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LinkedIn – Best Practices For You and Your Business

LinkedIn is a professional, business networking tool that is too
easily lumped into the social networking service. Even though
many of the same modes of operation are employed, the focus is
on professionals, professional dialog, professional
opportunities, and companies.

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/4/74b/8b3

- 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.