As you may have noticed by my frequency of posts, I had planned a series on business relationships culminating in an exhaustive series of posts (or a single exhaustive post) on LinkedIn (the least utilized, most important social media tool for business).
However, in light of today's news about Signal, a new service which some are calling a serious competitor of facebook and Twitter (more on that in a moment), I thought I would jump ahead to this post and also cover what little I've learned about Signal in the past few hours.
First, a few quick thoughts on LinkedIn and how I'm using it.
For me, LinkedIn is a rolodex on steroids. What other database or CRM tool is:
- crowd-sourced: everyone updates their own data
- easily transferable to your contact manager (if you even need one anymore)
- cloud based: no worries about losing your contacts
But LinkedIn is much, much more than that. I find that most professionals see LinkedIn as a passive rolodex. In actuality, LinkedIn's significance relies on the user to be exceptionally proactive. You can easily float along the social stream of Twitter and facebook without much effort. To truly benefit from LinkedIn, it is going to require some sweat equity (that will likely be rewarded in substantial ways).
But LinkedIn is still much, much more than that. With LinkedIn's search capabilities, I can do some powerful research (the kind we used to pay good money for) to seek out companies whom could best use our services. I can drill down by location, title, company and more to find potential clients and strategic partners. I can search within the geographic radius of my zip code (huge solution for those of us who are geo-centric for biz). I can even organize people according to groups (suspect, prospect, customer, client, strategic partner, potential partner).
But LinkedIn is even still, much more than that. A social network is defined as a social structure made up of individuals (or organizations) called "nodes," which are tied (connected) by one or more specific types of interdependency (Wikipedia). With the launch of LinkedIn's new service, Signal, we're seeing an increasing attempt to make the landscape of LinkedIn an "always on, always relevant" environment, much like Twitter and facebook. Though I don't think (as some have posited) that LinkedIn is a serious contender for social supremecy over facebook and Twitter, without a doubt, Signal has made LinkedIn a much easier landscape to traverse for social networking.
So, what is Signal?
Signal aggregates your social streams from Twitter and LinkedIn status updates. It allows you to drill down into subcategories such as location, company, tags, and industry plus search for keywords and terms. Much like Twitter, Signal is easier to use than describe! You can enlarge one of the screen shots from my Signal feed (at right).
So far, the #1 reason I like signal? Corporate intelligence. For the same reasons listed above, I can utilize Signal for real-time searches across the entire LinkedIn network.
How will this be used in the future? Business development is obvious but I think Signal has more potential for actual direct selling via a social network than virtually any other social platform. You heard me right: direct selling (shudder). Think about it: LinkedIn is business-friendly. Receiving a business related message via LinkedIn is not near as annoying as receiving a business related message via Twitter or (worse) facebook. Combine corporate intel with keyword searches and permission based access to potential customers and you just might have the first social network that allows permissible direct sales. I'm not advocating we all attempt to junk up the social strata with ads or sleazy sales tactics, I'm merely suggesting that with the proper amount of respect towards your potential customers, you could use something like Signal to carefully penetrate an opportunity (armed with real-time, intelligent information).
Example: let's say you're following a prospect on LinkedIn that you really want to do business with. Thanks to LinkedIn's following features, you're not only following a person, you're following an entire company and the individuals who work for that company (unlike facebook, your searches will encompass even people who aren't connected to you unless their profiles are set to private, which most aren't). By listening in on the social conversation of all of these employees, you discover, in real-time, relevant information that you can use to help position your service to be of assistance. By listening, you discover your opportunity and attempt to make your connection (preferably through 1st or 2nd degree contacts). This is more than selling, this is -at it's core- the promise of social media finally fulfilled: relevant connections, real-time information plus direct ROI.
For those who hate direct selling of any kind (I'm actually cut from that cloth), please understand I've only had a few hours to review and I'm sure I'll discover more potential utilizing Signal as I dig in. At first glance, it seems corporate intel barely scratches the surface.
By the way, Signal is a beta-by-invite-only, I snagged my invite from Mashable but you can request your invite directly from LinkedIn here.
More soon!
For further reading:
- LinkedIn Signal: A new way for professionals to consume information and news (LinkedIn blog)
- With LinkedIn Signal, Twitter and LinkedIn Collide (TechCrunch)
- LinkedIn Aggregates Status Updates and Tweets in New Newsfeed (Mashable)
- The Other Social Network (The Daily Beast)
- LinkedIn Launches 'Signal' in Beta for Professional News Streams (RWW)
