Utilizing LinkedIn as a discovery tool for networking

(Photo credit @inlytics)

1. Use LinkedIn as your ‘discovery tool’ for finding targeted contacts to network with. 

• Many professionals around the globe use LinkedIn.com as their main mode for sharing professional updates. That means it’s often the place that has the most up-to-date information about where an individual is working, their professional background, and educational history. 

• Use LinkedIn’s built-in filters to narrow down your searches (based on location, past/current company, school, etc). If you want to get really specific, build your own Boolean search strings. 

2. Then, once you’ve identified who you’d like to contact, consider your options for reaching out to those contacts. Email is still the best method with the highest ROI in my experience. 

• You may as well use the few free LinkedIn InMails you’re given, but for most users with free accounts, paying for additional InMails can become expensive quickly. One often unexplored way to get more free InMails each month is to join groups that are common among some of your target contacts, and use the extra 15 free 1:1 group messages each month as a way to potentially contact individuals. 

• Another approach if you share a common school affiliation is to look the individual up on your alumni database to find their alumni, personal or work email address.

• A third approach is to use tools like Seamless.ai or Hunter.io to find an individual’s email address. **Be very careful** with using these tools in that you don’t want to be seen as a spammer when trying to network! 

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Will Hey revolutionize email? Or just annoy Apple?

(Photo credit @austindistel)

I am surprised/not surprised that during covid19 times, I’m getting less efficient in email. Though I have less in-person interruptions, I’m just so tired of staring at my screen. And being bombarded with marketing messages from ‘caring’ companies doesn’t make me excited to visit my inbox! I’m guessing you’re feeling something similar. 

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#techtopic

I laugh whenever I see the headline “Is email dead?” Gen Z killed it. Slack is killing it (tho they launched an ‘email bridge’ feature last year so you can now send emails within Slack). Others argue that email is just changing, and that it’s becoming more important for businesses to communicate via email with customers. Ultimately, communication tools continue to evolve but email just hasn’t been replaced yet as the communication mode of (forced) choice.

So when the team from Basecamp announced a brand-new email platform called Hey.com a couple days ago, I started to chuckle. Billed as a way to have complete control over your imbox, Hey is charging a $99/year price and has already gotten strong traction among many techy friends of mine. I am fascinated by the screening feature, which allows you to decide if someone can send you a message or block them forever. And the feature which blocks the email tracking attempts that most marketing firms employ is very cool.

Cue ensuing drama from...Apple??  You would have thought that a company with a real email service (like Gmail or Outlook) might have caused drama. But no, it’s from Apple, who has the weakest email offering, though it’s widely used as it comes pre-installed. (I find Apple Mail is unusable!). Apple is threatening the Hey team with App Store removal for not integrating an in-app subscription option (which Basecamp complains would siphon off up to 30% of their revenue). And it is upsetting a LOT of techies from the Basecamp founder who called them 'gangsters' to this guy, especially as Apple is facing new antitrust sanctions from the European Union.

Will Hey.com surpass the other shiny & tech-popular email platform Superhuman? One major difference: Superhuman is simply a skin that lays on top of Gmail, but provides a lot of added functionality (and makes VCs think you’re super cool). I made it off the exclusive waitlist last year to become a subscriber but it’s not optimized for mobile users, so I quit after a couple of months. Those who check email via desktop receive the most benefit from the added functions. 

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#interesting

• Perspective | A poem made up of the first lines of emails I’ve received while quarantining
  

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Managing Multiple Messaging Channels

(Photo credit @mathyaskurmann)

1. Write down ALL the various ways that you receive messages (think email, Slack, text, FB Messenger, LinkedIn InMail, Instagram DMs, etc). Recognize that you are choosing to take in messages from multiple platforms, and decide if you want to remove any of them as an option to communicate with you. 

2. Develop a comprehensive response plan so you’re regularly checking the various ‘inboxes’ as part of your daily/weekly workflow. 

   • These are 10 really great tips for how to manage email

3. Decide if you want to attempt the almost mythical “Inbox Zero” and how you’ll tackle it each day, OR how you will use other inbox management strategies.

   • Why Inbox Zero is Ruining Our Lives (Better Email Habits That Will Help You Save Time And Money)

   • Superhuman offers some tips on achieving Inbox Zero

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