7 Ways to Use LinkedIn Effectively
LinkedIn is a business oriented social networking site providing professional network service free of cost. It is an online hub of professionals and companies which is helpful in many ways such as:
• To find people
• To find jobs
• To find businesses
Most of us use LinkedIn for the above stated purposes only which makes this tool under-utilized. You will be surprised to know that as per the statistics of May 2009, LinkedIn had more than 40 million registered users spanning across 170 distinct yet related industries. Owing to this fact, there are many things that we can achieve (both at the personal and professional level) with this free service.
1. Develop Connections - This is a must for every account holder, whether an individual or a company who wants to get seen across the websites and especially the search engines. Developing as many connections as possible increases the chance of profile being viewed by other people. This strategy encourages the people to enter into professional relationship with you as they contemplate your massive connections to good trust.
2. Make Proper Connections - In order to achieve what is stated in step 1, don't go about adding irrelevant or vague connections. Start by adding your friends, colleagues, clients and family members. Along with this try adding connections which are directly related to your direct connections i.e. friend of a friend.
3. Use it as a Social Media Optimization tool - The best part of LinkedIn is that the profile pages achieve good search engine results page ranking as well as good PageRank too. Utilize this opportunity properly and make the best use of the links that LinkedIn allows you to create. E.g. you can place links of your company and blog. Try to incorporate the name or your keyword in the anchor text by selecting the "Other" option when entering the information. Moreover, as you develop your connections over the time period the more important your profile gets.
4. Utilize the power of Answers section - The "Answers" section of LinkedIn is often not utilized properly. Since LinkedIn is not just another social networking platform and is a hub of professionals, quality is expected. You can use it to ask question related to your profession or business and get a rational view from experts free of cost. Moreover, if you are an expert in your domain, you can use it to build the authority by answering the questions of other members. Remember, building authority among professionals at global level is a chance you rarely get and it has long term benefits attached to it.
5. Search smartly - The real beauty of LinkedIn lies in its power of search. Anyone who is a member can search for people, jobs and companies. The best part is that these three domains are perfectly segregated and separate searched can be performed as per the requirement. It also allows the user to save the searched for future references.
6. Know about the company - If you are entering into business relationship with a company or are about to join it then LinkedIn is a tool to reckon with. It gives the detailed information not only about the company but also of the employees. Just make a search about the company by entering the company name and you will definitely be impressed with what you see.
7. Know about an individual - If you want to have some information about an individual prior to making any kind of deal with him/her just use the people search option of LinkedIn and you will get all the professional information about the individual. In case if you don't know the full name of the person there are loads of other options which can help you to zero upon him/her.
How You Can Use LinkedIn to Get Success in Your Business and Professional Career? Why You Should Use It? Watch this Free Presentation at: http://LinkedinSuccess.org
• To find people
• To find jobs
• To find businesses
Most of us use LinkedIn for the above stated purposes only which makes this tool under-utilized. You will be surprised to know that as per the statistics of May 2009, LinkedIn had more than 40 million registered users spanning across 170 distinct yet related industries. Owing to this fact, there are many things that we can achieve (both at the personal and professional level) with this free service.
1. Develop Connections - This is a must for every account holder, whether an individual or a company who wants to get seen across the websites and especially the search engines. Developing as many connections as possible increases the chance of profile being viewed by other people. This strategy encourages the people to enter into professional relationship with you as they contemplate your massive connections to good trust.
2. Make Proper Connections - In order to achieve what is stated in step 1, don't go about adding irrelevant or vague connections. Start by adding your friends, colleagues, clients and family members. Along with this try adding connections which are directly related to your direct connections i.e. friend of a friend.
3. Use it as a Social Media Optimization tool - The best part of LinkedIn is that the profile pages achieve good search engine results page ranking as well as good PageRank too. Utilize this opportunity properly and make the best use of the links that LinkedIn allows you to create. E.g. you can place links of your company and blog. Try to incorporate the name or your keyword in the anchor text by selecting the "Other" option when entering the information. Moreover, as you develop your connections over the time period the more important your profile gets.
4. Utilize the power of Answers section - The "Answers" section of LinkedIn is often not utilized properly. Since LinkedIn is not just another social networking platform and is a hub of professionals, quality is expected. You can use it to ask question related to your profession or business and get a rational view from experts free of cost. Moreover, if you are an expert in your domain, you can use it to build the authority by answering the questions of other members. Remember, building authority among professionals at global level is a chance you rarely get and it has long term benefits attached to it.
5. Search smartly - The real beauty of LinkedIn lies in its power of search. Anyone who is a member can search for people, jobs and companies. The best part is that these three domains are perfectly segregated and separate searched can be performed as per the requirement. It also allows the user to save the searched for future references.
6. Know about the company - If you are entering into business relationship with a company or are about to join it then LinkedIn is a tool to reckon with. It gives the detailed information not only about the company but also of the employees. Just make a search about the company by entering the company name and you will definitely be impressed with what you see.
7. Know about an individual - If you want to have some information about an individual prior to making any kind of deal with him/her just use the people search option of LinkedIn and you will get all the professional information about the individual. In case if you don't know the full name of the person there are loads of other options which can help you to zero upon him/her.
How You Can Use LinkedIn to Get Success in Your Business and Professional Career? Why You Should Use It? Watch this Free Presentation at: http://LinkedinSuccess.org
Do's and Don'ts of LinkedIn For Success
DO keep your profile current.
A pox on the person who lets her LinkedIn profile languish! If you can't be bothered to keep your profile current, why should another person bother to engage with you? If I receive a Contact request, jump over to the requester's profile, and find that its details don't match what's in the requester's email message, I'm already underwhelmed. Bonus: when you update your profile, you can send a one-click blast message to let your entire first-degree network know about your news. Note: please don't abuse this feature! Reserve profile-update blasts for news on the order of a job promotion, book launch or appointment to a national commission....as opposed to news items like "I have started my PMP certification class."
DON'T confuse quantity for quality.
If I were a recruiter, I'd build the biggest network I could, on LinkedIn or otherwise. After all, there's zero downside to being able to view, and reach, a massive number of candidates when your job is locating talent. But for the rest of us, it's easy to get the notions "a big network" and "a strong network" confused. The question to ask yourself is "could I recommend this person, and could he recommend me?" If not, the principal value in any individual LinkedIn connection will be your ability to view his network (and vice versa). That's not a bad thing, but it would be a shame to mistake that kind of visibility for influence. Amassing connections can become a kind of addiction, but withdrawal will kick in when these near-strangers begin to ask you to vouch for them to your dearest friends.
DON'T pass along questionable requests.
I got religion on this item in an instant last summer, when a fellow asked me to send a friend of mine a spammy invitation to his business conference. "I can't do it," I wrote, "it's purely a marketing message." The gentleman's return message essentially ripped my head off, affirming my initial gut reaction that his request was an improper one. Don't hesitate to stand up for yourself and for your friends when sketchy requests come down the pike (and they will). If you pass along every bit of dreck that finds you, your trusted friends will start to doubt you, and that's a far worse fate than having to write to another LinkedIn user, "I'm sorry, but I don't feel comfortable passing this on."
DON'T abuse the Find Colleagues feature.
LinkedIn's Find Colleagues feature allows you to find old workmates and send unmediated connection requests to them, a boon if you've lost their email addresses over the years. Unfortunately, it's easy to abuse the feature by listing false employers or dates of employment on your profile. What can we say about this? If you believe in the wheel of karma, avoid the temptation to claim employers and employment dates you're not entitled to.
DO disconnect from bad apples when you need to.
Finally, it's worth noting that LinkedIn gives you the ability to disconnect from other users if you find that the connection no longer works for you. If you're plagued by inappropriate requests or other annoyances from one of your connections, you can cut the cord and save yourself from recurring headaches. Some people just don't get the notion of an online community with standards and norms; and it's not your job to teach them how to behave. Just move on.
A pox on the person who lets her LinkedIn profile languish! If you can't be bothered to keep your profile current, why should another person bother to engage with you? If I receive a Contact request, jump over to the requester's profile, and find that its details don't match what's in the requester's email message, I'm already underwhelmed. Bonus: when you update your profile, you can send a one-click blast message to let your entire first-degree network know about your news. Note: please don't abuse this feature! Reserve profile-update blasts for news on the order of a job promotion, book launch or appointment to a national commission....as opposed to news items like "I have started my PMP certification class."
DON'T confuse quantity for quality.
If I were a recruiter, I'd build the biggest network I could, on LinkedIn or otherwise. After all, there's zero downside to being able to view, and reach, a massive number of candidates when your job is locating talent. But for the rest of us, it's easy to get the notions "a big network" and "a strong network" confused. The question to ask yourself is "could I recommend this person, and could he recommend me?" If not, the principal value in any individual LinkedIn connection will be your ability to view his network (and vice versa). That's not a bad thing, but it would be a shame to mistake that kind of visibility for influence. Amassing connections can become a kind of addiction, but withdrawal will kick in when these near-strangers begin to ask you to vouch for them to your dearest friends.
DON'T pass along questionable requests.
I got religion on this item in an instant last summer, when a fellow asked me to send a friend of mine a spammy invitation to his business conference. "I can't do it," I wrote, "it's purely a marketing message." The gentleman's return message essentially ripped my head off, affirming my initial gut reaction that his request was an improper one. Don't hesitate to stand up for yourself and for your friends when sketchy requests come down the pike (and they will). If you pass along every bit of dreck that finds you, your trusted friends will start to doubt you, and that's a far worse fate than having to write to another LinkedIn user, "I'm sorry, but I don't feel comfortable passing this on."
DON'T abuse the Find Colleagues feature.
LinkedIn's Find Colleagues feature allows you to find old workmates and send unmediated connection requests to them, a boon if you've lost their email addresses over the years. Unfortunately, it's easy to abuse the feature by listing false employers or dates of employment on your profile. What can we say about this? If you believe in the wheel of karma, avoid the temptation to claim employers and employment dates you're not entitled to.
DO disconnect from bad apples when you need to.
Finally, it's worth noting that LinkedIn gives you the ability to disconnect from other users if you find that the connection no longer works for you. If you're plagued by inappropriate requests or other annoyances from one of your connections, you can cut the cord and save yourself from recurring headaches. Some people just don't get the notion of an online community with standards and norms; and it's not your job to teach them how to behave. Just move on.
