Walking down the roads of strategic thinking for professional networking or business building, most of us would agree to name LinkedIn as a well-built pathway to tread on. What’s better than understanding the dynamics of LinkedIn as a professional networking platform from someone who trains consultants and is an expert regarding that platform. Daniel Alfon from Tel Aviv wrote the book entitled, “How to Build a LinkedIn Profile for Business Success“. For most of us in the B2B marketing or consulting space, it’s a great read on what LinkedIn has become and where it’s going. I interviewed Daniel to find out about the future of LinkedIn, and of business networking at large. Networking and Growing Your B2B Business with LinkedIn Tell us about what LinkedIn really is for B2B business folks. LinkedIn is what you want it to be for your business. If you’re a hypergrowth company and all, you’re interested in is finding talent, then you should focus on sharing jobs and ensuring that your existing employees are using their network to tap into candidates. If you are a content publisher or a marketer, then you should focus on the networking aspect of it. The strength of LinkedIn simply comes from deciding what you would like to leverage the platform for. This simple, straightforward question is one that a lot of LinkedIn users do not ask themselves. What is your top marketing priority: recruiting, publishing or getting more views? Or, do you need referrals? It could be that you went there almost exclusively for publishing content, but now you could use it for networking. If your marketing department is producing high-quality content, then leveraging LinkedIn to get more exposure for it is a great idea. It requires some coordination, and it can’t be top down. How do you establish business success in B2B, is it being able to sell more? One way to look at it is at the top of the funnel. Transactions would not happen on LinkedIn. However, it could be the platform where more people are made aware of your solution via a webinar or a demo. Then, they get in touch or something else happens outside of LinkedIn. You want people to find your solution, and within seconds understand that it is something interesting. When I look at your profile and I see that we have a number of mutual connections, then what I think about those people will affect and influence the way I think of you. If I think highly of them, even if I don’t ask them about that at all, then something of some of the stardust would actually be above your head. LinkedIn: a battle for visibility or a tool for B2B networking? Lately, while I was doing a training session for KPMG, I had mentioned three key points which I think could be relevant. When an employee of your firm shares or likes or comments, there are three dimensions to it. One, he is about the way others perceive that action. Let’s say that we are connected, and I see that you like some content. In many cases, ‘liking’ is perceived to be the lowest trust characteristic of your engagement. It doesn’t mean that you even read it. It could simply be that you like the person who published that content. Sharing is more valuable in the eyes of many people. But if an employee is doing it, then I would encourage her to not just share, but add something of her own. This could be a sentence with an explanation of why it’s so compelling...