In a recent LinkedIn Diaries entry, I identified how LinkedIn "super users" leverage the popular social media tool to achieve their goals. Not surprisingly, success with LinkedIn comes with commitment and that translates into time - time learning the tool, time aligning your goals to the tool's capabilities, time to build and maintain a profile and time to find new ways of using the tool effectively.
But, executives often have very demanding schedules which are highly unpredictable. In this entry of the LinkedIn Diaries, I identify those LinkedIn best practices used by busy leaders whose schedules limit them to devoting only 15 minutes per day to their LinkedIn activities.
Martin Perelmuter is President of Canada's most successful speaker bureau, Speakers' Spotlight. Given that he is connected to many of the Nation's high-profile professionals, it's little surprise that his 15 minutes on LinkedIn is devoted to creating and reinforcing his network. To that end, Perelmuter focuses his time on LinkedIn scanning news items and updates that are most relevant to people he is targeting to help succeed. He then actively reaches out to his network to find and create new connections.
Lilian Tomovich, the Country Head of Marketing, Global Marketing for MasterCard Worldwide, is an accomplished branding professional. So, it's quite natural for her to focus on those activities that reinforce her professional brand and MasterCard's. Like other senior marketing professionals, she roots her branding activities in systematic research. To that end, she focuses her 15 LinkedIn minutes on reviewing the conversations related to her industry that are initiated in relevant LinkedIn Groups.
As the CEO of the Innovation Exchange, Stephen Benson has effectively harnessed a global community of innovative thinkers to help address business leaders' difficult challenges. As a result, his focus is on developing a deep understanding of companies, industries and trends. This means that Benson spends his 15 minutes on LinkedIn to research the histories of individuals and company profiles.
Tom Heintzman, the President and Co-Founder of Bullfrog Power, has built a company that is recognized as Canada's premiere green energy provider. In so doing, he has focused on identifying new and dynamic products/solutions that help create a cleaner and healthier world. Heintzman spends his 15 LinkedIn minutes on exploration - discovering new people and responding to requests for his expertise.
What these busy executives have demonstrated is that you can achieve some degree of success with LinkedIn with as little as 15 minutes a day.
In the next entry of the LinkedIn Diaries, I will focus on LinkedIn best practices for recruiting the best talent.
Andrew Brown is president of Write on the Money. He helps senior executives harness the power of digital and traditional business communication strategies and tools (such as LinkedIn).