Archive for July, 2008

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Disclaimer: This post is meant to be a light-hearted review of people spending too much time on Linkedin.  It is not intended to address any addictions.

If the first thing you do in the morning when you hop out of bed is to log into Linkedin, then you may be a Link addict.  If left untreated, it can lead to sleep deprivation, marital problems, and possibly generate no revenue.

10 warning signs…

If you think you are suffering from LA, take the quiz below.  Just answer “true” or “false” to each statement.

1. You find yourself accessing Linkedin, first thing in the morning, and last thing before you go to bed at night in addition to sneaking peaks during the day.
2. You become angry or agitated when your access to Linkedin is slow or prevents you from connecting.
3. Given the choice of reading a book or spending time alone, you choose Linkedin.
4. You check the number of “connections” you have more than once a day.
5. Your Google searches consist of finding new material related to Linkedin.
6. You talk in terms of your friends as first, second or third level connections.
7. It makes perfect sense to you to use something called Answers to ask questions.
8. At family and/or business gatherings, you’re hitting them up to see if they are on Linkedin and interested in connecting with you.
9. You would rather spend time on Linkedin versus spending time with your wife/family/partner/significant other (well, sometimes this might be a god thing)
10. The hair on the back of your neck stands up when someone mentions that Facebook is a social networking site for business

If you answer “true” to one or more of these questions, you may be Linked Addicted.

It has often been said that social media addicts do not want to miss anything; they are glued to the services they use 24/7 as they feel they must have their finger on the pulse and be involved in everything and all conversations.  We will continue to populate this blog with more information, more tips and more techniques for leveraging Linkedin.  So continue to visit but please don’t blame us if you become a Linked Addict!

Social Networking is about connecting others.  One of the biggest questions that comes up is “how can I increase my number of connections”?

Here are 4 relatively simple ways you can do this on Linkedin.  Watch this video and learn how.

4 Ways to Increase Your LinkedIn Connections

LinkedIn isn’t just your ordinary online social networking site. It can help you establish more, and better too, online contacts for your business and increase goodwill for your possible customers. If you use LinkedIn as part of your business model, you will be able to enjoy a number of benefits.

More professionals will be aware of your identity and the business that you have. LinkedIn is more than just another social networking site. It has 8.5 members worldwide and they are all professionals! When you add connections with people with the same business niche that you do, then they will know you and the kinds of services and products that you offer.

LinkedIn can help improve your connectability. You should fill out your profile, your education, the training you’ve had before, the companies that you are affiliated with and the activities that you engage in. This way, people will get a bird’s eye view of who you are and what you can do.

LinkedIn helps you get in touch with professionals who might need your services. We don’t promote spam. But when people starts knowing you and your services and they start talking about you and your products, then you will see the power of word-of-mouth marketing in the Internet. As long as you remain professional in your conduct and relationship with people, they can start promoting your services.

These are but a few of the benefits of using LinkedIn. Remember, it’s not just another social networking site. It can help you grow your business and enhance your online reputation.

LinkedIn is more than just another social networking site in the Internet. It can actually help you in your career development. There are around 20 million professionals connected by LinkedIn. With millions of professionals out there that you can connect with, you can make your career grow with the help of LinkedIn and other professionals.

Your LinkedIn profile maybe considered as your online resume. As a professional, your educational background, your organizational and company affiliations and other important professional information may be shown in your LinkedIn profile. This way, other professionals and employers can easily learn who you are and what you have to offer.
You can also increase your visibility by adding keywords that are related to your profession and to what you do best as a professional. If employers and people who are looking for a resource person related to your field will search for those keywords, you get a better chance of being the first person on the list.

Connect and grow your network. From your email address book, you can easily add friends to your LinkedIn network. You can also search friends who were employed by the same company you are connected with right now. There should be at least 50 people in your first degree connection in order for you to maximize your use of LinkedIn. Anything less than this would just make you another one of those less effective users of LinkedIn.

Use LinkedIn Answers to the Max. Just like Yahoo Answers!, LinkedIn has LinkedIn Answers that allows people to post questions to the network. If you have any concern in your career development or in the way you do your work, you can just use this feature and solicit answer from all sorts of professionals in your network. You can also answer the questions posted by other people in the network so that people can notice what you know and what you have to offer.

LinkedIn is one of the best features of Web 2.0. It connects people and gives them a chance to get together for professional and work-related reasons. With its 20 million users worldwide, it would be great to connect and promote your own professional expertise.

For most people, their Linkedin experience begins with an invitation from someone they know. They go through the signup process as quickly as possible, usually not completely filling out their profile.  Unfortunately, during this process, they tend to overlook one of the very first things in the signup process, which is creating their professional headline.  This is one of the most important elements of a profile, yet it is also one that most people quickly skip past it addressing only the bare minimal requirement.

Think about this.  Do you realize that everyone time your name appears on Linkedin, your professional headline also appears?  Essentially, this functions as your 3 second brand statement or your 3 second bumper sticker.  Let’s illustrate the power of this with a little example… which of these headlines are more powerful?

John Doe – 20 year expert facilitating $100,000,000 in High Tech Mergers

or

Bob Doe – Owner, Doe & Associates

Clearly, the first professional headline is more functional and quickly enables you to understand what John Doe does and where his key strength lay.

Now let’s look at a practical implication of the two headlines above.  Let’s say you are doing a search on High Tech Mergers.  Assume both John Doe and Bob Doe have the right keywords in their profile and they alone show up in the search.   When you look at the search results, all you are able to see is a name and the professional description.  Think about it, who are you going to be drawn to in a list of names, John or Bob Doe?  It is very likely you will at least check out John because he tells you he is an expert in High Tech Mergers while Bob, doesn’t tell you anything of relevance.

Invest in yourself and quickly show the world your expertise and project your brand! Updating your professional headline is something that offers an incredible ROI in terms of benefit gained vs time spent.