What is LinkedIn:
LinkedIn is a business orientated social network with over 75 million users that enables you to make better use of your professional network and help the people you trust in return.
LinkedIn is like an online and interactive version of the old rolodex (business card file). While your profile is like an online ‘resume’, LinkedIn is also a way to both demonstrate your expertise and utilise the expertise of others, make business connections, and help connect others in your network with each other proving the people you want to connect with are usually only ‘two degrees’ of separation away.
How you can use LinkedIn:
LinkedIn is a good place to network professionally, post and find jobs, and answer questions and build thought leadership. It’s also a good way to identify influential individuals at specific organisations.
Use questions and answers; LinkedIn includes a questions and answer section. Establish yourself as expert in your area by answering questions relevant to your business.
Or – Ask for help with thoughtful questions.
Include other content: Using applications you can feed in your blog posts or twitter status and even your Slideshare presentations to your profile page.
Start or join groups: Anyone can start a group on LinkedIn and this is a great way to raise your profile or get discussions starting around a topic. Or join an existing group by searching in the directory and add your discussions.
Recommend people: One way to get recommended yourself (and such a testimonial could be a competitive advantage) is to write honest recommendation of people.
List your event: Add your event to the events section (it’s free) or search for events that might be relevant to you.
Add your company: You can also add in your company to Linkedin. People can then ‘follow’ your company to keep up-to-date with any staff changes etc.
Learn how to set up your own Linkedin Profile by taking the 30-day Social Media Challenge »
