LinkedIn tells us that:

* LinkedIn has over 70 million members in over 200 countries.
* A new member joins LinkedIn approximately every second, and about half of our members are outside the U.S.
* Executives from all Fortune 500 companies are LinkedIn members.

To me that states clearly that if you have almost ANY kind of business and are prospecting, LI will be a good resource for you. But just setting up a profile and dabbling once a week or so is not going to do much for your prospecting efforts. Below are a few tips that not many folks know about, but are powerful techniques for increasing your visibility and maximizing that “inbound marketing” that Social Media is known for.

1. Create 3 saved searches. If you are doing a search on a company, person, industry or whatever, save your searches. At the top where you see the number of records in your search you’ll see a “save this search” button – you get 3 if you are at the basic level. LI will send you a weekly email, if you want, to get updates to your search.

2. Recommendations are important, so ask for them. But make it easy. I first call or email my contact and ask if they will recommend me. If so, write the recommendation yourself – so you are sure that you are sending the right message. Be sure to talk about the problems you solved – that’s really the point, isn’t it?

3. Use the Question and Answer area to gain more visibility on the Internet. On the question that you answer you will see a “share this” with a drop down menu. You can email your network, Digg it, Bookmark the question on Delicious, or use the link provided in your answer and link to one of your blog posts, or somewhere else on your site to pull in traffic.

4. Join groups that are in line with your business, your objectives or your hoped for job. Fish where the fish are. The more “on target” the group, the more valuable the content they provide, and the networking opportunities will be.

5. Use groups to expand your network, but be selective. In the groups tabs, you will see “Groups Directory”. Select that and on the next page use Search Groups, selecting “other” from the drop down categories menu. Join the groups that interest you. Once you are a member, you will have access to the members in that group. Offer to connect with the ones that make sense. You might evaluate based on the size of their network, the type of company or industry they are in or how much interaction they have had with the group.

6. Did you know you can export your connections? Go to “Contacts.” Then “Connections. ” At the bottom of your Connections box is “Export Connections. ” Export the connections and import them into your preferred address book. Do this frequently so you are consolidating all of your contacts in one spot (might be Outlook, Act, Salesforce)

7. Refer to both the LinkedIn Learning Center and their blog. The Learning Center is full of great tutorials and the blog has info on updated and new features with full explanations.

8. For better and more valued networking, when you invite someone to join your network, don’t use the canned LinkedIn message. Say something about who you are and why you want to connect with that person.

9. To really maximize your profile, find one or two LinkedIn specialists (Google that phrase, or check Amazon for authors) and look up their profile. Study carefully and learn by example.

10. Be creative about how you use the Answers section. It can be used to ask for solutions to problems, for resources, for vendors, for processes. But it can also be used to find good connections, or find other groups you may want to join, to deliver information on your products or services, IF it provides an answer to the question. Sometimes you’ve got the perfect solution!

11. You can share a group with your connections – more value added to your community. When you are in a specific group, on the Overview tab you will see an option to “share group” and you can send an email to 50 of your connections.

12. Don’t hop over the “People You May Know” suggestions that appears in the upper right corner of your home page. Expand the box and start connecting with people on an ongoing basis. This is a great way to widen your circle.

LinkedIn is a powerful tool for almost any social media objective – branding, lead generation, or job searching. Invest some time in learning the finer points – you will be glad you did.

This article courtesy of SiteProNews.com

© 2010 – 2011, 1SocialMediaManager.com. All rights reserved. The format and presentations here are creations by this Website owner: ©1984 - Leanne C Boyd. All people and products reviewed here own their respective copyrights.

© 2012 1SocialMediaManager.com. All Rights Reserved.

Technorati Tags: LinkedIn, linkedin tips

This list of LinkedIn best practices was compiled from my work with clients, colleagues and friends who are trying to maximize their professional opportunities. I hope it is also helpful for you.

Get LinkedIn

If you are working, you need to be LinkedIn. If you are not working, you really need to be LinkedIn (however, it would have been better to be LinkedIn when you had a job). If you are a college student, you need to be LinkedIn. The president of the United States is LinkedIn… just do it.

Add Your Picture

A photograph not only personalizes your profile, it completes it. Even though LinkedIn may no longer use a faceless silhouette like other social sites, as shown here, you must keep in mind that this profile is about you, put a face on it.

Finish Your Profile

If you are currently using LinkedIn, or at a minimum signed up for it, finish your profile. Your profile should display 100% Complete. If not, LinkedIn makes it easy with a profile wizard. Typically, you can click on anything green and the wizard recommends ways to increase your profile completeness. It will suggest things to do like; write a recommendation, request a recommendation, add more people, add another job, add educational info, etc. The wizard helps get you to a point of basic critical mass; displaying your completed profile (education & job information) and about 20 connections.

Personalize Your LinkedIin URL

Which looks better to you?

Linkedin.com/pub/coco-design/

- or -

Linkedin.com/in/CocoDesign

Of course the second one is more marketable, more professional, and easier to remember. More importantly, you need to get your personalized LinkedIn URL before someone else, with a similar name, gets it first.

Now that you have a personalized URL, add it to your business email signature so that everyone who gets an email from you -

1. knows you are using LinkedIn,
2. can request to connect to you, and
3. learns about your capabilities when they review your profile.

Answer Questions

This is a great way to build credibility and expertise points. When you answer a question on LinkedIn, the person who asked the question can mark the best answer. The more “best answers” you

have, the more expertise credit you receive in your profile. This is also a great way to connect with people of similar interests or issues.

Asking questions is a good way to receive help from other industry experts and colleagues. It is also good for informal polling. Just do not make it a sales promotion. You will chase people away.

Ask Others if They Use LinkedIn

When you meet someone that you would like to maintain a professional connection with, ask them if they are using LinkedIn and if the would mind if you sent a connection request. This is generally a good question after trading business cards.

Grow Your Connections

Once you have your account to 100% with 20+ connections, you will have created a little momentum. To help keep that going, review your connections’ connections. Chances are you will know a few of those people. Then each time someone connects with you, take a quick look at their connections… you may find one or two that you have a relationship with as well. Send a link request.

Important – Do NOT send invites to people you do not truly have a relationship with. If you receive too many “I don’t know this person” clicks on your request, you will be required to know everyone’s email address to request a connection in the future. Bad juju.

Give and Get Recommendations

LinkedIn is like a living, online professional resume/vita. What makes LinkedIn better than a resume that says, “References available upon request”, is that references are displayed for all to see. These recommendations are written in the words of the sender, you cannot edit them. If there is a problem with a recommendation, you can easily request a revision or choose not to display it. Note: you can only request a recommendation from someone who is currently using LinkedIn.

Outbound Links

Your profile allows you to have three outbound links with labels like “My Company”, “My Website”, “My Blog”, etc. I recommend you change the label to “Other” for all three since you can add personalized keywords to the label enhancing the SEO for the target sites. For example, I could link to this article with the label text “LinkedIn Best Practices Article” to help with my search engine rankings for that keyword phrase. You can also use the “Other” label for Facebook & Twitter links.

Join Groups

By joining Industry and interest-related groups you are connected with a larger group of professionals within that sector. This makes it easier for you to invite others in the same group to connect without the need for knowing their email address. Again, you need to be careful here. Unsolicited invitations could get you hit with a few “I don’t know this person” clicks.

Jobs Area

The jobs area is not only for people looking for work. It is also an excellent place for businesses to list job opportunities. Our small company does not use Monster, Career Builder, Ladders, etc.; it would simply be too overwhelming. When we are looking for someone, we only use LinkedIn Jobs. Not only can I review the person’s professional profile and associations, we can get an idea of how closely we are connected. Job postings can be sent directly to people in your list of contacts and they usually have good recommendations for potential candidates.

LinkedIn Company

If you are a business owner add your company to the Company’s area. If your company is already listed, make sure the information is accurate and up to date.

Install the Toolbars

LinkedIn has both a browser toolbar and an Outlook toolbar. The former works well with Gmail, with both IE & Firefox and, of course, the latter works with Microsoft Outlook. The toolbars add a LinkedIn icon next to a person’s email addresses in your mailbox. This enables you to see their profile information and makes it easier to send an invitation to connect.

Givers Gain

Bottom line, the more you give the more you get back.

• The more information you share about yourself, the better the search feature will return you or your company as a result.

• The more recommendations you give, the more likely someone is to give you one.

• The more questions you ask or answer the more likely you are to connect with people of similar interests that you may never have had the opportunity to meet.

This article courtesy of SiteProNews.com

© 2010 – 2011, 1SocialMediaManager.com. All rights reserved. The format and presentations here are creations by this Website owner: ©1984 - Leanne C Boyd. All people and products reviewed here own their respective copyrights.

© 2012 1SocialMediaManager.com. All Rights Reserved.

Technorati Tags: build credibility, colleagues, grow your connections, industry experts, join groups, link request, LinkedIn, marketable, networking tool, personalized URL, professional, profile, similar interests