Are you Using Linkedin Effectively?

More and more business professionals are using Linkedin to connect and reconnect with contacts and market themselves. But some of my clients have confided with me of late that they feel like they are being left behind, and need a quick lesson in Linkedin to keep them at the cutting edge.

Linkedin is the most “B2B” oriented of the social networks, and unlike other sites like Facebook and Twitter, it allows you to maintain your professional profile and connections all in one place, but doesn’t pollute your business image with your private life.  It has more than 70 million registered users, from over 200 countries.

Joining Linkedin is easy, but turning it into a powerful networking tool takes a bit of savvy.  So here is how to get it working for you.

1. Create a compelling profile

You profile needs to clearly detail what you have done in your careers, and articulate what you want or plan to do.

To get yourself started on Linkedin, you first need to set up a profile.  You could just cut and paste your resume, and be done with it, but this would be a lost opportunity.  Instead, consider spending a little time reflecting on what makes you tick professionally, and do more than just fill in the blanks on the easy-to-set up profile forms.

There is two important things to note with your linkedin Profile:

a)      Defining yourself – use your headline well. Under your name, there is a short headline that can take up to four or five words.  People find and define you by this headline, so ensure that it reflects your “purpose” and “personal brand”.

b)      What you have done before – Use this section to show off your diversity, breadth and skills.  This is more than a resume, it is an aspirational tool!  But… remember that many of the people you have worked with before may sign up as your connections, and read your profile, so BE HONEST, and don’t over-decorate your employment history too much.  If you were the junior consultant on a team, with a former employer, then don’t rephrase it as “Senior consultant” to decorate your page, as it will be blaringly obvious to others, and reflect on your integrity.

Things you should be wary of

1. Only include the contact details that you are comfortable to make public.  Your contact details will only be available to those you are connected with, but, even then, you might not want to post your phone or email.
2. Don’t post things that you wouldn’t want your fellow colleagues to know about you.  Remember that Linkedin is for your professional relationships, so it probably isn’t the forum to announce your political alignment, religious affiliations or favourite TV shows.

2.     Build your Network Actively

The goal of using Linkedin actively is to provide you with an easy way to interact with your network of contacts, keeping up with everyone else’s progress, and connecting with new people who share your professional interests.

‘After you have created your profile, it is time to begin to connect with other people that you know.  Much like Facebook and other Social Networks, you have to search for those you know and invite them to connect, but there are tools available that will grab your Outlook address book and search Linkedin for each person in it, inviting them if they are signed up.

Once you connect with someone, you can then look at their profiles, and the profiles of anyone that they know.  You can then invite people from your extended networks to connect with you, or find a friend to make an introduction to someone that you want to know.

We have two important tips during this stage:

a)      Before you start connecting with people randomly, decide who you want to connect with.  Linkedin suggests in its FAQ, “only invite those that you know and trust”, and if your receive in invite from a seemind stranger, ask yourself whether you would take a call from this person on a busy day.  Remember that if you invite strangers into your network you open yourself up to spam.

b)      You can reject people tastefully.  If someone contacts you and you don’t want to form a connection with them, you don’t need to be rude.  When looking at the invitation to connect, simply hit “archive” and it will go away, but the other person will not receive any message that says that their invitation has been rejected.  Likewise, if someone you have added to your network becomes painful, pushing too much information on you, or aggressively demanding introductions you can remove them from your network easily, and without the contact knowing they are out of your network.  If only it were so easy in real life.

3.    Put your Network to good use

Now that you are connected, there is a few things you can do to leverage that network and get it working for you.

There is five main things that your network can do for you:

a)      Answer business related questions and allow you to answer other’s questions; By clicking on the menu item, “Answers” you can easily see all of the questions being aswed by people in your large, extended network.  Queries can range from complex business queries to general advice.  Participating in the Question/Answer process is an easy way of gaining reputation points, and trust from your extended network, and writing answers allows you to show off your expertise to others.

b)      Make (and receive) recommendations and introductions to new people . Your linked in profile is a wonderful source for testimonials, endorsements and feedback from those who are happy with your work.  You can reciprocate the joy of receiving pleasant recommendations, by writing them for your colleagues, peers and service providers too.  Be giving… your generosity will feel good.

c)       Provide or seek company information.  Linked in has a company listing that allows you to search on a company, and their associated employees in your extended networks.  A very powerful took if you can find use for it.

d)      Assist in finding a job, or an employee. In the USA, more than 80% of job placements are apparently occurring through Linkedin.  Now Australia, on the other hand is nowhere near this level of takeup, there is clearly application for Linkedin in the job seeking and employee finding (and checking) process.  This is only going to get more and more prolific in Australia, so watch and wait… job boards will be prolific in months, no doubt.

e)      Allow you to communicate within “Groups” or networks with common interests, allowing you to focus your message much more tightly.  The groups area of Linkedin is one well worth understanding better.  Take some time out and read through the groups in your area of interest (search by keywords), location, and profession.  There are groups for almost every locations, profession and interest out there in the world, so be sure to find and join the groups and survey the possibilities.  We do a lot within the Linkedin groups we are on, trying to engage with them and connect within our industries with fervor.

Now there is lots more detail we could go into, but I am conscious that this blog is getting very long, so will save the next round of tidbits for another article.

It is worth considering, before we conclude, the time-loss that lies ahead of you.    When you start dabbling in social media for business networking, you will need to understand how easy it is to lose time and achieve a limited ROI for it.  It is important to allocate your time carefully, and ensure that you get back a range of realistic benefits and returns for your time investment.  I use the standard allocation of about 20 minutes per day.  Unless I am blogging, I can usually catch up with a few people, and connect with a few more in that time using my groups, answers and connection capability.

So, if you didnt know already, there is plenty to be done to get your Linkedin Profile working for you.  AND, it will be important to understand  that as the new, younger generations who were born into electronic tools become more and more pivotal in business, business communications techniques such as Linkedin will undoubtedly become more popular, and even more powerful than they are today.  So stay one step ahead, by staying interested in this changing communication tool.

Share with us your favourite way to use Linkedin…. or try out our tips and see what you think… I look forward to your feedback.