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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.