If you build it.... (The Waldo Factor, part 9)

When I do public seminars and workshops or private sessions on using LinkedIn, one question that invariably comes up is, "Yeah, but are my customers here?"

For government contractors the short answer is a resounding Yes.

Whether you are targeting prime contractors for partnering, teaming or sub-contracting, or if you are looking for Federal managers, you can find them on LinkedIn.

How do I know?

As you may suspect, I spend more time on LinkedIn than most in our market (yes, this is the second most asked question in most of my sessions).

I have looked up each of the top 100 contractors according to Washington Technology and they are all here- in force, and I am connected with most of them.

For the last few years I knew Feds and other government officials (state and local) were on Linkedin because I saw them in various groups and many have connected with me.

But I needed more and decided to do a little digging to see what some of the actual numbers are.

Here is a sampling of what I found for Federal agencies on LinkedIn:

USDA:   5.982
DOC:     5,225
DOD:     21,679
DOE:     2,876
GSA:     11,314
HHS:     5,120
NASA:  7,298
OMB:    252
VA:       31,079

And these are only the people who list the HQ as the employer, not the sub-agency. NIH, for example, lists 11,229 employees on LinkedIn, more than 2x the number of members than HQ.

The more intelligently active you are on LinkedIn the more likely it is you will find the people you are looking for. If you look in groups that should be germane to their professional interests, you will probably find them. If you participate in the groups, they will notice you.

If you had any doubts about Federal employees or managers using LinkedIn before, I suggest you take another look.