Welcome to episode 177, this week I want to focus on research….not stalking! The problem is that everyone seems to want to refer to it as stalking so whatever…I’m going with that in the headline. There is so much valuable information to be gleamed from someones LinkedIn profile and yet most people barely scratch the surface. More of that later but as always I’m starting with…. Interesting Stuff I Saw This Week Once a Running Joke, LinkedIn Is Suddenly a Hot Social Network. Here’s What Changed LinkedIn Is Going to Start Serving Native Ads to Outlook Users’ Inboxes LinkedIn Update Not so much an update as just some feedback. Native video appears to be fully rolled out now and the numbers of videos in my feed has increased dramatically. The net result is that ‘View’ numbers are dropping like a stone! I posted a video yesterday that so far has 32 likes and 12 comments...not bad in 1 day......but only 186 views!! When native video first arrived, that amount of engagement would have shown a view number 10x that! DON'T PANIC! Here's why; 1) View metrics are not as important as Likes & Comments 2) A 'View' for native video only counts if someone pauses on your video for a minimum of 3 secs 3) Everyone now has native video and many are experimenting with it. This means there are lots of videos appearing in our feed so we skip past them within 3 secs. 4) In time, the number of videos will drop again as the novelty wears off. Stalking LinkedIn can be used in many different ways as we all know but in my experience, one of it’s most common yet also most under-utilised uses is people research. That may seem like a contradiction…..let me explain. Even the most sceptical, ‘once in a blue moon active’ LinkedIn user will look at someone’s profile on LinkedIn to check them out before a meeting or telephone conversation. It’s become the de-facto tool to find out information about people but most people just take a cursory glance at the profile. In doing so they miss so much valuable information. Here’s what I do before meeting someone; Read their headline, summary and experience Check their personal and contact info section to when we connected, check out their website links and look to see if they are on Twitter Search for relevant keywords in their Tweets (from:Twittername AND keyword OR keyword) Check their media and watch any videos (especially if it’s of them) and any presentations. If they have Slideshare presentations in their profile, hop over to Slideshare and check out their other uploads. Check for mutual connections and contact them if appropriate Also check for mutual groups in Highlights and see if they have been active recently. Check out their articles and read the most recent plus any that are highly relevant to your meeting. Pay particular attention to their response to comments. If they are a connection, thoroughly search (filter) their connections looking for highly relevant connections including your competitors! Click on ‘See all activity’ and then ‘posts’ Then move over to ‘all activity’ Click on the companies they have worked for during the last 3 years and see if you have any connections that were at the company at the same time. If so, consider contacting them. Read their current job description for any relevant information. Check their education, click on Alumni and see if you have any connections that might know them from university (depending on their age) Volunteer experience can also be enlightening Read all of their received recommendations (if possible) Now the real golden nugget….read their given recommendations to really understand what they truly value in people they know. Follow them if not already connected Check other social media channels (such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Google+) Use Crystalknows to get a psychometric assessment of them The more research you do, the better. You won’t use 90% of the information you find but the things you do use could make a huge difference. Question from Magnus