Research Customers, Prospects and Competitors on LinkedIn

Written by Colleen McKenna | Apr 12, 2018 6:30:43 AM

Using LinkedIn for research only makes sense. In our recent post, Be in the Know, All the Time, with LinkedIn, we talked about diving into LinkedIn to gain information, competitive advantage and find the right people at the right time.

Here are steps to distill a company and their LinkedIn Company Page.

Interested in learning more about how to use your LinkedIn Company Page? Head over to Intero Advisory or give us a shout.

Step 1 Type a company in the search bar at the top left and go to the company’s LinkedIn Company Page.

Step 2 Once you arrive, take a minute and see what you can learn.

Step 3 Click the About us area. Learn about the company.

Step 4 Click see more for specifics like their company size, website and specialties.

Step 5 Click on the three dots at the top.

Step 6 Click Follow if you are not following.  Note: mine says unfollow because I am following their company page.

Step 7 See who you already know and are connected to at the company. Maybe you’re connected but don’t really know them. Send them a message to reconnect and further your relationship. Or, just to say hello.

Step 7 cont’d Click and see who else works at the company that may be beneficial for you to know. Send them a personalized connection request.

Step 8 Since I am already connected to these people, I can send them a quick message right through LinkedIn. Try it.  Now, if you know they are not using LinkedIn don’t bother, however, it’s a good way to find out and engage with them where they are.

Step 8 cont’d  You can see Lois and I have talked right through LinkedIn. I can even see that each message is timestamped.

Step 9 Check out their posts. Are they using LinkedIn to share content they like, information about their company and their industry?

Step 10 You can easily like, comment and share their content with your network.  Give your customers some love…share their content. They will appreciate you for sure.

Step 10 cont’d  Write a brief, interesting intro and let people know why they should read this post. Remember use the @ sign to highlight people and # to highlight companies.

Step 11 You can also send this post to another person/group of people (they will see each other so be careful.)

Step 11 cont’d Start typing in the name of the person you want to send this post to. They will need to be 1st level connections.

Step 11 cont’d  Begin to write your message in the box.

Step 12 EXTRA: Let’s look at another company,  T. Rowe Price for instance.

Step 13 Notice they have three tabs at the top; Overview, Jobs and Life.  We explored Overview already. Now, you can see jobs they have posted in the Jobs tab and Life will provide more about their culture and what it’s like to work for their company.

Step 14 At the top right, I can see their current stock price and because I am a Premium member, I can also scroll down and find out more about their hiring and their average tenure. (this data is based on employees’ profiles.) That’s it. You’re done.

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