SPECIAL REPORT

Microsoft/LinkedInMicrosoft finally starts doing something with LinkedIn

(Lead Generation)(Must Read 40 Page Report)

Proof That You Can Generate Quality leads from LinkedIn Now The

Integration with Microsoft Has begun!

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION- CURRENT LINKEDIN AND MICROSOFT NUMBERS 3

CHAPTER 2: WHY BUSINESSES SHOULD PAY ATTENTION AND ACTIONS THEY SHOULD TAKE 10

CHAPTER 3: PROFESSIONAL PROFILES AND HOW THIS WILL BE ENHANCED 16

CHAPTER 4: EXAMPLES OF BUSINESS BENEFIT NOW & FUTURE 24

CHAPTER 5: WHAT BUSINESSES SHOULD BE DOING NOW 31

CHAPTER 6: HOW LINKEDIN AND SKYPE WILL BE INTEGRATED! 30

CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSION 41

TABLE OFCONTENT

3

On 13th June 2016, Microsoft Corporation announced that it will buy LinkedIn for $26.2 billion and close the deal by the end of the year. LinkedIn will keep its

brand and culture, as it maintains its current CEO, Jeff Weiner.

He will report to Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella. Reid Hoffman, who is the co-found-er, controlling shareholder and chairman of LinkedIn supports the deal.

Exactly what does this purchase for online businesses, coaches and webmasters?

Learn the impact of this acquisition that brings together the world’s best profes-sional cloud provider with the world lead-ing network of professionals.

One thing that must be stated from the on-set is that the future of medium and small businesses in capturing online leads looks brighter.

CHAPTER 1:INTRODUCTIONCURRENT LINKEDIN AND MICROSOFT NUMBERS

4

The purchase has been termed by com-mentators as the biggest acquisition in the history of technology.

It is easy to see why this is the world’s big-gest technological purchase.

Linked has more than 500 million users as of March 2018. More than a quarter of these users are in the US while 106 mil-lion users are active.

The professional network boasts of ser-vice in 24 different languages. It was es-tablished in December 2002 launched of-ficially in May 2013.

Around 4,500 people joined the platform within its first month of launching.

Three years later, it had reached the 20 million mark as far as membership is concerned. Every month, the platform hosts 106 million visitors.

The company reported 45 billion page

views in the first quarter of 2016 as com-pared to the 37 billion views in the previ-ous quarter.

In January 2017, LinkedIn had more than 9,200 employees stationed in various countries around the world. The compa-ny had users from 200 different countries by 2015.

Its competitors Viadeo and XING have 50 million and 10 million users respectively. Interestingly, there are approximately two new members to LinkedIn every second.

The social media network allows people to establish connections with others after creating profiles.

Just like people have real relationships in the real world, the network allows profes-sionals to interact with each other.

A user can invite another person who is either a member or a non-member to join his network.

5

After joining, the second person can invite other people to join in what is referred to as second-degree and third-degree connections.

In January 2011, the company went pub-lic with an initial public offer (IPO) and traded its first shares in May the same year.

Each share was only $45 at the moment the bell rang at New York Stock Exchange. Interestingly, the price rose by more than 109% that day and closed at $94.

The price has been rising steadily after-wards. Today, the value of a share has in-creased to $196.

In 2011, the company’s first year as a pub-licly-traded entity, it earned $154.6 mil-lion worth of revenue from advertising.

This figure was higher than Twitter’s rev-

enue of $139.5 in the same year.

After the successful IPO and increase in value, the company revised its infra-structure to allow accelerated growth. It increased its staff from 500 to about 2,100.

To accommodate this number, the com-pany leased three floors of One Mont-gomery Tower in central San Francisco.

By 2014, the space expanded from 57,000 square feet to 135,000 square feet osten-sibly to accommodate the rising number of employees and business equipment.

In 2014, media reports announced the company’s leasing of the entire 26-storey 222 Second Street Building SoMa Dis-trict of San Francisco.

The 10-year lease sought to secure ample working environment for at least 2500 employees.

The objective was to bring all of the com-pany’s employees in San Francisco to-gether, a move that many people say was wise.

Employees in the Sales and Marketing Department would be in close proximi-ty to their counterparts in Research and Development.It is not just the number of users that

matter. Its revenue has also been impres-sive.

In 2015, the company’s net revenue stood at $2.9 billion, representing a 35% increase from the previous year.

In addition, the data in its possession is perhaps more valuable than anything works.

Did you know that LinkedIn knows peo-ple’s skills, where they work, who they went to school with and their career am-bitions?

Forbes states that LinkedIn knows more details about people than Microsoft does.

Throughout its existence, LinkedIn has made numerous acquisitions to cement

its leadership role in professional net-working.

In September 2010, it purchased ChoiceVendor, a company that used to rate and review service providers at nearly $4million.

In 2012, LinkedIn acquired Raportive, a company that enabled people to create and manage social contacts at $15 mil-lion.The company paid $175million to ac-quire Bizo, a web application that al-lowed advertisers to reach targeted pro-fessionals and businesses.

2015 marked LinkedIn’s biggest acquisi-tion, as it paid a whopping $1.5 billion to purchase Lynda.com. This is an eLearning platform where peo-

7

ple access video tutorials to learn tech-nology, business and software skills.

The above are just a few companies that LinkedIn acquired over its impressive existence.

Others are Fliptop, Careerify, Pulse, Newsle, Connectifier and Refresh.

All of these companies were social media techies that connected advertisers, pro-fessionals and businesses in the digital cyberspace.

In early 2016, LinkedIn’s shares dropped by an unprecedented 43% in a single day. This drop was attributed to a negative re-port on its earnings.

A series of boardroom meetings led to the announcement on 13th June 2016 that Microsoft would buy LinkedIn in the largest acquisition in its history.

Many experts are convinced that Micro-soft made the ambitious purchase to in-crease the capacity of its Office Suite.

They say that the company will integrate its products better, thanks to the wildly successful professional network.

Since the big announcement, companies around the world have been excited by

impending prospects of doing business better and making impressive returns on investment.

You see, Microsoft has for a long time been a leader in the IT industry.

Headquartered in Washington, US, the company was founded in 1975.

The founders, Bill Gates and Paul Allen, are among the world’s famous people.

Gates has dominated the top of the list of the world’s richest people for decades. The company made its IPO back in 1986.

Its steady rise in share price created an unprecedented 12,000 millionaires and three billionaires among its employees.

If revenue is anything to go by, the com-pany is the world’s largest software mak-er. It is also in the elite group of the most valuable companies in the world.

The existence of these facts is what makes many people optimistic of good things to come.

Microsoft has dominated the personal computer phenomenon for many de-cades, making numerous notable acqui-sitions in the process.Prior to the LinkedIn acquisition, its pur-

8

chase of Skype Technologies at $8.5bil-lion in 2011 was its largest acquisition.The company has witnessed several gen-

erations of the personal computer and has for long led the pack in the assembly and distribution of hardware.

Apart from computer software, the com-pany is also notably visible in the world

of Internet research with Bing, a leading search engine.

Microsoft also makes mobile phones un-der the Windows Phone brand.

Other impressive portfolios are in the tablet computers industry and video gaming technology.

The company has had major influences in the computer and Internet phenom-ena.

One of these is its role in the Alliance for Affordable Internet usually abbreviated to A4AI.

The alliance was launched in October 2013 with an objective of increasing In-ternet access in the developing world.

At that time, less than 30% of people in the developing and third world countries had access to Internet.

Other companies in this alliance are Google, Facebook and Intel.

On its part, Google promises to lower the cost of Internet connection so that it is not more than 5% of the countries’ and homesteads’ average income.

This percentage is also the worldwide

9

target of the United Nations Broadband Commission.

In February 2014, Steve Ballmer stepped down from the position of CEO to pave the way for Satya Nadella, the man who oversaw the acquisition of LinkedIn.

Before leaving his position, Ballmer oversaw the reorganizing of the company into four business departments- Apps, Operating System, Cloud and Devices.

No employee was struck out in the major reshuffle.

In 2002, Microsoft made approximately $5.6 billion in revenue, according to statistica.com.

Interestingly, the figure had jumped to $17 billion by 2008. At $23.15 billion, 2011 is the company’s best fiscal year as far as revenue is concerned.

In 2015, the company had around118, 000 employees.

CHAPTER 2Why Businesses Should Pay Attention and Actions They Should Take!

11

Small businesses must take notice of the new acquisition and reposition themselves for change.

Although Microsoft has not yet publicly stated its objectives for the digital marketing space, experts are already advising small businesses to get ready for the ride.

It may take a couple of months for the company to announce anything substantive as far as search engine marketing is concerned.

However, experts expect Bing to initiate a couple of the marketing approaches and capabilities that its competitors boast of.

This is not to say that Bing is badly off as a search engine. While some people dismiss its Bing Ads as a marketing platform, it is usually effective for conversions even at low investments.

The only challenge with Bing is the fact that it does not have enough traffic volume. What if Bing had access to sharing platform that Facebook and Google do not have?

This is what Bing stands to gain from its parent company’s acquisition of LinkedIn.

Frost and Sullivan is an analyst in the technology industry.

CHAPTER 2:WHY BUSINESSES SHOULD PAY

ATTENTION AND ACTIONS THEY SHOULD TAKE!

The organization estimates that the world’s Business to Business (B2B) ecom-merce industry will double by 2020. This will clock a phenomenal $6.7 trillion worth.

Right now, Google does not seem to have impressive muscle as far as demographic information is concerned.

This truth will remain for a long time unless Google purchases a professional sharing network.

Even if it does, Microsoft has already claimed the biggest gorilla in this indus-try.

This means that if Microsoft utilizes the capabilities of LinkedIn, it will cement its position at the top of digital market-ing and leads targeting potential.

The fact that Microsoft’s purchase of LinkedIn put pressure on Google cannot be overemphasized.

You can expect Google to look for a sim-ilar purchase of its own. The question now is, which social network can help Google to expand its customer reach?

Now that Microsoft has a nearly unas-sailable lead on personal and profession-al data, your interactions will never be the same again.

For example, its Cortana digital assistant tool is set to increase its capabilities.

Well, Google has a similar tool called Google Al. however; it cannot afford the artificial intelligence that Cornata will enjoy.

While Google has the financial muscle to catch up with its fiercest rival, what po-tential targets are available?

Box, for example is touted as an attrac-tive collaborator. Its cloud storage, col-laboration and sharing capabilities are especially considered ideal for Google’s ecosystem.

Its low share price also attracts large cor-porations. It has shed a whopping 52 percent since debuting on the NYSE.

Dropbox on the other hand is an attrac-tive company, as it has more than half a billion users. Additionally, it hosts more than 150,000 businesses.

However, it lacks a clear vision for work-ing with large corporations the size of Google and Microsoft.

The fact that the privately owned cloud service is valued at $10 billion can scare away potential buyers including Google. All you can do now is wait and see what happens in the next couple of months.

12

If you are a coach or an owner of a small business, there are many hopes in this merger.

You will be able to manage search and display campaigns across Bing Ads with the advantage of Bing Ads Manager and LinkedIn targeting capabilities.

This feature will be similar to the one that Google announced will hit the market soon.

If the merger introduces a collabora-tive targeting tool, it will effectively tie identity to intent for search engines.

This feature is what the world’s largest search marketing platforms desperate-ly lack.

Something else is lacking in Bing’s digi-tal advertising space- a real display net-work.

Experts hope that Microsoft can afford to buy Yahoo, a display network that is far cheaper than LinkedIn.

Although Yahoo owners value it at $35 billion, many commentators state that it will actually cost much less.

Verizon offered $3 billion to take it away the other day, but the deal was trashed.

The board at Yahoo is reportedly willing to listen to second offers from whoever is interested.

The purchase will likely happen on two conventional bases-the highest bidder takes it all and first come first serve.

If only Microsoft could move with speed.

14

Digital experts and business analysts state that Microsoft does not seem to be in a hurry. The insiders look like they know what they are doing.

This acquisition is testament to this fact. Actually, Microsoft seems to be in the business for all the right reasons.

Its vision for LinkedIn is exactly what outside watchers would expect.

TechCrunch, a respected opinion lead-er in the technology industry states that the purchase was done so that the par-ent company could compete better in the arena of enterprise sales.

It wants to compete more with the likes of Salesforce.

You see, Microsoft is focused on linking its current department of sales and prod-ucts such as Dynamic CRM to LinkedIn’s social side of selling.

As an entrepreneur, pay attention to Mi-crosoft’s impeding integration of Linke-dIn with existing brands such as office, Windows, Outlook, Calendar and Mic-rosoft Apps.

This is according to the CEO of Linke-dIn.

Further, Microsoft CEO added that you will have new experiences with a news-feed that serves articles based on your current projects.

Imagine the experience where Office will link you to an expert via LinkedIn to help with assignments.

These two platforms will integrate seam-lessly so that you have a virtual assistant to help you complete your tasks expedi-tiously and in real time.

While some people may view this as in-vasion of privacy, others perceive it as a risk to business data and intelligence.

However, you will only obtain such vir-tual assistance on your own volition and not by the company’s insistence.

After all, innumerable businesses are already using Gmail and Google Drive without cases of Google having used their data inappropriately.

There should be a shield that screens these companies’ staff from accessing your proprietary information without your consent and approval.

Even if they have access, industry regu-lations explicitly bar them from sharing with third parties.

15

Bing’s ad platform has the potential of becoming a force to reckon with after the big merger.

If Microsoft gives Bing the resources and opportunity, it would compete and probably win the battle against Google.As the merger introduces the world’s richest resource of B2B information, the future of the market now belongs to Microsoft.

If you are not on Microsoft Outlook, it is the time to reg-ister an account and get ready for business.

LinkedIn is expected to keep details of its users and integrate them with Microsoft’s email service.

If a client or a contact in your email list moves from one firm to another, the email should perceptively inform you.

This way, you can track your clients efficiently on email.

In addition, your business is set to benefit from Microsoft’s cloud services.

As the world’s best cloud service provider, your business operations will run smoother than ever before.

This is especially true for companies and retail stores with different branches across different locations.

The addition of extra professional networking features will be an added advantage.

CHAPTER 3Professional Profiles and How This Will Be Enhanced

17

Are you an online coach, business ex-ecutive or webmaster?

Take notice of this acquisition because it promises to revolutionize how you do business.

Analysts are already making predictions of how Microsoft will enhance the lead capturing ability of LinkedIn.

You will be able to target and reach pro-fessionals in an unprecedented manner.

You see, current LinkedIn users are able to search and connect with connections who work at certain companies that they are interested in.

After getting the connection, a user can ask a person already in his network to in-troduce him to a colleague.

In addition, executives can search and find business opportunities, jobs and people.

At the same time a user can recommend opportunities and vacancies to people whom he knows are interested or qual-ified.

This is a perfect platform for employers to enlist vacancies and reach qualified people, as the user’s resumes are almost usually readily available.

When a person sees a vacancy and gets interested in, he can ask people who know him to recommend him with the employer.

The fact that you can post and update your own pictures makes this profes-sional network quite social.

CHAPTER 3:PROFESSIONAL PROFILES AND HOW THIS WILL BE

ENHANCED

These help users to identify prospective people that he or she wants to interact with.

One can follow the profiles of different companies, businesses and establish-ments. This way, one remains updated with the goings-on of these entities.

As you can see who visited your page, you are more perceptive to knowing who is interested in your services. You can bookmark a job in an advertisement that you want to apply.

To make the professional network more sociable, LinkedIn allows its users to congratulate or like’ the profiles of oth-er users in their networks after landing a job or business deal.

Moreover, users can wish other users a happy birthday.

Brace yourself for the impending revolu-tion of digital engagement.

If your employees are on LinkedIn, you may be able to monitor what they are do-ing remotely by checking their LinkedIn and Office networks. This is in line with the CEO’s vision of making the world’s professionals more productive.

Do you have a rich network of profes-sional contacts on LinkedIn? You may gain access to millions of CVs, skills, professions and professions as well as a large data resource.

You could drive revenue to your business by exploiting the merger of LinkedIn Ads and Microsoft Bing Ads.

Already, you have a functional customer relationship management (CRM) tool, the Sales Navigator. It lets you browse your networks for business leads.

Professional profiles will witness more visits by companies in search of high quality leads.

To land at quality leads, any search en-gine marketing tool requires high quality data.

The collaboration of Microsoft’s Bing search engine and LinkedIn intuitive leads generation tool will see many pro-fessional profiles highlighted.

As compared to the established Google AdWords and Facebook Ads, Microsoft may not have much hope of winning the advertising battle.

However, the data that you share with your connections and by extension the

18

19

company itself is far impressive than anything else.

Therefore, expect LinkedIn to serve you fewer ads than before. They cannot risk scar-ing you off with ill-targeted ads.

Business users are okay with paying a subscription or premium to access the profes-sional service.

This is how the company makes profits.

Tie this to the fact that Microsoft does not usually run ads on its Office 365 collection of web applications or Office offline applications.

Imagine seeing ads on your desktop as you type on Word or compute on Excel.

Instead, the company is more comfort-able with charging you for the apps.

Therefore, expect less apps and more production-based activity.

Reading the joint announcement emails by the two CEOs to their staffs, it is easy to see one common message- that LinkedIn share Microsoft’s mission of empowering as many people as possible.

This means that professional profiles will be enhanced to assist you do business better.

Professionals will interact better and more efficiently with the contacts in their net-works.

Microsoft hopes to empower people with its industry-leading Dynamic CRM soft-ware and Office 365,

While LinkedIn will empower you with its trend-setting connection of professionals in a business-oriented network.

When you combine the two powerhouses, you can expect unprecedented progress in numerous areas of marketing, selling and talent management business.

If the history of these two companies is anything to go by, the world may have to re-invent how it performs the above functions.

As discussed in Chapter 1, both companies have the resources to put up and sustain a spirited campaign.

Many experts feel that competitors will not take this lying down.

In fact, you can expect Microsoft’s competitors to put up a fight in a last-ditch effort to remain relevant.

While the impending competition is welcome, no competitor is likely to achieve the capabilities that Microsoft and LinkedIn have.

Apart from enhanced CRM functions, the employees are set to benefit from stability of their jobs.

LinkedIn experienced its worst loss in early 2016. There were fears of a reshuffle in the management that would ultimately affect many employees.A similar fear has affected Microsoft for a long time now.

In fact, it had to lay off numerous employees to cut costs and consolidate its position as the world’s best cloud service provider. However, the merger seems to relieve these fears.

Just look at the company’s new Total Addressable Markets (TAM), which is in the ex-cess of $315 billion.

22

While this financial muscle has tongues wagging, employees and shareholders will feel a little bit more comfortable than before.

Their productivity is set to rise due to the new-found confidence in the conglomerate.

The announcement of combining the world’s leading professional network and the world’s leading professional cloud service comes with a lot of benefits for users, own-ers and shareholders.

When describing the details of the merger, a document released by Microsoft said that today’s information should no longer live in silos if professionals are to succeed.

You can agree with Microsoft with the assertion that that information lives in silos.

That said, we can expect the company to revolutionize the access to and use of infor-mation.

Your business will benefit from the most intelligent newsfeed ever to exist.

Making event announcements and in-dustry news accessible will be far easier and more effective than ever before.

You may no longer have to waste time or miss relevant news. You will move your sales funnel from the siloed perspective to a social perspective.

This way, your insights are more action-able and allow the establishment of deep-er client relationships for more sales.As a business professional, look forward to increased engagement.

Experts say that Microsoft will take

advantage of LinkedIn’s muscle to im-prove the social and identity capabilities of its ecosystem that has more than a bil-lion customers.

Expect to have a graph where LinkedIn is prominently present in Skype, Office, Bing, Cortana, Outlook, Active Directo-ry and Calendar among others products.

In the wake of the acquisition, users who are set to benefit most are recruiting and hiring managers, job advertisers and employers, universities and online learn-ing platforms, workers and lead-capture webmasters.

With the unification of LinkedIn profes-sional profiles, expect the right type and

kind of data to surface at the most appropriate time.

It does not matter whether it surfaces on Windows, Skype, Outlook or elsewhere. One thing is for sure. Data will surface when needed.

As a business leader, expect to enjoy a better view of your organization’s talent and ability.

This is thanks to the better connected and more collaborative environment that this acquisition promises.

Further, you’re learning and that of your managers, employees and other stakeholders will be seamlessly incorporated into your Office tools.

There will be greater access and user experience to on-demand courses.

As the merger takes shape, many business leaders are hopeful of the promises made by the CEOs.

More importantly, they hope that their enterprises will experience a positive impact once heads start rolling.

CHAPTER 4 Examples of Businesses Benefit Now & Future

25

That Microsoft’s purchase of LinkedIn comes with huge business expectations is a fact. People who have been advertising on LinkedIn already express optimism of

great things to come.

Experts say that the $26.3 billion deal is actually worth the price. You see, LinkedIn has for long been the most focused B2B online advertising network. The few notable competitors are way behind it.

Search engine marketing is suitable for understanding the wants and needs of users. This is based on the search key-words and phrases.

On the other hand, social media net-works tell you who the user actually is. This is made possible with the user’s nu-merous details such as names, photos, relations, place of work or school and contacts.

Now, here comes a situation where these

two elements (what and who) intermar-ry. The collaboration of these platforms establishes an unparalleled sweet spot of digital marketing.

Soon, you may overhaul your entire dig-ital marketing approach and base it on the ideal audience.

Google AdWords has a substantial lev-el of demographic targeting. It has even promised to enhance its capability to do this later in the year 2016.

CHAPTER 4:EXAMPLES OF BUSINESSES

BENEFITING NOW & FUTURE

26

Unfortunately, it lacks targeting capabilities based on professional and business intel-ligence. Now, here comes a situation where these two elements (what and who) intermarry. The collaboration of these platforms establishes an unparalleled sweet spot of digital marketing. Soon, you may overhaul your entire digital marketing approach and base it on the ideal audience.

Most of Google AdWords’ targeting capabilities are based on details that clients pro-vide when actually making a purchase.

These are age, gender and parental status among a few others.

If you have used Google AdWords before, the experience should prepare you for a whole new ballgame.

27

Coaches and business executives who have paired LinkedIn advertising with the remarketing feature of Google Ad-Words are well-placed to embrace the impending revolution.

This is because the results of this pair-ing are already impressive for successful webmasters.

Chances are that you have tasted success if you have targeted the right audiences via LinkedIn.

This marketing not only drives down costs, it also effectively improves the quality of leads.

The ultimate success is the increase in opportunities of generating revenue.

You see, there is no identity at all with keyword-based advertising.

Now, keyword marketing customers may no longer have to pay for clicks that do not actually convert.

Instead, you will tailor the message to a more appropriate audience, hence in-creasing conversion and the quality of clicks.

LinkedIn has already improved their in-terface.

Although it took them quite some time to get there, you have to congratulate them for achieving this feat even with so many features to display on a typical dashboard.

Moving forward, we can only expect a further improvement of the interface, and the ultimate increase in user expe-rience for both advertisers and content consumers.

Another reason why you need to laud LinkedIn is the fact that its self-serve ads are an option.

In fact, many people are not aware of this truth. Some people think that you have to engage a salesperson who then directs them to the said display ads.

Unknown to many, the minimum cost on text ads on the self-serve platform is $2 per click.

Many experts believe that the fact that LinkedIn did not share this option with prospective advertisers was a mistake.

This failure meant that advertisers with small budgets shied away from using the platform and instead turned to other platforms.

As the $2 per click fee is affordable, small businesses are able to take advantage of perceptive marketing.

28

Are you a small business or an average advertiser?

Brace yourself for even cheaper minimum commitment costs. This could translate to better targeting and audience reach with Microsoft’s acquisition of LinkedIn.

More than half of the LinkedIn traffic in the US comes from mobile devices. This sta-tistic is according to the professional network.

It is easy to understand this fact when you look at the way people connect and net-work nowadays.

Some experts have expressed worry with the inadequacy of LinkedIn’s advertising formats on portable devices.

Only Sponsored Content is available. The worrying fact for you, as a marketer is that you may be missing out on 50% of probable impressions in the U.S.

29

Microsoft’s existing products will obvi-ously benefit greatly from this merger.

Examples of these products are produc-tivity tools, its corporate directory and dissemination channels of company news among others.

Since LinkedIn brings aboard its 433 mil-lion users, the use of Microsoft’s products is set to increase.

The fact that the company will connect intuitively with its clients on its own so-cial network is an enviable feat.

Businesses may benefit more from in-creased integration of Microsoft prod-ucts and LinkedIn in the future.

For example, you may start receiving voice updates and reminders for meet-ings through Microsoft’s digital assistant, Cortana.

If the company integrates its resourc-es this way, Cortana will know who you are, who your professional networks are, what you want, your workplace and oth-er details about the world around you.

The platform will then serve intuitive assistance based on your engagements with clients, colleagues, partners and even loved ones.

That LinkedIn can almost accurately predict your career path is phenomenal.

It bases this prediction on your educa-tional background, working history and interests.

It also matches your data points with similar profiles and rounding up com-mon attributes.

In the future, you may be able to look at your pseudo career path by logging into LinkedIn during your teen years.

The system will use your interests, edu-cation, skills and other qualifying data to indicate your likely career path.

In fact, LinkedIn is already doing this albeit at a lower degree. Its University Finder’ tool has helped thousands if not millions of users.

30

In future, you will be able to hire employees conveniently and efficiently based on the intuitive reports that LinkedIn can afford.

It is not yet exactly clear what products you will benefit from.

However, expect Microsoft to boost its customer relationship management (CRM) tools.

Therefore, stay ahead of the pack and listen to announcements form the merger.

Nobody on the outside knows how the two tech giants are laying framework to im-prove services or introduce new programmes.

But one thing is for sure- you will have more opportunities to make business than ever before.

CHAPTER 5 What Businesses Should Be Doing Now

32

CHAPTER 5:WHAT BUSINESSES SHOULD

BE DOING NOW!

If you are a business executive, owner or coach, there are a number of things you ought to do.

For example, optimize your LinkedIn profile for effective connecting with high qual-ity leads. After that, send notifications to prospective customers.

Your invitation shows up on their notifications bar. Here, they can already see your name, title, and a preview of your message.

You can expect some of the invitations you send to be accepted, that is if you make a striking first impression.

If someone is interested, they will click on the full message, read and choose “accept” or “ignore”. Spell out your name correctly and have an impressive profile picture.

People will take you seriously if you have a professional picture such as a headshot.

Think about your prospective clients and have a title that really reflects who you are. Make your headline as professional as possible.

If you target CEOs of small businesses, have your title as “CEO of My Company” for example.

33

This identifies you properly and creates a virtual bond between you and your leads.

In the wake of Microsoft’s purchase of LinkedIn, some opportunities will be unlocked for you.

Microsoft’s CEO says that the merger will accelerate the growth of Microsoft Office 365 and Dynamics as well as LinkedIn.

You are included in the group of “every person and organization” that the company wants to empower across the world.

A few years back, some analysts claimed that LinkedIn was interested in creating pro-files for every business and working person in the world.

In addition, it was said that the professional network would have every profession and skill represented so that it actually helps people to secure advertised jobs.

Further, experts said that the company would introduce learning resources that mem-bers could develop the needed skills.

34

These ambitions were part of the larger dream of enhancing and transforming the global economy.

Well, this allegation seemed quite off the mark back then, but not now.

The acquisition is actually able to achieve this dream, as stated by several industry leaders.

A few opinion leaders say that the com-pany is over-ambitious.

But then again, you cannot please every-one especially not when a merger brings together more than a billion users from Microsoft and nearly half a billion mem-bers from LinkedIn.

Remember that two more people are joining the network every second.

If you look at history, you will under-stand that LinkedIn is not too ambitious.

For example, the company purchased Lynda.com at $1.5 billion in 2015, in a move that surprised many.

This purchase enables LinkedIn users to access tools and resources for learning and training online.

The platform connects more publishers

and writers to targeted audiences than ever before.

As a business executive, prepare your website, social media pages and other forms of online engagement for the im-pending surge in business prospecting.

While it will take a few months for you to know exactly how to use future tools and options from Microsoft, it is prudent to maintain best customer engagement practices.

In anticipation of the improved methods of capturing leads, let your full profile be impressive.

The invitations you send will check here to ascertain your authenticity.

For example, include all past jobs and ti-tle you have held in the past.

Let people see your accomplishments. Everybody wants to associate themselves with successful people.

When you are ready, you can rest assured of integrating your business functions seamlessly.

Reaching more targets and converting them to clients should be easier than ever before.

35

In addition, you will fare much better at beating competition.

For now, keep networks with LinkedIn professionals clean. In addition, master the existing options that Outlook offers.

Soon, expect your Newsfeed from Linke-dIn to intuitively communicate with the calendar on your Outlook account.

This communication informs the two platforms the meetings that you plan to have in the next couple of days or weeks.

Do you physically meet customers or business colleagues regularly? Microsoft could serve you with access to all of the stories and posts that these stakeholders write.

Reading their minds and knowing their opinion could help you better meet their needs.

Typically, the system can dig through loads of information about a client across various platforms when getting ready for a meeting or a presentation.

In the future, you could save time and re-sources by accessing all relevant content and resources on a single platform.

Cortana, your digital personal assistant is already a likeable tool.

It greets you in the morning with a serv-ing of your commitments and meetings of the day.

More importantly, it informs you of the deepest connections that you have with the people you are meeting.

In the future, Cortana could dig details about these people from their LinkedIn profiles.

36

These details include the person’s professional background, education, professional connections, age, residence and aspirations among others.

You can find these details while relaxing at home or when stuck in traffic on your way to meeting them.

When you know these details prior to the meeting, you do not waste time in introduc-tions and building rapport.

The help tab on your Microsoft Office application gives you tips on certain phenom-ena.

Interestingly, this help can be served by a professional instead of the automated assis-tant.

Obtaining help from a real person will be a welcome relief.

CHAPTER 6How LinkedIn and Skype Will Be Integrated!

38

Nobody exactly knows for sure how Microsoft’s Skype will collaborate with Linke-dIn.

However, you can already draw comparisons and expectations as the collaboration takes shape. Let us examine some possible tools, applications and options.

You might start conducting your recruitment interviews face-to-face online.

This feature will be beneficial to employment agencies because of the personal rela-tionship that it promises to introduce to online interaction.

You are able to communicate better watching the other person’s body movements and facial expressions.

Do you conduct physical business meetings with stakeholders regularly? Why not take these online?

This prospect may soon be a reality. The interaction of your official and informal as-sociation of professionals and like-minded individuals is set to change for the better.

CHAPTER 6:HOW LINKEDIN AND SKYPE

WILL BE INTEGRATED!

The online chat feature has been here for a long time now.

However, your user experience, target-ing and reach capabilities might just be taken a notch higher with LinkedIn.

Business executives are keen to see the additions that will enlarge the diameters of their client circles.

You may be able to make referrals better with LinkedIn consultation platforms.

In addition, the world might just be treated to the first CEO town hall and stakeholders meeting live on the im-proved LinkedIn platform.

Nobody knows whether the names of the tools of these two companies will change in the future.

However, one thing is for sure. Your communications within LinkedIn will be enhanced by Skype’s video and audio capabilities.

You will be able to send messages to cli-ents, colleagues and other users while scheduling calls at the same time.

That LinkedIn messaging service is limited on functionality is a fact.

It is possible that its messaging options will be replaced by Outlook 365.

Even before its purchase of LinkedIn, Microsoft was already consolidating all its different email platforms into the rendering engine.

Instead of running the messaging plat-form independently, it will be sensible to expand this consolidation to LinkedIn as well.

If this is the executive board’s plan, LinkedIn will benefit from a robust mes-saging capability and probably reserve the advanced features for its premium users.

You see, Google’s Gmail has been domi-nant in the email industry.

LinkedIn’s boost of the Outlook 365 tool could allow Microsoft to compete better with Google.

The phrase “scratch my back I scratch yours” perhaps applies in this merger more than it does elsewhere.

In a fast-changing world, employees change jobs often. This is especially true in the technology and information in-dustries.

39

With this fast-paced career movement, email address lists can fast become outdated.

To solve this problem, Microsoft can integrate Outlook with LinkedIn so that it up-dates people’s company affiliation and contact information automatically.This way, you will track targets even if they change jobs regularly.

It cannot go unstated that Google is meticulously keeping its users within its products.

It has been successful at integrating YouTube and Google Plus into Gmail.

This way, its clients can send emails and watch videos without leaving its platform.

If this is an example to go by, Microsoft can achieve the same or even better re-sults with SlideShare, LinkedIn and a few Skype options.

For example, when you receive a connection request on your Outlook account, you could confirm or deny the said connection in your email without having to click to your LinkedIn account.

There has been a significant increase in spam messages on LinkedIn as a social net-work.

This is partly because of LinkedIn’s aggressive lead prospecting.

Since Microsoft is a respected leader in the control of email spam, it should help Linke-dIn deal with the problem once and for all.

40

CHAPTER 7 Conclusion

42

That LinkedIn will be more present in offices, schools and even homes is a fact. As it increases its foothold, it gathers more leads for your business.

These leads may be clients or business partners. As a child of this marriage seemingly made in heaven, you can only be optimistic.

The fact that Microsoft’s vision is gaining more business productivity, you can rest assured of more penetration to high quality leads.

LinkedIn is perhaps the happier in this marriage because it now has a restore point.

The professional network can now truly stamp its authority as the de facto busi-ness-oriented social networking site.

As it has vanquished all competition, the company can afford to focus its sights on killing bigger game.

Since Microsoft, its new marriage partner single-handedly controls the corporate strings.

LinkedIn can focus on accelerating the rate of business development and fruition.

CHAPTER 7:CONCLUSION

43

It has been effective in doing this in the past and you can count on it to scale un-precedented heights.

If the two companies can dispel the few challenges success is theirs for the taking.

For example, we hope that Microsoft has learned from previous challenges when it acquired Yammer in 2012.

This is a private sharing network where employees collaborate in different loca-tions, departments and applications.

Further Microsoft should not have a problem convincing LinkedIn users of the security of their information.

In the past, LinkedIn has improved it customer support for free services as well as premium users.

Since Microsoft is acquiring LinkedIn for the purpose of enterprise development, you can expect it to perfect its engage-ment and response to customers’ needs.

As we conclude this resource, we want to remind you to create professional groups and add as relevant people as possible.

Let the group have your professional photo and description. Post relevant yet intriguing content regularly.

44

We expect the collaboration to take shape in a couple of months.

We emphasize the fact that attractive high earning professionals to see your business will be easier.

This is because you will have access to their profiles.

Screen all prospective clients based on their demographics, geographical loca-tion and other attributed.

Businesses and coaches expect better lead capturing at reduced costs. The fact that LinkedIn’s interface is set to improve is a plus.

Your clients will navigate on the plat-form better than ever before. Cortana and Skype are among the tools that will improve.

Therefore, ensure your accounts on these two platforms are ready for the revolu-tion.

Since the big announcement, experts have discovered that other companies were also in contention for the purchase of LinkedIn.

Simply put, the company joined hands with the best suitor.

It was attracted by the obvious wealth and cannot wait to wrap its hands around the riches.

In the wake of the acquisition, many peo-ple will be watching what LinkedIn will do with its new-found resources that it could not do in the past.

If you look at its history, the company has been largely successful albeit with a fair share of turbulent times.

Hitherto the big announcement, there have been just a few hiccups at LinkedIn.

Microsoft will deal with the few politi-cally incorrect or inappropriate posts.

You can count on the merger to heighten the social network’s professional edge.

Users should be confident with the han-dling of beneficial tools that actually gave the company its signature traction.

Moving forward, we anticipate seeing more commitment to qualified content and targeting options.

Coaches and business leaders have a part to play.

They need to respect and uphold the dig-nity that LinkedIn has for so long been known for.

45

It promises to help social media users become more respectful digital citizens.

In April 2016, four executives sat at a dinner table to discuss the details of the deal.

These were CEOs Satya Nadella and Jeff Weiner, Reid Hoffman, the executive chairman and co-founder of LinkedIn and Qi Lu, an executive at Microsoft who also worked with Weiner at Yahoo.

This marked the culmination of previous negotiations.

To seal the deal, both companies agreed that the professional network would maintain its leadership and structure to work autonomously.

Your lead targeting will benefit from more increased efficiency than ever be-fore.

As the acquisition dust settles, it is pru-dent to investigate other beneficiaries.

Look at other winners beyond the two companies involved in the merger.

Twitter, for example won a rare feat out of the merger, and so did other social sharing networks in the periphery.

Microsoft’s biggest tech purchase afford-ed Twitter good valuation in the public markets.

In fact, its stock rose 4% following the announcement.

You see, LinkedIn might not do more than providing the inter-face and smooth navigation on the platform.

It is your prerogative to choose your words carefully and con-sciously edit the typing space just before hitting the Post’ button.

Microsoft came in just on time to increase LinkedIn’s influence among professionals.

46

While the improvement was too little to make a turn around, shareholders and own-ers are hopeful that the company could sell for big dollars too.

Slack is another beneficiary because it looks attractive in the lead generation depart-ment as well.

Publishers and advertisers are also set to gain a lot.

The fact that LinkedIn is the world’s best go-to ad and publishing platform is undis-puted.

Business-focused marketers are seeing a winning formula now that the company has joined hands with the largest provider of cloud.

That Microsoft has promised autonomy in running LinkedIn is an embodiment of the success.

It will provide the financial and other resources and allow its acquisition to transact business the way it deems fit.

By the end of 2016, the deal is expected to close. The only remaining bit is approval by regulators in the United States, E.U., Canada and Brazil.

As a business executive, underline the fact that your operations are set to transform for the better.

To Learn How You Can Benefit From This Collabo-ration Schedule Free Call With Our Team!

You will learn numerous other strategies that you need to implement in your lead targeting campaign.

In addition, find out how other coaches and small businesses are striking gold as far as attracting web traffic is concerned.