5 Ways To Get More From LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a good place to market yourself, your business, or your products and services. If you haven’t given it a chance yet, you should take a look. It has none of the obnoxious backgrounds or unexpected music that you get with some sites. Everyone’s profile is set up similarly so that once you are familiar with the general layout you’ll be able to navigate easily.

So how can you get the most from your LinkedIn experience? Here are five ways to better your experience.

Create a complete profile
Fill out as much information as you can in your profile. Pay careful attention to the summary, which gives you a chance to encapsulate your skills and best selling points. Do you own a company? Talk it up. Are you an independent contractor? Tell us what you do. What you say in your summary can be your first introduction to potential contacts.

Network like crazy
Add professional connections to your profile. It’s through these people that you can find potential clients, customers, or even vendors. Don’t just “collect” people though. The best way to keep LinkedIn useful is to only add people who you know personally or professionally. You’ll be able to keep track of contacts and be taken more seriously as someone who’s there to connect with people rather than build a collection of names.

Get recommended
Ask people you trust to endorse you and your work. A recommendation is a short blurb telling others why they should hire you, work with your company, or whatever else is relevant. Just make sure that you reciprocate by recommending a few of your own contacts. If you only collect recommendations and don’t bother helping out others, people may become reluctant to put in a good word for you. Remember, social networking is about sharing.

Join groups
There are many professional groups and associations represented on LinkedIn. Join a few that are relevant to you. You’ll gain access to a larger group of contacts who share an interest with you. You can start discussions, post links to relevant news items, and contribute to conversations. Just be careful not to push yourself or your business too hard. You have to contribute to conversations with relevant info. Prove your expertise without sounding like a blowhard. Build up some trust with others and they’ll be more open to hearing your pitch.

Answer questions
There’s an “answers” section on the site. Users post a variety of questions. Find your area of expertise and join the conversations. It’s a way to gain authority and meet more people. Again, adding relevant information can help increase your visibility. Just be careful not to over-promote. Read several answers from a variety of topics to get the feel for what people are looking for.

With these steps, you’ll be on your way to making good use of LinkedIn. Many more promotion opportunities will arise as the site continues to add new features. Are there any other aspects of LinkedIn that you’d like us to cover? Let me know in the comments or via e-mail.

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