Business Development for Construction and the AEC Industry May 9, 2011
Posted by carolhagen in Construction Industry - Software.Tags: business, business development, construction, linkedin
3 comments
Business Development in construction is successful when approached as a long term strategy. With all the social networks exploding many have suggested that LinkedIn is all you need for Business to Business. What I’ve found is that business development requires networking in person and that many conversations can begin or be nurtured on-line in social media. I’ve added extensions to browsers, applications to social networking sites and plugins to email to help the business nurturing process. Here are some of my favorites:
Xobni – A plugin for Outlook (and soon Gmail) that indexes your email and makes it easy to identify the social networks your contacts use. If you have an IT department, you’ll need to have your administrator to OK this.
Rapportive – A gmail add-on that automatically finds the social profile of the email sender.
WhoWorks.At – a Google Chrome (browser) extension that lets you see your LinkedIn connections while browsing a website. This is new but has huge potential once LinkedIn add a company API
Here's the WhoWorks.At results when I browse CFMA.org
Tweets – found in the LinkedIn application directory that shows you what connections use Twitter and provides updates from those you follow on Twitter inside LinkedIn. Great listening tool for business connection nurturing.
Signals – from LinkedInLabs.com that aggregates all the Tweets in your network and across an industry. Search for Construction and filter on a geographic area to see the Buzz of what’s being said.
LinkedIn Today – aggregates news feeds from many sources and serves a snippet of hot topics. You’ve probably noticed this just below your status when checking your connection updates. Construction specific if you use the filter.
With the LinkedIn IPO coming later this year, and McGraw-Hill freeing up some of their LinkedIn shares for it…I predict an uptick in LinkedIn usage in the AEC industry. Are the PR and marketing teams in your construction, engineering or architectural firm listening?
Now that I’ve shared my favorites, will you share yours? Please add your suggestions, comments and ask questions. I’m listening.
You may Find these related posts of interest:
LinkedIn Skills Beta: Claim Your Expertise
Facebook is Scary October 29, 2010
Posted by carolhagen in Facebook.Tags: business, Facebook, permissions, privacy, search, social media
3 comments
Facebook is scary to me this Halloween. Facebook has been criticized frequently on their default privacy settings, but what’s frightening is they continue to want permission to access more information. As a business owner doing business with business (B2B) I was looking for more tools to improve my Facebook search results earlier this week. Low and behold Facebook has Advanced Profile Search 2.2 (Beta). What’s scary about this application is what you have to allow access to if you want to use it. I’m glad I noticed the Birthday, Political and Religious views in the Request Permission notice. 
So the dilemma is do I want to test a beta version of Facebook’s Advanced Search app, that has been rated with low marks, when I must grant access to birthday, religious and political views? Perhaps I need to change the content on my political views and religion to “Not applicable” before proceeding. I noticed that more than 27,000 Facebook monthly users have jumped on and started using the beta version already.
Yesterday I met Karen Thomas, Director at Global Diversity Consulting, LLC at the American Subcontractors Association membership mixer in Phoenix. Diversity is more than skin deep and having just considering trying the Facebook’s advanced search app I just had to ask her what she thought about granting Facebook this permission. “There are two rules of thought. One, it’s Facebook’s product and we have to abide by their rules…after all it is free”. Karen continued, “Two, Granting access to the religion and political affiliations is either to increase fear or revenue. Free enterprise has no limits, we should monitor ourselves to not offend or use this information to support any bias.”
By now you no longer wonder why some businesses ban Facebook at work. By talking about this in a public setting, perhaps we can all become less fearful, or just more skeptical. What do you think? Let’s share our thoughts with the public and Facebook in the comments section. All perspectives are welcome (no expletives please).
LinkedIn Recommendations: The Service Provider’s Dream July 27, 2010
Posted by carolhagen in communication, linkedin.Tags: business, business development, linkedin, recommendations, service providers directory, socialmedia
2 comments
Recommendations are the life blood of most businesses. Somewhat hidden within the bowels of LinkedIn is the lair of the Service Provider Directory. It’s where you can give recommendations (even though you aren’t connected in LinkedIn). But more importantly it’s where the smart business people search for experts and read the recommendations of others.
You can find it under the companies search:
LinkedIn Search for Service Providers
LinkedIn is a great place to search for service providers that your contacts or network recommends. This is particularly true if you fall into any of these categories:
The Service Provider Directory allows you to quickly discover, research, and reference check service providers in your network, in your circle of 2nd connections or the world.
LinkedIn also includes the option to search locally to hone in on the closest, highly recommended specialists. 
Most of the IT and computer geeks I know have been using this feature but when speaking with business associates I find that less than 50% have used it. Guess LinkedIn has more training to do.
Are you making the most of recommendations and have you given a recommendation on LinkedIn without someone asking? Please share what prompts you to give an unsolicited recommendation with our readers. If you found this tip useful, please share it, Like it or tweet it around the world.
