or industry convention. No firm would question those timeless methods of communicating with a covey of characters and cultivating connections with promising prospects and bypassing blah ones. So you could emphasize social media as a transition of those dynamics from convention to computer, from luau to laptop.
This would allow a firm to communicate with clients, partners and the public more regularly, rather than just waiting for those once-in-a-blue-moon social events to happen. Thus social media communication could lead to more business possibilities more frequently, in part because it enables firms to invite key business prospects to networking events in advance, i.e., setting up to talk shop rather than waiting to run into them at the event or hoping they’ll be there.

Let them know what they’re missing. Calmly caution the principals that, with the ever- expanding use of social media for business networking, not jumping on its bandwagon would be like not maintaining one’s presence at parties or conventions, hence being less remembered than the competition, and risking bankruptcy.

Assure them they’ll be in the catbird seat if they take a bite out of social media. A bit of an exaggeration, but refining one’s marketing according to current trends signifies a willingness to keep growing and changing with the industry, hence to keep up with one’s contacts socially and technologically, to avoid being a cat in your own little microcosm. You’ll notice the results…

— Todd Larson

Sources:

1. Bedoya, Gina A., “The Who, What, When, Why and How of Social Media for the A/E/C Community,” Engineering News-Record, May 1, 2010.
2. Giedrys, Sally, “When Social Media is Worth Your Time,” The Friedman File, Dec. 2012, Friedman & Partners.
3. Leavitt, Neal, “How the A/E/C Community Uses Social Media These Days,” iMedia Connection, May 23, 2012.
4. Shorr, Brad, “3 analogies to help executives ‘get’ social media,” ragan.com, Aug. 8, 2012.
5. Zibanejadrad, Sarah, “Why Social Media is Useful to A/E/C Firms,” rumorinteactivemedia.com

Thank you for visiting. I welcome your comments!