When the White House wanted to gather feedback regarding health care reform from U.S. small business owners, it posted a query on LinkedIn.
Why LinkedIn?
Though not the largest social network, LinkedIn has been greatly embraced by the business and professional community as the place to network, trade advice and build business profile.
LinkedIn boasts more than 55 million members in over 200 countries. Executives at every organisational level and from all Fortune 500 companied can be found on its network. According to a recent study, 81% of business-to-business marketers use LinkedIn. The network continues to grow while many social networks have not. Today it possesses a more solid business model than Facebook or Twitter.
In the beginning, LinkedIn appeared just to be a place to build contact lists and post resumes. However new elements have been added that let users get more involved and get closer to their business objectives.
LinkedIn applications that can be added to users’ personal profiles and homepages include
- Company Buzz – tracks what is being said about your company on Twitter, blogs and elsewhere online.
- Tweets – syncs with your Twitter profile to offer basic Twitter capabilities, including the ability to simultaneously update your Twitter and LinkedIn status, display your tweets and view your followers’ tweets.
- Blog Link – users can sync their blogs with their LinkedIn profiles so the most recent blog posts are also automatically published directly on their profiles.
- SlideShare – enables presentation slides to be featured on a user’s profile. Slides can be tagged with keywords so that they appear in search results.
- Google Presentation – uploads PowerPoint presentations to a user’s profile.
- Events – displays upcoming events that you and your contacts plan to attend
- My Travel – powered by TripIt, this application alerts your network to your current location and where you will be travelling.
LinkedIn now also offers a mobile application for accessing the network from any WAP-enabled phone.
Jason Alba author of “I am on LinkedIn – Now What????” suggests that if you are one of those LinkedIn members who really isn't getting much out of LinkedIn, you need to pay attention to his Essential 8 list.
1. Sign in
It sounds simple, but once you sign in you'll see a number of things, including pending invitations, questions that your network has asked, new additions to your network, service providers that your network contacts endorse, and more. This first page is the "what's going on in my network" panel, and you should check it out every once in a while.
2. Check your preferences
LinkedIn allows you to choose what notifications you get via email and what notifications you get just from that logged-in page. If you want to know what's going on without logging in, set your preferences to receive the emails. Alternatively, if you are overwhelmed with emails, set them to not go to your inbox.
3. Flesh out your current job summary
You really should flesh out your entire profile, putting names, dates, duties, accomplishments, strengths, and more. LinkedIn is a trust based networking tool so you need to introduce yourself – and that means a name, not a job description as your title. A one or two paragraph overview on your current job title is a must, and maybe next week flesh out another job you had, and work your way backward.
4. Get a vanity URL
Click on the Profile tab, and then scroll down to the "Public Profile" section. If the link ends in numbers and letter and slashes, click on the edit link and choose your own name (or even company name), to give your public profile a more polished appearance.
5. Put links to other Web sites on your profile
Right above the public profile link is a section where you can put three Web site addresses. If you have a blog, book, Web site, Facebook profile, Twitter account, or something like that, consider putting any of those links there. If you don't have anything you can put your company's Web site. Always choose "other" in the drop down so that you can rename what the link shows the reader.
6. Ask and answer a question
"Answers" (located in “More”) is a valuable place to share knowledge get exposure. You need to understand how powerful it is. The best way to figure it out is to try it. Click on the Answers tab and try it out—many LinkedIn users have told me they are amazed at the results.
7. Search open jobs (even if you are not in a job search)
The job search feature within LinkedIn has an added benefit: It not only tells you about the job but also tells you who you know that might be able to help network into the company. I don't know of any other job board that gives you that critical path to a hiring manager. (Not in a job search? Use it to see what your competition is hiring for; there's great competitive intelligence in job postings.) You can now also elect to “follow” a company so that you can see when people get promoted or leave.
8. Recommend someone
A recommendation is a short endorsement of someone's professional work or talent. Find someone in your network you can comfortably and honestly endorse, and leave a thoughtful, specific recommendation. This will show on their profile, which adds to their credibility. Typically, they will recommend you in return (although you shouldn't expect it), and your profile will be linked to from their profile.
And as a bonus, number nine but this one is different: This is something NOT to do.
Do not invite a ton of people to your network right away. LinkedIn makes it easy to do with either the Outlook toolbar (a tool you download that integrates with Outlook) or the import function to pull your Gmail, Hotmail, or AOL Web mail contacts in. This would seem to be a great way to grow your network and let everyone that you've ever come into contact with, know that you are on LinkedIn. However, LinkedIn has a policy that will lock your account if it thinks you're behaving like a spammer. It's pretty easy to look like a spammer in LinkedIn's system: If five people click on the "I don't know you" button when you invite them, LinkedIn thinks you are a spammer or are otherwise abusing the system, and it will lock your account.
