Articles

August 2010

In this series, we will focus on uncovering competitor intelligence using LinkedIn, the most popular social media network for professionals.  Here are a few of our favorite tips for finding key information from the profile pages and interactions of individuals on LinkedIn.

Read Key Profiles

You will often find useful competitor intelligence in plain view on the profile pages of your competitor’s employees. In the position summary section for each job, employees routinely reveal special projects or skills that were developed for recent company initiatives. Sometimes you can even find information about contract values and departmental budget numbers. Depending on your objective, focus your search by checking the profiles of employees within specific divisions or job functions. LinkedIn’s advanced search features make this fairly simple. Don’t click away from the targeted profile without scrolling all the way to the end. Many people highlight significant accomplishments in the Awards section of their profile, located at the very bottom of the page.
Another worthwhile place to check for influential employees is in the highlighted section called Popular Profiles located on the company’s LinkedIn profile page. Check these profiles for competitor intelligence since these popular employees are often key influencers in their organizations.

Evaluate Recommendations and Connections

LinkedIn’s Recommendations feature is a quick way to gain insight on the relationships between your competitors’ employees and their connections on LinkedIn. Through monitoring connections and recommendations, you can find unexpected connections that signify business relationships that you didn’t know about. This strategy can become complex due to privacy controls that can restrict the amount of information available to unconnected LinkedIn members. However, you may be surprised at the amount of competitor intelligence you are able to access, especially if you share connections with the individual.

Follow LinkedIn Answers

Be aware of what your competitors are asking and answering on LinkedIn Answers, a popular community feature on the site. For example, a competing salesperson may answer questions that have been asked about your company’s products, but then take the opportunity to expand his answer and promote his own product to the potential customer. Following individuals on LinkedIn Answers to see what kinds of questions they are asking can help you gain perspective on your competitor’s upcoming needs and planning. Not only can this service be a good source to learn about competitors, it’s also a great resource to make sure that your company’s voice is heard in conversations relevant to your industry.

With these tactics, it’s easy to improve your competitor intelligence capabilities and expand the effectiveness of your research and monitoring. To find additional tips for gaining competitiveintelligence from company profiles on LinkedIn, check out another article in this series, “Competitor Intelligence from LinkedIn: Tips for Gaining Insight from Company Profiles.”