Archive for August, 2009

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Making the Most out of your LinkedIn Profile Status Update

When you are blown away by the nice professional features that LinkedIn offers, it is easy to make LinkedIn a part of your daily routine where you can check how you’re connected colleagues and other professional contacts are doing, search for new people, answer questions in groups, and more. The home panel of LinkedIn is filled with tons of things that you can do to keep you busy for hours.

But what about considering what the daily routines of your connections are? Maybe they are wondering what is new with you. Sure you can update your profile with some new information, but your connections need to go deep into your profile to notice these changes. Fortunately, there is a somewhat hidden feature known as the Profile Status Bar where you can easily keep your profile fresh and have that information readily displayed in your profile for all your connections to notice.

Where the Status Update is Found

You can find a link to the Status Update on the left panel of your LinkedIn Home. It can be found just above the meter that describes your profile percentage. The link is labeled “What are you working on?” Clicking on this link will reveal a textbox where you can simply answer that question and it will be shown on your profile. The position of this link may change in the future.

What to put on your Status Update

If you are really unsure in what to put, try to focus on what the question is which is “What are you working on?” Simply answer it and make sure it is related to business and you are done. Just remember that when you are already finished with what you are working on, you should change it to the next thing you are working on or erase the message so that it becomes blank again.

There is a character limit so you can’t really put paragraphs of information, but you can put a link to more information such as a blog link or an article that you recently wrote. You can even use it to ask a question or share a tip if you have lots of connections that are willing to be enlightened.

What not to put on your Status Update

Remember that LinkedIn isn’t designed to replace any of your existing social networking sites so if you wish to show personal status updates or greet friends, make sure you make use of those updates in those areas and refrain from doing that in LinkedIn. Your network may consist of people that you know personally and some others professionally so they may not relate to what you have on your update.

Once you gotten used to the Status Update, do not hesitate to use the feature often. Some people even update it several times a day to show that they are really active in LinkedIn. There is no limit to how many times you can use it as long as it is for a professional cause.

Supercharging your Free LinkedIn Account

LinkedIn is one of the more powerful social networking services that incorporate the basics and combine it with enough features that cater businesspeople and professionals to encourage them to join even if they are involved with existing social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. The main features with the most emphasis are the community which includes professionals of different areas and the ability to easily locate people that you know both professionally and personally.

However, there are other lesser features that if used correctly can supercharge your LinkedIn account and the best news is that you don’t have to upgrade your free account at all since upgraded accounts are for people that use LinkedIn more often. You can supercharge your LinkedIn account by following these tips and tricks.

Creating a Robust Profile

Building your profile takes a bit more time to finalize because there are more fields compared to the rest of the sites, but don’t let that intimidate you because many of the fields you only need to fill up just one time such as the general summary about yourself or brand and specialties. There might be other fields that you may need to update as you gain more professional experiences so don’t forget to keep your profile solid, complete, and up-to-date. More people will find your profile and be convinced to add you to their list as well.

Once your profile is all set up, you might want to create a public profile as well so your public image gets more recognition by the search engines and you can use it to attract non-LinkedIn professionals to join the site and connect with you. The trick is to use a vanity URL to make your link indexable and attractive.

Using your Connections the Smart Way

Having lots of connections will generally make your profile more interesting, but don’t forget that these connections are actually other profiles that are active and trying to make connections of their own. Some of the people you could be connected with may not be very active in connecting with others for reasons that you are unsure of. Give attention to these people by communicating with them more so that they are inspired to use LinkedIn more often and build their professional profile. You can even go as far as helping them by introducing other people that you are connected with.

Taking Advantage of Other Features

You can supercharge your account further by using the endorsements feature in order to offer and request endorsements. If you can demonstrate that you can produce quality work and services, the decision making process will go in your favor.

Don’t forget that there is a question and answers feature just in case you don’t have much to do in LinkedIn. This is a great way to share your expertise and help others. If you help enough people, more people will be interested to be a part of your network.

Supercharging your LinkedIn account is all about taking advantage of all the features to interact and connect with others. That way you can see if you really need to upgrade your account or not.

Expanding your LinkedIn Network

Joining any regular social network is easy because you are not limited to the people that you can add. It is easy to start things off by adding all the friends that you know and then start adding other people that are connected to your friends (also known as 2nd degree and 3rd degree friends). One of the most popular trends in social networking is adding people that they don’t even know just for the sake of being friends and knowing more about the person based on similar interests.

LinkedIn has the same mechanics as the standard social networking sites, but it works differently in an objective perspective. Here in LinkedIn, your network serves as a representation on how well you stick out professionally. People that are in your network lead to the conclusion that these people respect you professionally and know you well. Follow these tips to expand your LinkedIn network the right way.

Building up your Profile

This step is actually important when joining any social networking website, but more time should be dedicated in building a strong profile complete with pictures and as many fields as you can. Real professionals always give a full look at any profile that wants to be part of their network. You need to prove that you are professional enough to be in that network because again the people in a profile’s network show just how professional an individual is.

Add the Contacts that you Personally and Professionally Know First

LinkedIn makes it extremely easy to build your network right from the home page after you log in. Providing that you have a Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, or AOL account with an address book, you can easily fetch all the e-mail addresses stored in your user account of these e-mail services and see if they are already part of the LinkedIn network. You can also important contacts from your favorite e-mail client or look for former classmates to add.

If your address book doesn’t include many LinkedIn members, you can optionally send an invite for them to join which will also help build your network. Just remember that LinkedIn is for professionals so don’t add any non-professionals as having these people around may lead to people thinking that you are not taking LinkedIn very seriously.

Find Open Networkers and Utilize the Introduction Feature

Once you have added and invited all the people that you know personally and professionally, you might find your network growth coming to a halt. LinkedIn discourages its members to add people that they do not know as it is not a friend building site. But if you find people with similar interests, you may want to add them for compatibility. But make sure that you check the profile and see that he or she is open to networking and don’t forget to introduce yourself professionally to increase the likelihood of you being added in.

If you are not lucky, you can always use the standard LinkedIn mail feature where you can make a short message about you being interested to connect to the person and including your e-mail address so he or she can add you.

Keep up the pace with that and you’ll see your network expanding. An expanded network can be really good for creating groups or finding a job through LinkedIn.

Guide to Using Photos in LinkedIn

All of the social networking sites these days allow you to create a profile quickly and easily and one of the most important steps to profile creation is setting a primary photo and backing it up with other photos that viewers might be interested in. The primary photo plays a huge role in any social networking website as it serves as the main attraction to the profile since it is easily recognizable amongst the content and is used throughout the service. It is the profile picture that gives a visual representation of the person.

LinkedIn supports uploading a profile picture as well as it is one of those social networking websites, but because it is a professional website, photos play a more important role and that role should be utilized to the fullest in order to make your profile attractive to other professionals that might be reading it. Here are some tricks in using photos in LinkedIn.

Get all of the Attention

A profile picture is supposed to represent all of the information that you supplied so therefore your picture should get all the attention by finding a picture of you and you alone. This means that you shouldn’t have any pictures that involve you and your friends, kids, loved ones, pets, and other individuals that may grab some of the attention. Remember, this isn’t a site primarily for dating, but rather attracting professionals.

Even if there are no other individuals in the shot, your picture can still be distracting if there are other objects in the background or in your surroundings. These objects may include computers, cars, electronics, and other things that can once again draw attention away from you.

Also to make that you get all of the attention, make sure that shot is focused on your face because long shots do not really give much of a meaning. Zooming in these pictures do not really do much either since the photo will end up very pixilated.

Use Photos with a Light Background

If you find a picture of yourself where the background is dark, it makes it a bit more difficult to see your face. Try to use white or light colored backgrounds if you are really interested in building your business credibility. If you don’t have any of these photos available, you may need to take a small trip to the studio and get your picture taken there.

Unedited is Best

Some people that are overly excited to set up their profile, but cannot find a good picture would end up finding a photo where the face looks good and then cropping it to hide the distractions. Unless you are a skilled graphics designer who knows about tracing, it is generally a bad idea to upload a cropped photo as it doesn’t look very professional compared to ones taken in the studio.

Of course there can be some exceptions to these rules depending on your profession like real estate where your background should be a house or if you want a company logo to gain some attention. The most important thing is that you make sure your photo stays professional and supports the details of your profile.

Possible Mistakes that can be made while using LinkedIn

LinkedIn is like other social networking sites where you have a lot of freedom with regards to expanding your network and being productive in the community. But LinkedIn focuses more on building careers and connecting professionals which is why a large majority of the members have professional backgrounds, are there to look for business partners, or possibly to advertise new online and offline ventures.

LinkedIn is the place to do all the business related things and there aren’t really many rules to abide. However, there are still some possible mistakes that can be made while using LinkedIn that will harm your chances in moving forward with the service. These mistakes should be avoided if want LinkedIn to work for you as advertised.

LinkedIn Profile Mistakes

Right when you join LinkedIn, you might get all excited and start building your network quickly. But think about when people see that you want to add them to your list and check your profile link just to know more about you. If there are any missing profile fields, some people may not find you professional enough to be in their list. Try to fill up your profile as much as you can so that more people can gain some professional information about you.

Even if you filled up all the fields, you should double check your profile and make sure there are no common errors like spelling found and also make sure that you use keywords properly so that you can appear in search results if people try to use LinkedIn to search for other people using common keywords. Think of common keywords that describe your profile to avoid this mistake.

There is also a feature where you can set a custom URL on your profile so that you can be easier to find. Most people forget about this feature and end up satisfied with the traditional address. It is best to take advantage of this feature quickly as custom URLs are constantly being taken one by one. Secure your URL so that you can freely give it to other members without any fear of it being taken by someone else.

LinkedIn Group Mistakes

Once your profile is finally ready to go, you can freely do more things like joining groups and adding people to expand your network. Joining groups is great for expanding your network, but don’t forget to participate in them too which is a common mistake that people make early. You won’t be able to make any kind of impact if you join a group without doing anything.

Also avoid trying to join a group just for the sake of advertising because it is one of the few things that LinkedIn discourages. It will harm the reputation of your profile as people will think that you are there for your own benefit. Instead, take time to check out the discussions and reply on the ones you feel you are expert in.

These mistakes are common, but are easy to avoid in LinkedIn and the results are very positive once your profile stands out more and your network grows.