1. Using LinkedIn for Market Research
Konstantin Guericke
https://www.linkedin.com/in/konstantin
http://inmaps.linkedinlabs.com
2. General Market Research Options
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Google, Google News, Google Trends
Your mentors
Send survey to your friends
Ask your friends if they know someone “in x
industry” or “at Y company”
Put up ads on Google and landing page
Look up info of related public companies in filings
Attend professional events
CrunchBase, Quora, Twitter, etc.
Wordtracker, KeywordSpy, SEMRush, etc.
3. How Reach Out Now?
• Who try to meet?
• What avenues?
– Post & pray?
– Ask friends/advisors who know?
– Ping bloggers?
– Blog self and hope for inbound?
– Physical events?
– Directories & cold call/email?
4. LinkedIn
• Your contacts
• Their contacts
• Overall network
– Among experienced professionals, few are not on
LinkedIn (238 mil total)
– Easiest place to find
• Everyone is busy
– Come referred
– Give to get
5. • Hand-written Thank You note
– Include Starbucks/Amazon gift card?
– Include donation to charity?
• Non-generic notes
Konstantin,
It was great to get your mentorship yesterday. Thank you very much I know how busy you are.
In particular I kept the following:
- Raise funds when you are ready
- Be ready to answer "what is beyond public cloud"
- Understand whether Glass Collective makes seed investments. Get introductions. Use LinkedIn to find
investors with relevant backgrounds.
- Do not think of Google as a client, rather a partner.
- Being the first developers/start-ups to use a new platform has its advantages (attention) and
disadvantages (tech challenges).
I would love to keep in touch, share our progress and partner with you for future workshops,
Best,
6. How Not to Use LinkedIn
•
•
•
•
Join groups and post (“spam”)
Find people and invite them to connect
Send update to your friends asking for help
Put stuff in profile and hope people will
contact you
– 5 Billion searches done to find professionals, but
are they looking for you?
7. People Search
• Find founders of related startups
– Especially those who raised funds and closed doors
• Search for experts
– http://www.linkedin.com/search
– See where they are (location, industry, company, etc.)
– View related profiles
• Best way to reach is via intro
– 3rd degree can work, but 2nd degree is better
– Be sure you are connected to your real-life network of
contacts
– You will be surprised to learn who they know
8. Getting to Yes
• Make it easy for the introducer
• Control the message
– Explain why you picked them
– Make a small ask
– Explain what is in it for them
– Keep it to 5-6 sentences
• Let your LinkedIn profile speak for yourself
• Make sure your connection knows what to do
9. Company Search
• Finding a kind of company
– http://www.linkedin.com/vsearch/c
– Narrow by industry, location and maybe company size
– See at which of these companies your contacts know people
(relationship filter)
– Search by keyword
• Look up specific companies
–
–
–
–
See who can introduce you
See who left the company
See related companies
See who likes their products & services
• Follow companies
• Example: find partners, competitors, beta customers,
suppliers, investors, etc.
10.
11. LinkedIn Groups
•
•
•
•
•
Read latest discussions
Search discussion archive
Search membership directory
Comment or like existing/relevant discussions
Contact interesting people from discussions or in
directory via private message
– Have a good profile
– State what you want and what is in it for them
– Check who viewed your profile
• Start a discussion or poll
12. LinkedIn Ads
• https://www.linkedin.com/ads/
• Not wait for someone to search
• Target ads by company, function, title,
industry, company size, seniority, location,
gender, skills, groups, school, age, etc.
• Only pay when they click through
Profile completionUse resume importerAdd color: presentations, books, videos, etc.Own company profileThink quality when connecting, sharing, joining, commenting, introducing and recommendingBe a source of opportunitySuggest people, companies, jobs and events
