Archive for the LinkedIn Groups

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Social networking is one of the most popular activities amongst Internet surfers around the world. The sheer number of social networking sites really shows how popular they are and more networks continue to rise and evolve. LinkedIn and Facebook are two of the earlier networks introduced in 2003 and 2004 respectively and expanded quickly just years later. Both networks now have millions of registered users, yet have different goals for their members. The two networks also differ in features as well making it necessary for some to join both networks.

Objectives

Facebook is one of the many social networking sites that aim to bring people of all ages closer to each other. New members have their own profile where contacts that they know personally can be added so they become part of the network. As contacts, information can be exchanged and various social activities can be engaged online.

LinkedIn takes the same objectives of Facebook and restricts them to professional users only. This is why Facebook has many more registered members than LinkedIn, but LinkedIn still manages to reach over 40 million members. LinkedIn aims to let professions connect with one another and engage in business activities and discussions. Usually members add others that they know personally, former colleagues, or current officemates.

Features

Facebook allows different types of multimedia content to be shared including videos and pictures for entertainment purposes. LinkedIn doesn’t have many media sharing features although it still allows profile pictures to be uploaded for professional usage. Blog entries may also be linked to the profile although it is recommended that business blogs are linked.

Facebook is very famous for their databases of thousands of applications created by independent developers and are often used to make social interactions more interesting and fun. LinkedIn has its own version of interacting that is interesting in its own right with the Q&A module. The function works similarly to Yahoo! Answers where people can post business related questions allowing other people in the network to answer.

Similarities

Because they are both social networking sites, Facebook and LinkedIn have similar features, but are used differently. For instance, both Facebook and LinkedIn have the groups feature which allows members to create their own group based on a theme and have other members join the group to find a common ground. Facebook serves as the general purpose while LinkedIn is more inclined to business discussions. Custom web pages for the purpose of promoting products, services, or events can also be made in Facebook while LinkedIn users can create company profiles which can be used for hiring jobseekers doubling the function of LinkedIn as a job directory.

To sum things up, Facebook is the larger network where everyone is invited to create their own profiles, socialize, and possibly engage in business related activities. Internet marketers see opportunities to promote their websites as well. LinkedIn is a better place to do business activities because it encourages professionals to join resulting to more productive ideas to be shared and less emphasis on personal features.

LinkedIn is the best social network to be in when professional networking is the main agenda. With millions of people around the world active everyday in the network, LinkedIn has devised new ways for people to access their LinkedIn accounts and make sure that they stay in touch with their colleagues and prospects no matter where they are. Even without a computer or laptop, it is now possible to keep LinkedIn close to you as long as you have a mobile phone that is wirelessly connected to the Internet.

LinkedIn iPhone Application

The iPhone gained a lot of popularity after developers started to create special applications that are designed to make their web services easier to access taking full advantage of the screen size and multi-touch features. LinkedIn followed by introducing their own iPhone application on August 21st boasting a similar interface as the iPhone contacts. Many of the core features in LinkedIn can be used from the iPhone including the contact searching which is easily accessible from the bottom panel.

In addition, connections can be viewed in a minimalistic way by pressing the “Connections” icon on the bottom of the screen along with other contacts that these people are connected to. It is also possible to add new connections if new prospects or acquaintances were found via search or other profile. Any updates posted by contacts are reflected in the main window as well. If there are contacts that are willing to introduce you with others, you can review those introductions from your iPhone. By pressing the “Invite” button on the upper right of the screen, you can invite new people to LinkedIn the same way you could in the computer. Currently the iPhone application comes in English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, and Chinese with more languages being supported in the future.

LinkedIn Mobile

So far, there are no other mobile specific LinkedIn applications. This means that non-iPhone users must rely on the LinkedIn mobile site which can be accessed at http://m.linkedin.com. You will be immediately presented with a login form where you type your e-mail and password and optionally choose the language. Once you are logged in, you can immediately search for a contact or choose 7 other options that are part of LinkedIn’s main features. You can broadcast your status message to let others know where you are or you can browse your address book to obtain information that may not be stored in your phone book. Lastly, you can invite and view the public profiles of colleagues. You can check out the other features by visiting the URL using your browser even if you are not using a mobile phone.

The features of LinkedIn mobile are actually similar to the ones found in the iPhone. What the iPhone really excels in is the overall layout of the functions and convenience in choosing contacts and connections. iPhone users benefit from the best possible mobile LinkedIn experience, but other mobile users are not left in the dark.

LinkedIn has all of the core features that you can find in any social networking site including the ability to search the database for other people that you can link to or add as contacts in order to grow your network and establish closer ties. Unlike social networking services, you are not necessarily adding these people as “friends”. Although you may find some professionals that are actually your friends in real life, LinkedIn’s idea of networking is bringing coworkers and colleagues closer together. Any other people that you do not know very well can be considered as prospects and they can be useful in hiring new people in your business or getting opt-ins for your online site. All it takes is finding these prospects using the tools in LinkedIn.

Using the Advanced Search Option

This is the most common method as it can return lots of different prospects all by inputting a few commands. You can either refer to your prospect list that you created through other marketing methods and search for their full names to see if they have LinkedIn profiles or you can define a target group to get a list of the people that match that group. Spend more time with the target group as different profiles may have similar groups that are written in a different way. For instance, you if you are planning to look for marketing directors, try to look for marketing managers as well.

Exploring Groups

Many members in LinkedIn join groups to participate in themed discussions or simply try to get more profile exposure. Like searching using the advanced search option, try to explore groups that match your target group for better chances of quality prospects that are interested with whatever you have to offer in your LinkedIn profile.

Browsing other Profiles

You can use the first two methods to grow your network. After you have a few prospects in your network, you can start browsing their profiles and see their connections. The people that they are connected with may turn out to be prospects as well since it is likely that connected people have the same interests or are in the same company. Take a good look at their profiles before making any decisions.

Keeping an Eye on Network Updates

Once you start to browse other profiles through connections, you will see many more ways to grow your network. The more people that you have connected in your network, the more network updates you will see. This is very important in finding quality prospects because you can take advantage much quicker than others if you keep a close eye on the updates. Be on the lookout for individuals that change positions so you can move on in and make a proposal if the changed position is something that you can take advantage of.

With over 40 million members registered in LinkedIn around the world, it is likely for prospects to wind up using any of the methods. Having a large network always gives greater possibilities so try to build you network first if you ever have problems finding prospects in LinkedIn.

Ever since its launch back in May 2003, LinkedIn has continued to stress out the fact that it is a special social networking service for professionals only. Although LinkedIn doesn’t consider it a strict rule that forbids non-professional members from registering, LinkedIn shouldn’t be used the same other social networking sites are used. The two reasons provided below explain in greater detail.

LinkedIn’s Network is Full of Professionals

LinkedIn considers itself as a social networking site of professionals simply because virtually all of the members registered are, in fact, professional individuals. These professionals log in their respective LinkedIn accounts to collaborate with other LinkedIn members or search for new professionals for job hiring, competition research, and other purposes. Nobody will ever look for information that doesn’t pertain to professional records or information. If these people really wanted to look for information like that, they would resort to general purpose social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook.

Since LinkedIn states in their front page that they are a professional social networking service, more professionals will join everyday to build their network. Nobody would bother adding a contact that has no professional background whatsoever. To add to that, professionals will most likely ignore you if they find out that you are in LinkedIn to make friends or gather personal information because that is out of the scope of the network.

Puts your Reputation at Great Risk

LinkedIn is the only website with millions of registered users that revolves around professionals. This gives you a single chance to build your professional image and show it to the world. If you mess up and do not take LinkedIn seriously, people that see your profile will conclude that you are a not a very serious professional. This will make it difficult to redeem yourself as there is currently no other popular professional social networking site that works like LinkedIn. Make your entry in LinkedIn count the most by starting out with a strong profile that can boost your reputation in the network.

No Benefits Gained

It is generally a waste of time and effort spreading a non-professional image in a place filled with people that do the exact opposite. Nothing will ever be gained out of the attempts because non-professionalism is considered as off-topic within the network. If you observe the different profiles and discussion boards, only business topics are covered.

Remember that there are appropriate places where you can freely use the social network however you would like. LinkedIn is one of the most unique services that strive to be different from the rest and that is exactly why they have gained so much popularity and success as new members register every day. It is the professionals themselves that defined LinkedIn’s true purpose and you can become a part of that purpose if you understand LinkedIn’s goals and make them your own as you try to spread your professionalism and grow your network by adding contacts with similar professional interests as you.

Many professional Internet marketers do not stop stressing the fact that is now possible to start some great network marketing businesses via social networking. Some individuals saw great success just by creating profiles in MySpace and Facebook and growing their network from there while pouring out the initiative in advertising. With LinkedIn gaining in popularity and more professionals coming in, you should have a better advantage if you apply the same techniques that professional marketers use in other social networks to the LinkedIn network. These four easy steps should put your new marketing business in order just by using LinkedIn.

Prepping up your Profile

If you already have a LinkedIn account, the first thing you should do is review your profile and judge if it is presentable enough for others to take a closer look at your network marketing business. Judgments should be based on how complete your profile is how closely related it is to the website that you are trying to advertise. It is very important to get a good picture of yourself that highlights your professionalism for an overall better impression by visitors.

Focus only on Website Advertising

One of the most common mistakes that new LinkedIn members make is that they start pitching their business or sell products immediately even before they grow their network. Not only will this lead to professionals ignoring your profile, but puts your account at risk and you might end up being kicked from the network for blatant advertising.

The trick is to focus on the website advertising where all of the selling is done in your business page. That way, people that are curious enough to click your link can get the bigger picture outside of your LinkedIn profile. The easiest way to website advertising is by means of posting articles in groups making sure that you leave the website address on the bottom of the article.

Find New Groups to Join

For better exposure of your articles and website, try to join as many groups as possible. Target the groups that tackle affiliate marketing, Internet marketing, MLM, and related topics as their primary subjects to get the right audience. You may also find groups that are related to the products or services that you are selling if any.

Keep Posting New Articles

Once you are in enough groups, do not just be idle and wait for people to see your profile. Make the first move and post even more articles with your website URL on the bottom to attract more quality traffic to your site. Making your articles unique is highly recommended for SEO purposes. Even if you do not know how search engine optimization or keywords work, different articles spell more ways for your website to be found in LinkedIn especially if they talk about completely different topics. As long as they are somehow related to your business website, you will be getting the visitors that you need.

Building a flourishing network marketing business takes time even if you use LinkedIn. However, once enough time is dedicated in building your LinkedIn network, your website traffic should grow exponentially even if you take a small break in marketing.

Like any other social networking site, newly registered members will have a steep hill to climb if they want their profile to become popular and more recognizable by people within and out of their network. While your profile exposure can eventually expand as you add more people, you might find yourself limited if you do not have many contacts to add. Even if you do have contacts to add, you can still add a little bit of your own effort to promote your profile and show off all of your professional details to the people that matter. Here are some decent ways in promoting your profile quickly.

 

Inviting other Professionals that you Know

 

Before you expose your profile to the public, expose it to the people that you know first so others will see that you are well connected with other individuals. It may increase the chances of you meeting new people if they find someone that they know in your list of connections. Although it is fine to add people that you personally know, emphasize on the other professionals to establish a better image.

 

Use the different network building tools in LinkedIn to get started. If you haven’t found many people from your personal contact list, spend some time inviting these people to use LinkedIn for their business endeavors.

 

Getting noticed in LinkedIn

 

You can do a lot to promote your profile all from within LinkedIn itself if you spend some time exploring the different areas. The easiest way to add some extra visibility is by joining any LinkedIn groups that catch your interest. Then just be an active participant in the group by responding to discussions and eventually people will start making their formal introductions to you where you can add them as a connection. The answers section is also a great place to get noticed in LinkedIn. Just share your knowledge and expertise by answering the questions that you are most familiar with. Your profile will get more views that way as you continue to help others.

 

Using your Blog

 

Now that you made a presence within LinkedIn, you can start making your profile known to the people who are not yet LinkedIn members. This is a great way to spread the awareness of LinkedIn to grow your network and let others see the professional side of you all at the same time. People that track your blog can still track your blog from LinkedIn because you can link them together. LinkedIn widgets allow you to put all the important information in a small, but attractive graphic that is clickable and can lead directly to your profile if it is set to public.

 

Leveraging on other Social Networks

 

LinkedIn isn’t designed as a replacement of other social networking sites, but as a complement service to your other networks that you are in. You might have professionals that are in your other networks, but never heard of LinkedIn before. You can send those people to your LinkedIn profile and have them join. The same widgets that you can use in your blog can also be used in your other social networking profiles as well.

 

For best results, spend considerable time promoting your LinkedIn profile using each method. This should help you gain traffic to your profile and any links that you have posted in your profile.

Many people have praised LinkedIn for its capability of obtaining lots of different information that cannot be found elsewhere. These very people join LinkedIn to see what all the fuss is about and may end up being disappointed because many of the features of LinkedIn can be found in the more popular networking sites.

 

What really separates LinkedIn from the rest is their community and that is where the unique information starts to come into the picture. Thanks to their large community of professionals and seamless integration with other components, you can get all types of information exclusively at LinkedIn the most common types being the following.

 

Company Profiles

 

LinkedIn has an extensive database of different companies that grow whenever new members register because it is they who place their company profiles there so that they are on the network map for others to look for. You can probably find company profiles in their respective corporate websites, but LinkedIn makes searching extremely easy with lots of ways to do it.

 

Searching for company profiles is a great way for jobseekers to find their ideal company to get into or for professionals that are already representing a company to check on how their competitors or doing as well as discover new ones.

 

Professional Ideas

 

LinkedIn is an excellent repository of topics that are related to the business world. If you explore the different groups formed by registered members of LinkedIn, you will learn a lot from the different discussions that are made by the group members.

 

There is another major area that LinkedIn users head to often too called “Answers”. This section lets people ask any business-related question they can think of and then categorize it in such a way that it is easy for others that likely know the answer to find. Since there are professionals coming from all parts of the world, you are sure to get some world-class information from these professionals that you simply cannot find in standard knowledge websites. Looking at some of the professional profiles and company profiles also include special business-specific fields that aren’t present in conventional social networking sites.

 

Current Business-related Events

 

Social networking sites let you better keep track of what your direct contacts are doing. But the majority of users that are active in the social site often display public events that are not business-related for confidential reasons. However, in LinkedIn, business is emphasized and people will almost always use the standard features like status updates, blogs, and other common tools found in social networks to let others know what business-related events they are currently into. People that add trusted contacts won’t hesitate at all in making their business activities public. The information that you can gain from this depends on the number of active users that are connected to you.

 

All you need to do to get all this information is to register a new account in LinkedIn or login to your existing account and explore the different features that are offered. You will be surprised on how much new things you can learn after using it for a few days.

The biggest feature that is present in all social networking sites is the ability to add any person you like which while widen your network allowing you to communicate with more people as it opens up more 2^nd and 3^rd degree contacts. The common practice for some social networkers involves them adding as many people as they can even if they do not know the individual. This is totally acceptable as people join these networks in hopes of searching for new friends.

 

However, LinkedIn is different and doesn’t recommend that you add people that you don’t know although it is technically possible. In order to maximize the professional benefits that LinkedIn has to offer, it is better to connect with others the right way through proper sequencing. Follow these steps to connect with others in LinkedIn properly.

 

Adding your Personal Contacts

 

Adding your personal contacts is easy because LinkedIn’s home page right after login gives you access to a variety of tools that let you link to your e-mail account and have LinkedIn analyze your contact list and generate  a list of people that are registered in LinkedIn. Any found profiles can be added from there, but if the e-mail isn’t in the database, you can invite that person to LinkedIn instead.

 

If you take the time to build your profile, you can add former classmates as well. Other names of familiar people may show up on your profile based on your company history and other common data that you may share. The “People” search is also available for people that prefer searching their friends by searching the name one by one. It is important to add people that are extremely close to you or related to you to get a better impression from people that may check out your profile.

 

Adding your Former and/or Current Colleagues

 

The same tool that you used in connecting with your web e-mail contacts can be used in adding current and past colleagues too. Just click the “Find” button on the homepage and fill up the “Job Title”, “Company”, and years to get a list of people that you may be familiar with. This is the most important step of the process because it will affect how many 2^nd and 3^rd degree contacts you will have. The more people you have in that network, the more chances of you being introduced or recommended by some someone in your network to new people that may help you forge your career.

 

Adding 2^nd and 3^rd Degree Contacts and Others

 

Although LinkedIn discourages the idea of adding people that you don’t know, there are some features that allow these other people to be introduced properly either through a direct connection or by means of a special introductory message. To do this without major setbacks, find people that are described as “open networkers” as those people are the ones that are open to expanding their network regardless of how close the people are with others.

 

There is no need to rush when adding people to your network. Just in that sequence and you should eventually end up with a profile that has solid connections opening up more opportunities to keep in touch with all of them.

LinkedIn and its members have done a fantastic job in promoting their concept of a social network that is exclusive for professionals to settle in. So many people that thought they were stuck in their top social networking sites ended up being excited with the whole idea and quickly checked out the service if it is worth moving to for doing business related things. It turned out that LinkedIn really lived up to its name and now people are actively promoting their LinkedIn profiles to others while putting emphasis on the fact that it is a professional social networking site.

 

However, you might have a hard time inviting the ones that are already comfortable with their current social networking site to handle business endeavors. The fact that LinkedIn is a social networking site for professionals may not be the deal breaker especially since there are lots of other social networking sites where you can connect with others. But if you share with them these facts, they will realize that LinkedIn is so much more than just an ordinary social networking site.

 

Knowledge Base

 

LinkedIn has a section called “Answers” that resembles Yahoo! Answers and other knowledge market websites, but LinkedIn keeps the categories strictly to business related topics ensuring that all members stay on topic. Lots of members are taking advantage of this feature by either asking questions to learn more information or helping others by asking their questions in order to boost their popularity and respect. All the information found there is highly useful and may even contain content found nowhere else.

 

Advertisement Center

 

Since LinkedIn keeps things strictly to business, advertising can safely come into play where different individuals representing different companies can advertise anything within the site’s policies. It can be your ticket to make some online through advertising your affiliates or any service you wish to bring your target audience to. Internet marketers are actively using LinkedIn to introduce new home-based opportunities and other products and services. While other social networking sites can be used to advertise these opportunities, LinkedIn has special tools that let people better target their professional audience.

 

Job and Company Directory

 

When the advertisements to starts to show their signs that they are not very impressive, the tendency is to research the competition and figure out what their competitors are doing in their advertising campaigns. Thanks to the special searching capabilities, LinkedIn doubles as a complete job and company directory where people can look for new opportunities in a similar fashion to lo looking in standard job directories. As more professionals join the network, more company profiles are made as well for people to check out for seeing how the competition is like or keep track of their former colleagues. Combined with the advertising features, it is also possible to look for people to hire easily.

 

Just by looking at their home interface, you can easily tell that LinkedIn does a lot more than just connecting professionals together. Check out the “Help” section for more unique things that you can do only in LinkedIn.

Many of the top developers behind the different services that drive the Web 2.0 movement are finding more ways for people to access their services. LinkedIn is amongst these services and they have been successful with over 40 million users registered in the site. As a response to the growing number of Internet users doing all kinds of things online through many devices, LinkedIn expanded on flexibility offering more options for people to access their services. Here are some of the different ways you can log in to LinkedIn

 

The Traditional Way

 

People that are just getting started with LinkedIn stick to the traditional ways in logging in and that’s by visiting their homepage at http://www.linkedin.com and then being greeted by their home user control panel where users can check their messages, build their network, and access the rest of the LinkedIn features. It is that simple and is the favored method for the average LinkedIn user. 

 

Through the LinkedIn Browser Toolbar 

 

Web applications are becoming more popular these days resulting to people loading up more websites on their trusty browser. From e-mail checking to regular surfing all the way to serious productivity, more people are resorting to their online connections to get everything done. Some frequent users might find themselves actively using LinkedIn more often than usual and often times it is being used simultaneously with other useful services. Switch back and forth through tabs or windows could be a bit cumbersome for some people. 

 

This is where the LinkedIn Browser Toolbar comes in and unlike other annoying toolbars, LinkedIn is rather useful allowing quick searches to be performed anywhere and connections to be seen when job postings are viewed. The most significant thing about the toolbar is the easy direct access button that makes LinkedIn just a click away. 

 

Using other 3^rd Party Applications 

 

There are a number of useful 3^rd party applications that are adding support for the top social networking sites and other related services. Digsby, which is a multi-messenger application, is one of those services and recently, LinkedIn support was introduced allowing people to log in using their LinkedIn details and then do simple tasks such as changing the status. More applications are expected to incorporate LinkedIn because of its huge success in gathering professionals around the world together. 

 

Connecting your Mobile to LinkedIn 

 

Currently, the iPhone and the Palm Pre have their own LinkedIn applications that are available for download that grant all the basic functionalities for people to work on their LinkedIn completely from their phone. Other phones that have a web browser can still access LinkedIn by heading to the mobile version of the website at http://m.linkedin.com. 

 

Each method of logging into LinkedIn doesn’t have any major advantages over each others. It depends entirely on your preference and current situation. Making LinkedIn part of the daily web habits just got easier thanks to these additions and even more ways should be made as more people start to get more deeply involved with LinkedIn.