Why It’s Important to be LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the best un-new social networking site for business professionals in today’s market.

Why?

First of all, let’s get the basics of LinkedIn and why it’s a site you should be on. LinkedIn was actually launched back in 2003, but had a slow following until the recent popularity of social media sites for business. Prior to that, using LinkedIn was a bit taboo because no professional business person would ever resort to social media to advertise themselves! Oh, how things have changed.

The main idea of the site is to connect business professionals with other business pros that they trust, have worked with or know personally. These connections are carefully maintained by the site to avoid spammers and friend gatherers by asking questions before making a connection with another person. It also helps connect your “6 degrees of separation” by joining groups of other like-minded professionals that you can network with.

Here are the best ways to optimize your experience on LinkedIn:

Write Recommendations
Recommendations are critical in the LinkedIn business experience. Knowing your connections and sharing kudos of their diligent work ethic, creative chutzpah and reliable lunch-dates shares not only help them look good, but you, too! I still believe  that the kindest compliment one can give is a recommendation or referral of their services to others. Proper LinkedIn etiquette states that you should always return the favor of a recommendation.

Join Groups
Joining, and actively participating, in groups will not only establish yourself as an expert in your field, but also connect you to other like-minded business gurus. Participating in the groups helps you to share interesting news articles, questions you may have relating to your business, or just asking thought-provoking questions. There are groups out there for nearly anything you can imagine, and if you can’t find one that suits you – make your own! Becoming a group administrator is super easy, so long as you have the time to keep up with it!

Meet new connections
Your connections connect you with their connections (wow, that’s a mouthful!) and gives you the opportunity to meet and share your experiences with other people in your industry or neighboring industries.If you see people in a “people search” with a “2″ or “3″ by their name, they are connected to you through one or 2 other connections. Bridge the gap! You may also see people with “group” next to their name, showing you that this person shares a common group with you. These are all great people to connect with on a more personal level!

Look for new opportunities
LinkedIn’s job search is one of the highlights of this social site, branching the gap between social and business. Since your profile is much like a resume, full of job experience, personal statements and recommendations – their job search is a great place to look for local (or non-local) employment opportunties. In an economy with high unemployment, if you’re recently laid off or just looking for the next best thing, LinkedIn’s job boards weed out the junk, don’t spam you with offers for community tech-colleges, and keep your job search simple. It’s also a great place for employers to find qualified candidates for their company, by noting when candidates with multiple recommendations are preferred; as well as other important criteria for their business.

Advertise your blog
Who doesn’t have a blog these days? Whether it’s a personal blog of your child’s first year, about your latest hobbies, or business related – you can use the WordPress plugin to showcase your most recent blog posts on your profile. This helps to drive traffic and interest to your blog.

Use the apps
Whether you’re using an iPhone, Palm Pre, or Motorola Startac (ha, remember those? I used to have one!) you can access the LinkedIn app or mobile site for easy, on-the-go, access to LinkedIn! All you need is a web browser and data plan and you can keep up with all things LinkedIn!

So what’s the end result here? LinkedIn can offer a slew of new opportunities if you just know how to get the most out of the site and optimize your Professional-Social Media experience!

Tags: blogging, internet marketing, internet marketing expert, internet marketing help, internet marketing hotline, internet marketing support, linkedin, meredith communications, meredith oliver, professional speaker, Social Media, social media marketing, social networking, web marketing help, web marketing strategy, wordpress

This entry was posted on Monday, July 27th, 2009 at 11:50 am and is filed under Social Media, Tools. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.