LinkedIn is a professional social network that’s gaining a lot of ground these days. While it’s nowhere near Facebook and Twitter in terms of the numbers of users, it’s still a powerful tool within professional circles.
As of August 2010, there were 75 million registered users of the business oriented social network that launched in 2003. The site allows you to maintain a list of business contacts and see who your contacts know. The network serves as a great tool to find a job, new customers and other business opportunities. Members can also list positions available at their company.
LinkedIn is different from Facebook in that it’s strictly a professional business networking utility – no personal fluff here. It’s a valuable tool for freelancers and small businesses because one, it allows you to passively keep up-to-date information for professional contacts as well as enabling others to find you based on your background and who you know.
Continue reading for a quick summary on 5 best practices for using LinkedIn.
1. Customize your profile’s URL
Give yourself and/or your company a unique URL that your contacts and their friends will remember. To customize your URL, go to “edit my profile” and click ‘edit’ next to ‘Public Profile,’ which is a little way down the page.
2. Include a link to your LinkedIn profile page in your email signature
Be sure everyone you interact with through traditional email knows about your LinkedIn profile. Adding this link to your email signature differs from one email client program to the next. For Gmail, you can click ‘settings’ in the upper right-hand corner. You will then see a text box about halfway down the page labeled ‘signature’ where you can enter your profile’s URL.
3. Connect with existing email contacts
One handy feature of LinkedIn – it scans your list of existing email contacts in Gmail, Outlook and other email applications. Doing so will allow you to invite business contacts who are not LinkedIn users. To do this, click ‘add connections’ on the left side of the screen in LinkedIn and follow the instructions.
4. Use Toolbars in your Browser and Outlook
These features allow you to add a LinkedIn icon next to email addresses in Gmail and Outlook. The icon(s) allow you to see a LinkedIn summary of anyone that emails you who is a member of the network. They also allow you to update contacts in your email program(s) based on changes people make in their profiles.
5. Include a picture in your profile
Make it easier for business contacts to recognize you at an industry event. We all know the old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.”
These are just a few of the ways you can effectively use LinkedIn as a professional resource. As far as etiquette, it’s still evolving. However, it’s pretty clear now to veteran users of the network that it’s okay connect with anyone you would normally give a business card to.
And only include your name in that specific field. Some have included other information like their job title but experience has shown this does nothing but wreak havoc when integrating contacts with an email client like Outlook.
Beyond that, don’t feel pressured to reply to every inquiry you get on LinkedIn. Contacts sometimes may ask you to forward their name to someone on your contact list. If you’re not comfortable doing this, it’s okay to say no.
This is our first foray into the world of LinkedIn. While SEO Advantage maintains a LinkedIn profile, we haven’t spent any time here talking about it. As time goes on, we’ll learn more new and innovative ways you can harness this tool to generate new business, make new contacts and connect with your colleagues.