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I’m a Linkedin power user and I’ve been using it effectively during the past two years in order to talk directly to top levels executives of companies which could be potential customers of my company.

One of the services they provide is InMail, an easy way to send a direct message to a contact which is not directly connected to you.

I never sent spam, of course, but personal emails to try to engage a potential customer and discuss about the benefits of this or that product we provide. Private, personal, friendly messages.

That said, the worst answer you can get is shown in the box above. It’s not a reply, it’s not a “I’m not interested, thanks”, it’s something like people who hang up as soon as they hear your voice on the phone or people who close the door as soon as they see you outside.

This is not a polite way to use a great and powerful service as Linkedin is. I fortunately received just five of these out of over hundreds InMails sent so far. My recommendation, if you receive an InMail which is not interesting for you, reply to the message or ignore it, but not “decline” it, unless it is really spam. But I bet no one sends spam over Linkedin since it’s a “protected” and trusted environment.

My two cents

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Technorati Tags: Customer, inmail, linkedin, luca filigheddu, Message

LinkedIn, my favorite business social network, today announces the introduction of “Company Directory“.

This is a very interesting feature by which you can easily find a company together with various information about it. For example, you can get a quick screenshot on how people in a certain company are connected to each other and what other companies are connected with employees of that company.

I find this feature very useful and I will definitely use it intensely since it is a great source of aggregated information about companies and the networks any company is connected to. LinkedIn, with over 26M users, still remains the best tool for getting in touch with clients, prospects and partners and this new feature makes it even better.

Technorati Tags: Business, linkedin, luca filigheddu, Social Media

I wrote about this already, but I’d like to stress this point since I do believe it could be a strategic feature for LinkedIn, the popular business social network.

This feature should give a response to the following question: how strong is this contact?

It would be great if any LinkedIn user could “rate” how deep is the relationship with a certain contact that has been added to his/her contact list. 

If me and John get connected on Linkedin, I should find the ability to rate, let’s say, from 1 to 5 (1  = superficial and 5 = very strong), how strong the relationship with John is.

This information should be visible to anyone in my network so that he could choose the right “path” when it comes to get introduced to someone or to forward an introduction to a 3rd level.

What do you think?

Technorati Tags: linkedin, luca filigheddu

1) Always get emails answered if they come from trusted people. Alternatively, if you get too many emails, setup a new filter that sends an automatic response to this kind of emails. 

2) You have a blog? Try to join discussions about your blog posts as much as you can. Don’t leave your readers alone while commenting on your blog posts.

3) When you get friends’ requests on Facebook, accept them or, better, ask for information about the other person in case you don’t know/remember her/him.

4) Never decline LinkedIn InMails/ introduction requests. If you are not interested, reply and say “Thanks for your inquiry, unfortunately I’m not interested at this time”.

5) Don’t hide you email adress or phone number too much. If you actively participate in social networks, make your email/phone number easily available. Scoble rules here.

6) Try to get direct Twitter messages answered as much as you can. Jeff Pulver rules here.

7) Try to get back to IM messages you receive from trusted people. If you are busy and can’t reply, just set your status to busy/not available.

If someone in your trusted network asks you for an update of your contact details through Plaxo, always reply. It is useful for your network to stay in touch with you and “tomorrow”, who knows, it could mean business.

9) If you worked with someone who asks you for a recommendation on LinkedIn or other similar professional networks, take the time to do that. Your business partner or colleague might do the same for you in the future.

10) The 10nth suggestion is: read this post carefully because you still don’t know, but it could be useful for you in the future. I try to apply all the rules above and I can assure you that people in your network appreciate that and, in addition, much more business opportunities come out.

Technorati Tags: facebook, linkedin, luca filigheddu, plaxo, social networks, twitter

I expressed my love for LinkedIn more than once in this blog. It’s a great and useful service and that’s the reason why I would like to share at least 14 reasons why anyone should use LinkedIn. Hope this could help people who haven’t joined this service yet and people who have under-used it so far.

1. Everyone is on LinkedIn. Being on LinkedIn means that you can be found more easily and people can find an easy way to get in touch with you. That could mean business.
2. Find people you would like to get in touch with. Through your connections, you can build a strong professional network and finding people becomes easier than ever. Your contacts can introduce you to new contacts very easily.
3. Trust: if you are on LinkedIn, people trust you more. When I try to get in touch with someone and I discover he’s not on LinkedIn, my perception is that his level of “smartness” is lower than normal and that he’s not that connected with people who count. This is not necessarily true, of course, but this is my perception at first sight.
4. More business: if you try to get in touch with someone you want to make business with through LinkedIn, the probability to succeed is much higher. This because people can have a quick look at who you are and at whom is connected to you.
5. Job Opportunities: LinkedIn is considered the most advanced and trusted Job service on the Internet. If you are willing to change your job, you can easily find thousand job offerings coming from other trusted LinkedIn users. The pro to use LinkedIn is that if you are lucky enough, the job poster could be connected with one of your contacts and ask for references about you. In this case, people trust you more, too.
6. Re-connect: through LinkedIn, you can easily find people you have used to be in touch with in the past, former colleagues, friends or business partners. What about your classmates? If you think that finding them is easier on Facebook, try LinkedIn and share your experience. You’ll be much surprised.
7. Who is the CEO of XYZ? Thanks to LinkedIn, you can easily find people who hold certain positions in companies you are interested to deal with. Who is the CEO of this company? Who is the Marketing Manager of that company? After you start building your network of trusted contacts, finding an answer to those questions will be easier than ever.
8. Show your expertise by answering questions coming from the Community. In addition, learn from others’ experiences. I found the Q&A section of LinkedIn really useful. 
9. Make better choices. Are you looking for a web developer? Look for references and get advice about web developers belonging to the LinkedIn community, you will surely get to a better choice. And this can work with any kind of professional or firm that could offer professional services you need.
10. Who is looking for you? There is an interesting option on Linkedin that lets you see who viewed your profile recently. This gives you an idea on who wants to deal with you or is looking for information about you. The starting point for a new business deal or a new job?
11. Recommend and get recommended: if you want to share your opinion about all or some of your contacts with other LinkedIn users, you can do that and this can be helpful for the whole community. At the sam time, you can get recommended by people who worked with you closely. This improve your reputation and increase opportunities to be contacted by other people who want to deal with you, hopefully with a measurable business return.
12. Contact people directly: if you want to contact the marketing manager of the company ABC, just send him a message. The more you are active on LinkedIn, the more your message will be considered and hopefully replied. This is a premium feature of LinkedIn, called InMail, but it’s really worth it when it comes to find a way to facilitate business deals. Don’t abuse of it, of course, and use it properly if you are a recipient of InMails yourself.
13. A live business card. LinkedIn is a great business card, a live profile about yourself that you can share with your contacts, with the whole LinkedIn community or with anyone who comes across your public profile. The more you share it, the most you get out of it.
14. I’m on LinkedIn. This is not really a reason. I just didn’t want to leave 13 reasons…

Technorati Tags: Business, linkedin, luca filigheddu, Marketing, social networks

If you send an “InMail” (the method to send a direct email to a certain contact on Linkedin) and the recipient is not interested in what you are asking him or, in general, in what you are saying, I find really impolite to mark that email as “inappropriate“. Don’t respond or respond  ”I’m not interested”, but please don’t mark it as inappropriate in the Linkedin system. If you mark it as inappropriate, the system understands “it’s a disturbing and inappropriate email”, something that is not.

Alternatively, if you don’t want to receive InMails, specify it explicitly, so the system prevents me to send it to you. Or, just give up on LinkedIn if you don’t want to get the most out of it or.. if you just don’t get it.

An InMail has to be marked inappropriate if I send SPAM to you, something that I never did, or if I try to disturb you (well, SPAM again). Every Linkedin user has an InMail Rate, that measures the level of appropriate contact requests. Due to three VERY IMPOLITE people (out of hundreds InMails sent in two years) my rate is now 4/5 while it has always been 5/5.

If you join a social network like LinkedIn, please take the time to learn how to use it.

Technorati Tags: inmail, linkedin, luca filigheddu, social networks