Archive for the LinkedIn Groups

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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.

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.