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In the day-to-day world of business meetings, LinkedIn has a nice feature to prepare better for meetings . It’s especially helpful when we meet with people that we don’t know yet or that we don’t meet with all that often.
On LinkedIn, I have synced my calendar with the professional social media platform. When I have meetings scheduled LinkedIn will send me a reminder to review the LinkedIn profile of the people I’m meeting with in preparation for the meeting.
Understanding the other person matters
That’s of course a fantastic tool, especially if their profiles are comprehensive. Even profiles that only have people’s job titles and job history without any further description can be helpful.
For example, if you are meeting with long-time video storytellers don’t tell them about how to tell better video stories but maybe talk about how some new technology can help them distribute their stories better. Remember they’ve told video stories for a long time.
Setup
It’s really easy to set up too. Go to your LinkedIn app on your iPhone, then settings, then sync calendar.
Make sure that you’re using the native calendar app on your iPhone. So this feature does not work with the Gmail app on the iPhone for example.
I think the notification to prepare better for meetings only triggers when the person you’re about to meet with has the email address you used in the email invite linked in their LinkedIn account.
But, it appears to me that it also triggers when you aren’t even connected. So every once in a while I get a notification to check out somebody’s profile who I’m not connected to. That appears to happen when they have their email linked and I have a meeting scheduled with them.
Keep your profile updated
Of course, it goes both ways. The other person in the meeting might also be checking your profile out before you meet. So that’s another reason why it’s important to keep your profile updated and have it tell your professional story well.
Read next: How to optimize your LinkedIn Profile for better social selling
That could include:
- A relevant professional picture
- A relevant professional summary
- Awards and recognitions
- Description of current role and past roles
- Any other information that will help you share your professional story
Personally, I love this feature so far and it’s helped me be prepared and know a little bit more about the people I’m talking to.