Using LinkedIn to Build Your Business
Leverage Pr Blog – This Week’s Winner
This week’s winner is Joseph C. Blanner, a litigation attorney in the construction and commercial real estate industry at Behr, McCarter & Potter, P.C. http://www.behrmccarterpotter.com/blanner.htm. He is also the founder of a LinkedIn based construction group known as the St. Louis Contractor Referral NetworkSM(“SLCRN”).
After discovering the value of LinkedIn, he began joining a variety of groups in his industry. Unfortunately, none of these groups were local. While they had many members nationally and nternationally, most of the members were not potential clients for him or his firm as they were not located in his region.
So, in December of 2009, he formed SLCRN on LinkedIn to serve hard-hit businesses in the St. Louis construction community. The SLCRN was to serve as a forum for those in the greater St. Louis
construction and commercial real estate industries to network and share referrals and ideas / information. Since its formation, it has grown to more than 1,700 members. Among the membership are many of the leaders in the St. Louis commercial real estate and construction industries (including general contractors, subcontractors, material suppliers, design professionals and support providers).
In March of 2010, SLCRN put on its first “Meet and Greet”. The “Meet and Greet”, which was attended by over 150 group members, featured time to network and a featured speaker. Since then, he has put on four free “Meet and Greet” events (attended by 150 or more each) featuring prominent business, economic and governmental leaders from the region discussing a variety of pertinent
topics. More recently, people have begun getting together in other capacities for happy hours, etc. These events have been incredibly well attended also (some of them with more than 100 members present).
In addition to this, SLCRN maintains an active discussion board. Weekly, they try to post an article providing free legal advice on some industry related topic in an effort to help the members grow their businesses and improve their business practices. Others do this as well. These articles are generated in the form of an e-mail daily to the 1,700-plus members. Many people in the group have gained valuable connections, gained referrals and have obtained employment as a result of SLCRN.
The success of the SLCRN led to a feature article in the St. Louis Business Journal on October 15, 2010 and a feature article in St. Louis Construction News and Real Estate on November 25, 2010. This has all resulted in a tremendous amount of exposure for his firm, generating additional business. It has also led to the formation of an Ozark Contractor Referral Network, which now has 235 members.
This example goes to show, it doesn’t matter how hard-hit your industry is, you can have success using creative publicity and public relations. Make your company a thought leader in your industry and give away knowledge. There are hundreds of article distribution sites and services all over the web which you can post on. Many of these sites typically rank high on search engines, giving you the additional benefit of quality links to your site. This increases your search engine optimization. Plus you get to be the “go-to” expert in your industry. People remember great advice and call the experts when they are in need of help. What are you and expert at? How can you add value to your customers?
To learn more about Joseph Blanner visit his linkedIn profile below.
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/josephblanner
