Getting Linkedin

May 19

Getting Linkedin

LinkedIn, along with Facebook and Twitter, is among the most popular Social Media platforms available to users today. What sets LinkedIn apart from the other two platforms is that it provides a unique opportunity for members to both establish new professional relationships and re-establish old relationships. Additionally, LinkedIn users, through their network of connections, can receive assistance when looking for a job and receive expert advice in answer to questions. While LinkedIn presents the user with a powerful tool, exactly how to develop a worthy profile and implement LinkedIn effectively can be a daunting task.

The first time you went to LinkedIn to register for an account, you might have been overwhelmed. ..and the second time, and maybe even the tenth time. Although LinkedIn is an easy platform to work in, it is information rich. Initially, the new user should focus on the information given in the New User Starter Guide and not be too concerned about all of the other available features at the start. The format of LinkedIn provides an excellent resource to aid the new user in the New User Starter Guide, giving step by step instructions in completing each section of the Profile Page. Completing the Profile Page will remind you of writing a resume and you may find it equally time intensive to create an effective profile. Greg Brown in Guide to Getting the Most Out of LinkedIn states the user may be tempted to skip some of the steps, but he urges the user not to do this.

“Register first at LinkedIn.com and don’t skip anything. Creating a complete online profile, which is essentially a form of resume, is key to enjoying all the possible connections. Put in your current job, all past jobs by date, all schools, any clubs, whatever. Why? Because then LinkedIn can show you every possible person on the network that you might know from each place or time. Weirder still: People you know from one place know others from a second place in the past. Suddenly, those connections are made visible.”

The profile on LinkedIn is so powerful that Guy Kawasaki used his contact at Linkedin to have his profile analyzed and give it an “extreme makeover” (How to Change the World-LinkedIn Profile Extreme Makeover). The powerful writer’s profile was deemed boring and in almost every section, he was given advice on enhancing his profile. One of the easiest ways to beef up a profile is to get a vanity URL. The default URL for an account is a series of numbers and letters following LinkedIn’s web address. A vanity URL, using your name or the name of your company is easy to obtain and it is free. Just click on edit under your current Public Profile URL to make the change.

The next step in having a successful account on LinkedIn is to make contacts. On your Home Page How do you begin to make connections? The easiest way is to import your email contacts from a web-based client such as Hotmail, AOL, or Gmail. If you use Outlook or Thunderbird, export your contacts to a .csv file and import the file to LinkedIn. You can add even more contacts to your account through the search for former colleagues and classmates. As in Facebook, you can only invite people to join your network and wait for them to connect to you. Greg Brown suggests:

“Upload anyone and everyone you do business with, and invite them. Once you get registered, it will even scour your Web-based mail automatically.”

Once you have set up your basic account, you can make enhancements to your account in order to make it work for you. Join groups with whom you have a common interest. Ask questions. Answer questions and join in on discussions. Are you a job seeker? Use the Profile feature to create an online resume and search LinkedIn for connections for that new job and to research a company. If you are an employer, use LinkedIn to check references. The possibilities are endless.

The best advice I can give on learning to use LinkedIn comes from Steve McKee in Why Social Media Is Worth Small Business Owners’ Time:

“If you were to take on, say, one social networking site per month, by the end of ’09 you would be ahead of 90% or more of your peers [and your competitors]. And it would have the added benefit of helping you relate to the emerging workforce for whom all of this is second nature. If you do, I’m convinced you’d have at least one new customer, product idea, or other business-building asset to show for it within weeks.”

The basics of setting up a LinkedIn account are straightforward; however, your interests and needs must drive adding enhancements to your account. We have chosen our favorite guides to LinkedIn. What are your favorites? What would you add to our list?

The Best LinkedIn Guides

Job Hunting

LinkedIn – How to Use LinkedIn for Job Searching and Networking

LinkedIn and What Color Is Your Parachute? – A Practical Guide to Job Hunting

3 Responses to “Getting Linkedin”

G8WorldTravel says:

May 20, 2009 at 9:29 am

Thank you for this guide. It’s excellent!
LearnSpanishOL says:

May 22, 2009 at 4:10 am

I am new on Linkedin and totally enjoy it. This guide is like water in the dessert for me. Very informative, and resourceful. Thank you very much!
Monica
AndrewBoldman says:

June 4, 2009 at 10:56 am

Great post! Just wanted to let you know you have a new subscriber- me!