I’d been wondering what the advantages of being part of OpenLink would be in one of my earlier posts and within two days of joining/signing up for LinkedIn’s personal Plus, I have exhausted all my ten introductions. This is how I utilized them:
- Since I am in the business of design, it wouldn’t be “good for business” if I got in touch with other designer – in the sense that it wouldn’t bring in any new business – I am connected to many other talented designers and we’re great friends but I really wanted to put Personal Plus to use here! Now unlike openBC, LinkedIn does not provide the option of searching for people based on their “wants” so there is no way that I can directly search for people who “want” design services.
- Thought of one thing that I was involved in currently and realized it was “blogging”.
- Searched for the keyword “blogging” and restricted it to OpenLink members.
- Visited 10 profiles and read them in detail.
- Found something of interest on their blog [ posts related to LinkedIn, internet technology, blogging, graphics industry, etc. ] and left them a comment.
- Also followed up with an introduction on LinkedIn itself – many of them had their e-mail id’s on their blogs and websites and it would have been awfully easy to send them “Invitations to Connect” instead of “Introductions”. At the same time, it would also have been awfully easy for them to refuse the connection!
- Wrote a brief personalized introduction asking them about their interests and quoting something from their blog/website and told them a bit about myself – the whole time focusing on the keyword “blogging”.
Picked up their weblinks and blog links and paid their blogs a visit.
I’ve already had positive replies from three of the ten people [ and have connected networks with them too! ] and have sent out the hence freed-up introductions to three more people.
It’s a wait and watch thing and it will be really sad if I have to withdraw even a single introduction [ maybe LinkedIn should have something like openBC’s “Activity Meter” so I know who’s been using LinkedIn and who’s left the portal ] – but I’ll let you know how it goes!
