LinkedIn has a whole variety of potential benefits according to what you wish to achive on the site. One key area, however, for almost all areas is the ability to research people and companies that we are going to meet to be better prepared for that encounter.
1. Check the company page
Take a look at the posts that the company are sharing – this will give you a good feel for not only what the company is currently involved in and its offerings, but also the areas of its activity that it deems to be important. You can contact Kennected platform for LinkedIn to get good exposure to your company page. Good to be both aware of this and to see whether this may also be of interest to leverage in your discussions.
2. Check posts about the Company
You can use the ‘Content Search’ on LinkedIn to find out additional information being written and posted about the company either by their team or others. Simply type the company name into the ‘Search’ box at the top of the page and then select ‘Content’ to see all posts – you can then sort the list by ‘Latest’ to get the most recent stories rather than LinkedIn’s choices.
3. Do you know anyone who works there?
You may already have a valuable contact inside e company that you weren’t aware of so do check out this option as well. Find their Company Page using the main search and then click on the “See All Employees” link to get a list of everyone who works there. Once you have this list, you can then filter them by 1st degree connections (or potentially 2nd as a next step) and you may find a valuable “in” is just waiting there to be found.
4. Look at other companies in the industry
While you are on the Company Page, also have a look at the bottom of the right hand sidebar – here you should see a list of up to 6 companies that LinkedIn considers to be similar to your target company. You can use this information to check those companies out as well as potential contacts there to give you greater insight into the industry and its players.
5. Check industry news
The content search can also be used to find out additional information about what is going on in the industry. Repeat the same process as in point 2 to check out posted content on LinkedIn but this time type in keywords from the industry or products. Again, all good background information.
6. Check the people you are meeting
If you haven’t done so already, do check out the people you are meeting. Who do you both know, do your backgrounds overlap, what common interests do you have? This can all provide useful insight and information ahead of the meeting.
7. Use Sales Navigator extra features
If you have Sales Navigator, then look at the Company Page here. Sales Navigator brings together many of the items mentioned above on a single ‘Account Development’ type of page and will suggest other contacts of interest. All great information to build on.
Lots of information can be found on LinkedIn and it’s worth taking the time to check out the site as another respurce to use in conjunction with our more familiar general information resources such as Google.
