Grabbed Data from LinkedIn via Data Mining
Helped a Swiss Manufacturing Company by Providing Contact Information
It is a leading manufacturing company that operates globally but is based in Switzerland. It manufactures different elements like scales, analytical instruments, weighting equipment, precision instruments, and many more. The company has been manufacturing all these items for more than 25 years now and it is currently dominating the industry. Not limited to this, our client has become one of the largest providers of weight instruments recently.
Company's Requirements
The company is doing great but facing a strategic challenge at the managerial level. The company wants some senior management professionals who can give directions to the company. Therefore, the company was searching for a data mining partner that could provide them with information. AskDataEntry came forward to assist the company with data mining services. The client specifically wanted to mine data from the LinkedIn directory to find data on senior management professionals.
Importance of Data Mining for any Company
Companies, especially those that operate at the global level, need wider support for data for many reasons. To get all the data, companies prefer a data mining process, which is faster and more efficient to collect data. Companies prefer to choose any publicly available data sources to mine data for their use. The LinkedIn directory is an efficient example of such a data source, which has wide usage.
Like the client's company, many other companies mine data for different purposes. Some companies generate customer leads by mining data from publicly available sources. On the other hand, some companies take help from data mining to study competitors and their strategies. Data mining also covers social media platforms as well where businesses can pick relevant information from open social platforms. Data mining fills the data gap and makes the business competitive with relevant information.
Challenges Faced by the Company
The company is a large manufacturing firm but it does not have any specific team to handle data mining work. Because of that, the company has faced a lot of challenges in operations. The main aim here is to find the issues of mining data from the LinkedIn repository. However, the challenges of the client were unique and needed unique solutions.
a. Access to Only a Few Closed Groups
The company has access to LinkedIn profiles through its own account but to only a few closed groups. These groups were good in terms of providing relevant information that was exactly what the company was looking for. However, due to limited access to these groups, the company gets only a limited amount of data. This was not meeting the demand of the company and thus they opted for outsourcing.
b. Blocked Access
The company has hired an in-house team for data mining work but has not invested in technology as such. As a result, the in-house team faced tremendous pressure in mining data from the LinkedIn repository. LinkedIn blocked the access of the team members because they tried to extract multiple profiles using a single IP. The blockage was occasionally and LinkedIn removed the block after some days. However, the company does not have the time to wait for a few days to get access to LinkedIn again.
c. Urgency of Data
Getting in touch with some management professionals was not a new dream for the company. Thus, the company looking for an expert partner to perform all the LinkedIn work quickly. The client was in a hurry to get all the information quickly from the LinkedIn repository. However, due to not having any efficient team members, mining data from the LinkedIn repository was delayed. It affected the company's analysis department as it did not get the data at the right time.
Custom Solutions AskDataEntry Implemented
AskDataEntry performed many projects related to data mining before thus it was an easy project for us. However, we did not underestimate the different nature of this project so gave our 100% to understand the requirements first. We made our communication channel with the client strong enough to operate the project smoothly. We followed these simple strategies in order to provide our custom solution to the client.
a. Using Cutting-edge Software
We understand the requirement for the latest software and thus we performed our work accordingly. The client wanted to have a clean database of LinkedIn data for their easy search. Therefore, we have used cutting-edge software to get all data accurately from the LinkedIn repository. Besides that, the software helps us in completing the project on time.
b. Extraction and Formatting
Based on the client's input, we have extracted all necessary information including name, email IDs, country, job profile, etc. Simultaneously, we have stored all data in the digital database to manage time. We have used a tabular format to represent all data in the right manner. Besides that, we also made changes in our formatting as per the direction of the client in this matter.
c. Record Cleansing
Apart from modifying the database, we have also performed cleansing whenever necessary. This on-the-way cleansing process helped us in removing duplicate files, old records, and many more. For this project, we were successful in eradicating the posting of unwanted data for this project.
d. Record Verification
The client especially demanded a detailed verification of the records for this project. Therefore, we used Google search to verify the data that we got from LinkedIn profiles. For example, we searched Google to check whether the company originally existed or not after checking it from LinkedIn.
e. Alternative Research
To have a more detailed picture of the data, we have opted for the alternative research program. In this program, we used Google Search to verify each piece of data separately to have a true picture. Sometimes the client did not get access to view some profiles, which we viewed through our alternative research.
f. Using Filters to Increase Relevancy
To enhance the relevance of the LinkedIn data, we used a lot of filters in our projects. Using filters helped the client to find relevant datasets easily without making any additional effort. We have followed the same system in the database also using different filters. It helps the user of the LinkedIn database to find relevant information quickly and efficiently.
Ben Jin
We wanted LinkedIn data mining services from AskDataEntry because they were good. They have submitted all files before the estimated period, which is highly commendable. Moreover, the quality of services we got from AskDataEntry has not left us any choice for doubts.
