LinkedIn Case Study Success: The Weather Channel

In a very compelling case study answering the question why businesses and entrepreneurs must utilize LinkedIn.com to it’s fullest potential, The Weather Channel recently closed a deal to acquire sites Lakerentals.com and Coastrentals.com. The WeatherChannel.com is one of the top 20 websites (traffic-visitors) in the United States outperforming Facebook, CNN.com, and the New York Times.

Case Study in Effectiveness

Steve Hassett, Vice President of New Ventures, describes the deal. Steve was contacted by the entrepreneur and owner of Lake Rentals and Coast Rentals via an Inmail. As a result of the entrepreneur’s inquiry, “we reached out and contacted him and it resulted in a successful deal” according to Hassett.

Josh Schoenberg, Director of Corporate Development, concurred: “We received the email in June and closed the deal in late August, about three months”

Linkedin Take Aways

1. Opportunity: According to Hassett “I don’t know if we would have been aware of the opportunity if I didn’t have a profile on Linkedin.”

Benefit: Awareness and opportunity are key but the other hidden benefit is the fact that Steve Hassett, by virtue of his profile placement, is networking within our Web 2.0 world.

2. Profile Building: Hassett adds “As a result of that success, I rewrote my profile to make it more of a billboard for what we are trying to do”

Benefit: A robust profile with prior experience, expertise, and job history is the beginning support. The real effectiveness comes in building the rest of your profile to reflect your role in your business, your businesses’ goals, and the type of opportunities of collaboration available with you.

3. Visibility: “LinkedIn makes professional connections visible” that is a tagline that is very important. The concept that we often can not see beyond our own connections the people and opportunities that exist is the biggest problem in networking. LinkedIn helps solve this problem by making you and your company visible to those you are unaware exist. At the same time, you have the opportunity to investigate those same connections so that you can discover the “hidden opportunities” of your network and beyond.