Quick: when you meet a potential new business partner, do you Google them when you go back to the office? Do you Google them on the phone before even going back to the office?
If you Google Matt Hames, LinkedIn is high on the list of results. Since that is true for many of the people who have a LinkedIn profile, I wonder when people will begin to skip Google and go right to the source.
Is LinkedIn turning into a people and skills search engine?
I think the answer is yes, and the proof is how many times Matt Hames comes up in search. From June 5th to August 14th, I came up in search 1,271 times. 6% of the time, it was for Matt Hames. 6% of the time it was for Social media.
The other 88% of the time I came up with various keywords and skills (for example, my profile comes up for a search for Matt Fisher since my LinkedIn profile says I’ve done work for Fisher-Price.
Irrelevant yes, but I happen to think LinkedIn will get better as a search engine for people and skills. Already, anyone can go to LinkedIn.com/skills and fill in all their skills. As more people do this, LinkedIn will have more data on people’s skills. Soon, people will learn to search for skills to find people.
What does that mean for you? Make your LinkedIn profile keyword and accomplishment rich. If you have accomplished something, tell people about it using skills keywords.
If your company doesn’t have a comprehensive plan for optimizing LinkedIn, then it is most likely missing this opportunity to make an excellent second impression with new business prospects. Optimization starts with the individual.
Matt Hames has over fifteen years of Marketing and PR experience working with large companies like Fisher-Price, First Niagara Bank, ClosetMaid as well as professional firms across the country. He has spent the past five years focused on social media and analytics. You can learn more about him at http://sharemarketing.
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