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LinkedIn for client references and resume

By
Real Estate Broker/Owner with St. Louis Real Estate Society

With the glut of social marketing choices and other electronic information sharing out there, it is tough deciding where to focus your attention sometimes. I am very proactive on my business blog, try to stay active here on Activerain, follow various local urban news forums and blogs, try to stay in touch with friends via Facebook, still have a MySpace Account for some reason, try to Twitter whenever I can.... You get the point.

But with all my internet usage, I have never really put much time into LinkedIn. I have had an account for a while now, but I only use it when someone contacts me through the site. i never bothered to try to connect with anyone on my own. My biggest fear was that other people my try to steal my clients away from me if there were posted on my link site.

I have come to terms with this issue. The biggest reason being that I found out that I can set my connections list to private. Very handy. The other thing, the one that really got me interest in using LinkedIn for my business, is that I started looking up a few competitors around town on the site. Not to steal anything from them, but see how they were using it.

The thing that really struck me as interesting is that many connected people, were using the service as a glorified reference check. They had your typical resume-styled work and education history, but they also had recommendations from clients. I had considered trying to get some testimonials from former clients to put on my website, but I have been slow to act on that because I have always felt that most testimonials you see are bogus. Since they might be faked, I always doubted people put much weight into them.

Linkedin can take care of that though. If I get a recommendation from someone, they are traceable. They have their own account, their own life; which is visible to anyone seeing my recommendations. Those could probably be faked too, but the effort to do that would be significant so the LinkedIn recommendations will probably hold much more weight.

After coming to this realization, I have decided to develop my account into my online resume to send to prospective clients. The site is quickly becomign a respected form of business communituion and networking and I think this is a another great aspect to also focus one. And who knows, I might even get some referral business out of it too.

Comments (10)

Debbie Malone
Londeree's Real Estate & Property Management - Lynchburg, VA
From Lynchburg To The Lake (434) 546-0369

Matt, There are so many sites, it's hard to keep up with everything, but LinkedIn is one I'm trying to continually develop. I send my blog there, have connected with past co-workers, folks from around the country. I think it's another great way to network.

Feb 16, 2009 08:31 AM
Anonymous
Fiz

Matt,

If you like LinkedIn, why not give us a try? We make it possible to search for not just a Person but anything you could imagine.

In the context of People search, here's a sample of how you can refine your search by specifying unlimited number of filters to find exactly the person you want.

http://tinyurl.com/ac9nwm

Feb 16, 2009 09:49 AM
#2
Matt & Riahna Kastner
St. Louis Real Estate Society - Saint Louis, MO
Multi-family Real Estate Brokers - St. Louis City

I added my blog to my LinkedIn account too. I was actually having a problem getting  it to show correctly everytime it loaded, but I think I found a workaround. I had the direct RSS url as my blog source before, and it was causing me problems. I ended up switching to my feedburner URL and it has loaded perfectly ever since. If you ever run into this problem, this might be worth a try.

Feb 18, 2009 11:02 AM
Kelsey Barklow
Hurd Realty - Johnson City, TN
423/948-9154

Great idea, Matt. Very timely post on one more social media outlet.

Mar 05, 2009 06:48 AM
Jim Cheney
Saint Francis Property Santa Rosa, CA - Santa Rosa, CA
Rincon Valley Realtor 707.494.1055

I recently registered with Linkedin but was not really sure what to do with it.  I don't really see it as a source for real estate referrals ? ? ?

Mar 07, 2009 03:05 PM
Barbara Canada
Keller Williams Capital Properties - Washington, DC
Probate & Estate Sales Specialist

I have really hard time trying to keep up with all the social media - especially on the days that I'm really busy.  How do you handle that?

Mar 08, 2009 09:31 AM
Marzena Melby
Coldwell Banker Burnet Realty - Richfield, MN
Realtor, Twin Cities Minnesota Real Estate

It's a good idea to schedule your regular time on all sites and refer people from them to your blog.  Great info!

Mar 08, 2009 11:08 AM
Matt & Riahna Kastner
St. Louis Real Estate Society - Saint Louis, MO
Multi-family Real Estate Brokers - St. Louis City

Scheduling a time is always a good idea. That being said, I often find something coming up that takes up that time during the day. If a hot listing comes up that I have buyers for, that takes priority. Trying to weigh real-world activities against my online marketing is one of the hardest things I do. Generally, I solve the problem by working an insane amount of hours. (Sad but true).

As for linkedin not providing referrals, must everything directly provide you with a lead? If used properly, linkedin could work for this, but that is not what I use it for. I am increasingly using it to advertise my professional qualifications to my existing clients and to those I am courting. As my account growns and matures it will help me present my professional face to the word. I even upload my RSS feed to my account (you do this via the applications plugins) to create a unified internet presence.

Activerain might be good for so types of networking, but the linkedin community is made up of all sorts of industries. Not just real estate. That is what I am trying to tap. When potential clients see that I have close ties with lawyers and doctors and IT professionals and other credible professionals, their references mean something. It might not be for you, but if used correctly it can be an affective tool.

Mar 10, 2009 12:04 PM
Frank McLawhorn
Frank Mclawhorn Realty .com - Hampton, VA
Bringing Families Home

Great post keep it up

Mar 12, 2009 01:46 PM
Chris M.T. Bodden
Keller Williams Realty - Kapolei, HI
RA, CDPE - www.BoddenRealEstate.com

There are so many different sites that its hard to choose which one to use.  I think I have a profile on like 10+ sites.  Not sure which one to focus most on...

Mar 13, 2009 11:30 AM