10 LinkedIn Shortcuts For A Post-Twitter World

by Courtney Seiter

By now, we’ve all heard about Twitter’s little break-up with LinkedIn – and discovered the consequence in our now tweet-free LinkedIn timelines.

As social media marketers, this adds a new wrinkle to our already hectic days of trying to juggle multiple social media channels.

LinkedIn may not be the sexiest social network, but it’s still an important one. It’s part of the Big Three (behind only Facebook and Twitter in popularity) and used by 73 percent of marketers, according to a recent study.

So while we wait on LinkedIn’s new update, life goes on — as do social media updates. What do we do now that our handiest shortcut to keeping our LinkedIn presence active has been taken away?

I dug around a little to uncover 10 ways to stay active on LinkedIn that are nearly as simple and painless as our gone-but-not-forgotten-Twitter connection. Check them out and then share your favorite shortcuts in the comments (seriously, I want to steal hear them.)

1. Share Your Blog

Frequent blogger on a professional topic? Tap into a targeted audience for your blog posts and connect your blog to your LinkedIn account. A widget will appear on your profile and new posts will generate a news item in your timeline.Two different apps from LinkedIn’s Applications Directory make this process seamless for any blog platform. The WordPress app takes care of the most popular blogging software, or useBloglink for any other platform.

2. Add Presentations

Sharing presentation slides is a great way to build authority in your industry, and LinkedIn makes this simple. Activate their Slideshare app to pull presentations into your profile. Slideshare allows you to customize the look of this widget and even offers LinkedIn-specific analytics about your contents’ views, comments and favorites.

3. Comment On Articles

One of LinkedIn’s newest points of pride, LinkedIn Today aggregates top news for a variety of industries and categories of your choosing. What’s brand new is the ability to like, comment on and share specific stories. It’s a quick and easy way to keep your stream lively and catch up on industry news.

4. Curate Content

Build a reputation for sharing great stuff with your professional network. Using the wonder toolIFTTT.com (If This, Then That) it’s a cinch to activate a trigger that sends items from your Google Reader stockpile to LinkedIn. Even shorter: use this already-created recipe.

5. Join Groups

Did you know LinkedIn lets you join up to 50 groups? Choose wisely and you’ll be hooked into great resources, conversations and new relationships.

Check out the full Groups Directory or choose “Groups You May Like” from the drop-down menu to get plugged in. Just make sure you customize your settings (Settings > Groups, Companies and Applications) to make sure you aren’t getting more emails than you bargained for.

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