In a world where the contacts you are looking for are likely to have full profiles on social media, is there really a need to reach for your media database anymore?
When we move jobs the first thing we update is Linkedin and many journalists and influencers populate their profiles with far more detailed information than any media database contains, in realtime too. You could say that Linkedin is the only database you ever need.
While Linkedin is not specifically designed for a public relations practitioner - especially since its search is limited in many ways - with a few simple googling tips you can use it for media relations efforts.
Because Linkedin makes your profiles public it means they are searchable via Google. Therefore by using a few easy search queries you are able to generate a highly targeted list of individuals.
Pop on your ‘X-ray’ glasses and let’s get down to the bare bones of the power of Google.
1. Keywords are key
Choose a job role and keyword - for this example let’s look for editors interested in wearable technology:
2. Link us up
Now you’ll need to tell Google that you only want to look at Linkedin.com. This is accomplished via the search operator site:
3. Location, location, location
Something to remember is that LInkedin creates a separate domain for each country, so if you only want to search for professionals in the UK then you need to do the following:
Add site:uk.linkedin.com to the Google search for UK. You would add: de.linkedin.com for Germany for example.
4. Pick your profile
Linkedin uses two directories (pub and in) for public profiles. Because of this, you’ll need to tell Google that you only want to see individual profiles in your search results and to exclude any pages containing a list of profiles.
Getting technical, Linkedin have placed their ’directory’ listings (dir) in the directory immediately following the pub directory, so you have to tell Google to exclude that using -inurl:pub/dir and include the inurl elements com/pub & com/in.
5. Search
Hit search and you will see you now have a good selection of individual profiles.
6. Summary
Here’s what to save for future use:
The full Google search you need is shown below, just add your specific requirements into the job title and keyword fields.
“job title” “keyword” site:uk.linkedin.com/in/ OR site:uk.linkedin.com/pub/ -inurl:"dir/ “
7, One more thing that can help
The result is fantastic and accurate but can be further enriched. Plugins such as Email Hunter will discover email addresses for you and other packages such as our own tool WooPitch.com that will simplify and automate the whole process.
Off you go and X-ray away.
