My LinkedIn Life
How the Social Media Mainstay can be Instrumental in Establishing Yourself as an Inventor by April Mitchell
IMAGINE A PLACE where you can open multiple doors at a time and create opportunities for yourself or your product as an inventor. Such a place exists and it’s not a magical land far, far away—LinkedIn!
Opportunities await in various forms when you are active on LinkedIn and use it regularly and correctly. From establishing yourself as an inventor to opening doors for collaboration, this can be a very helpful tool.
I am going to pull back the curtain on how being active on LinkedIn has helped me as an inventor to show you what I mean.
Real people, connecting
It is important to establish yourself as the inventor of a product, whether you are manufacturing yourself or licensing it. When people know your product was invented by you and they know your story, an emotional connection is made to your product or brand. It’s not just another product on the market that is sold by a company making millions of dollars. It is a product invented by a real person, someone just like them. If people know a little about your story as an inventor, you soon have a community behind you cheering you on and being there for you. It also helps to put a person and name with an invention or product to get your name out there as the inventor, in case there is anything questionable going on with another company in the industry to knock off your product in the future. I have personally seen knock-off products and recognize them right away. I do not purchase knock-off products.
Building credibility
When we share our new products with the industry, LinkedIn community, and the world, we are building credibility in our industry and category. Members of the community can see our talents, skills, and knowledge. Abilities come to life when our products do. Showing our products gives the credibility and validity that yes, we are who we say we are— that yes, we do what our LinkedIn profile says we do! And yes, there is passion and hard work behind our products! We then can use this credibility to advertise and promote our products, as well as ourselves as inventors.
Doors of opportunity
Because of my activity on LinkedIn, I have become friends with the most amazing people—other inventors, manufacturers, and more. I have been provided the opportunity to partner with other inventors and designers to work on projects together because of LinkedIn. I also have been able to meet with and present new concepts to manufacturers looking for new ideas because they see my activity and products on LinkedIn. I hope using LinkedIn is as successful for you as it has been for me! And if we aren’t connected yet, I’d be happy to connect with you.