by Ariella Coombs
If you’ve never been on LinkedIn before, it can be a little overwhelming. That’s why we created a 5-Step Quick Guide for getting started on LinkedIn – Take a look: Step 1: Update Your Resume
The first step is to make sure your actual resume is updated. Once you’ve done that, then you can transfer the data to your LinkedIn Profile.
Need help updating your resume? Here are a few articles that can help: If you need further help with your resume, consider looking into a professional resume writer. Step 2: Change Your Privacy Settings
Your resume is done – great! Now, it’s time to start adding information to your LinkedIn Profile. Before you add anything, make sure you change your Privacy Settings so your profile activity isn’t visible until you’re done filling out your profile. You don’t want your connections seeing every single change you make to your profile!
Need help with this? Visit LinkedIn Help for more information. See all 5 steps and the complete Careerealism article
William ArrudaThe folks at LinkedIn are busy. They are rolling out refinements and new features at an unprecedented rate. Staying on top of these opportunities is the key to staying on top of your online personal branding. If you want your profile to stand out, start using my five favorite LinkedIn upgrades.
3. Profile Rank. LinkedIn now shows you how you rank among your connections based on the total number of profile views. It shows you rank among “professionals like you,” people in your company” and “your 1st-level connections.” This can help you understand who in your network is generating the most interest, and it will give you a feel for how you measure up against your network connections who are your peers or competitors. It also gives you an excuse to reach out to those in your network by congratulating them on their rank. If you are looking to make LinkedIn an important part of your personal branding communications plan (and you should!), you can use this to measure the impact of your status updates, long-form blog posts (see number 5 below) and posts/comments to groups. One easy way to increase profile views is to add a LinkedIn button to your email signature. Here’s how.
5. LinkedIn Publishing Platform. The opportunity to publish your content on LinkedIn is rolling out to all members. You no longer need to be an official LinkedIn Influencer to make your content visible. Once you have been granted access to this feature, you’ll be able to create and post long-form content (in addition to your brief status updates). All you need to do is click the edit icon in the “share an update” box on your homepage. When you mouse over it, you will see “create a post,” and LinkedIn will guide you from there. Your posts will appear in your profile. High-quality, relevant posts are organically distributed through feedback such as views, likes, comments, and shares. Your post may even make it into LinkedIn Pulse, which uses an algorithm that matches the right content with the right professional. You can view stats related to all of your posts to determine their relative popularity.
See all 5 features and the complete Forbes article
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Jo SaundersWhen we view a LinkedIn Profile we leave a digital footprint behind, but did you know you have some control over the visibility of that footprint?
Before you make any changes, the default setting on a Profile is public and transparent. This setting means you leave a mark when looking at a Profile, this shows up in the “Who’s Viewed Your Profile” section.
There are arguments for an against being transparent, and in most cases I do believe in showing that you are looking, but there are reasons to go into what one of my clients called ‘Stalker Mode’. So if you were preparing for a meeting with a prospective client, looking at his Profile openly, shows you have done your research and are interested in knowing more. On the other hand if you were sussing out a competitor, you may not want them to know.
Go to your account settings (via your icon at the top right of the LinkedIn window) and select ‘Privacy and Settings’, then ‘Select what others see when you’ve viewed their profile’.
There are three modes to choose from; - See the three modes and read the rest of the article
by
Melonie Dodaro
The key to your success on LinkedIn begins with a powerful and professional presence. You must strategically write your profile with your ideal client in mind before you start connecting to maximize the impact of your first impression online.
I’ve outlined 21 different key points that I believe are important to fully optimizing your LinkedIn profile. Follow these 21 steps and you will have much greater success with LinkedIn!Go to this link to see the profile used in the examples below.
LinkedIn Training: How To Create A LinkedIn Profile In 21 Steps
3. Your Headline Should Be Catchy & Have Keywords You Want To Be Found For – Create a headline that captures your target market’s attention to encourage them to check out your profile.
4. Connect With At Least 501 People – The reason I suggest this is because LinkedIn will show how many connections you have until you hit 500. People like to connect with “connected” people.
10. Write In First Person – Your LinkedIn profile is not your resume so make sure you are always writing in first person.
16. Keyword Load Your Current & Past Work History – Notice how in my profile I used keywords like “Social media speaker” and “social media trainer”. These are some of the keywords I want to be found for.
See all 21 steps and the complete article
From Cincy Recruiter
I'm an avid and daily user of LinkedIn and I'm always seeking to learn more about how to use it effectively for building relationships, networking, job search, recruiting, personal branding and business development. I also enjoy sharing what I've learned with others and regularly speak to groups, associations and corporate clients about how to use LinkedIn. At those events, I typically provide attendees a LinkedIn Resource sheet to take home. I'm in the process of updating my Resources sheet for 2009, and I thought I'd share the links that were provided over the past year with you. So here you go:
Why You Should Use LinkedIn:Read All The Reasons You Should Be Using Linkedin And How -http://www.cincyrecruiter.com/cincy_recruiter/2009/01/25-resources-to-help-you-understand-how-to-use-linkedin.html
No one likes rejection.
So why do so many LinkedIn users actually invite rejection instead of connection, by using one or other of LinkedIn’s pre-set, canned, boilerplate invitations, such as “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn?”
Anyone who is new to LinkedIn could be excused for thinking it is acceptable to use those pre-set formulas. But once we’ve been using the network for a while and receive one of those invitations, we are likely to assume that the sender is doing an impersonal, batch invitation to everyone on a mailing list.
Which means we are more likely to ignore or decline the invitation than to accept it.
Think about the LinkedIn invitations you’ve received lately. What proportion were genuinely personal? Did the boilerplate ones excite you? Or did most or all of those just leave you mystified and disinclined to know more?
The way I see it, it’s as if we were saying “Yes, I’m sending this invitation, but I couldn’t be bothered taking a few minutes to write something personal, so you are just getting the bog standard, boilerplate version. Take it or leave it.”
So for the want of a bit of care to craft something personal, the sender has in effect invited rejection not connection.The Challenge of Making it Personal
All the experts will tell you to personalize your invitation.
But what does that mean? What’s the right way to invite? What do you say? Especially for someone who is not already a close friend or colleague?
And if you want to build a suitably large network, i.e. large enough to have serious reach, aren’t you going to run out of ideas for being personal?
The fact is, not everyone feels confident of consistently writing attractive, genuinely personal invitations off the top of their head. And if you are sending out a lot of invitations the challenge becomes that much greater.
The good news is that if you can find a way to make it personal and not have that be so difficult that you won’t do it, you will immediately stand out from all the people (and they are many) using the boring old boilerplate.
That can only enhance your prospects of being connected, not rejected.
But let’s face it, not everyone feels creative when they sit down to send invitations.So if we could have a system of inviting, a system that could be actually used, happily, by any LinkedIn user, no matter how creative or uncreative they feel, we would need something that was simple, easy to remember, and wouldn’t need special skill or training to use.
The system would also need to be flexible, so as to accommodate the different levels of association (or lack of it) we have had with each person we are inviting.
I looked everywhere for such a system, on the web, on LinkedIn expert groups, in multiple blog posts, in books on LinkedIn and found a mountain of advice on being personal in our invitations.But I did not find anything simple or particularly easy to remember.
Which is why I created my simple, three option formula for LinkedIn invitations.
By
Jenny FossYou’ve heard the reports. Employers today are leaning more heavily than ever on their own employees to help them find and recruit exceptional talent. Why? Because in many instances, it’s faster, cheaper and, at least in theory, more likely to result in a hire who excels in the job and aligns well with the culture of the hiring company.
This is promising and cool news for those among us who seem to know everyone and aren’t afraid to ask our people to serve as an “in” for a dream job. But what about those of us who don’t know many people? Who are moving to a new city, changing careers, or just, well, aren’t dazzling extroverts?How do you get in that pool of people who, in all likelihood, will be considered first, instead of having to tromp your way in with the herd of others via an online application?
Strap on your gumption, folks, we’re about to get down with a little networking here. You want to be in the “in” club? Well, then, you’ve got show up for the game. You’ve got to find someone at that company you adore, and quickly (and non-offensively) endear yourself to him or her. Here are six steps to cultivating your “in” at a company of interest.
Step 1: Race Over to the Search Box on LinkedIn
We have no better tool available to us to help us find people working for the very companies we’d like to join than LinkedIn. So, take advantage of it!Key the company of interest’s name into the search box and, when the results come up, refine the search by checking the box that only shows you people currently working at that company.If you have a 1st degree connection, you’re in business. Contact your person and ask for an introduction. (Here’s how.)
Step 2: Assuming You Don’t Have a 1st Degree Connection, Try For a 2nd
If you don’t have a 1st degree connection, that's OK: Your 2nd degree connections can be equally valuable. When you discover that you’ve got a 2nd degree connection to someone working at your dream company, simply contact you shared connection (your 1st degree connection), ask him how well he knows this person, and see if he’d be willing to introduce you. (And here’s how you do that!)
Steps 3-6 and the complete TheMuse post
For The Dedicated Salesman, A Powerful New Tool
In a world where interpersonal contact occurs primarily online, even more so in the world of business relations, it is easy enough to forget that the foundation of successful enterprise is the building of real relationships with both associates and customers.
LinkedIn’s latest move is a reminder of this. Last week they launched Sales Navigator as a stand-alone app, a tool designed for salespeople to take advantage of the professional social network’s 316 million members. While LinkedIn built its reputation as a recruiting tool, this move demonstrates an intention to become an essential aspect of all strata of business. The question then becomes whether this development is a genuinely useful tool or simply another way for the company to encourage people to subscribe to their premium service.
In the ever-expanding world of globalised business it is not enough to be, in the words of Willy Loman, simply ‘well liked.’ One must be connected, and to see the potential avenue of new connection in every professional relationship. This is perhaps the most useful aspect of Sales Navigator: it leverages its vast database of employee information to let users know whether they have an existing connection with a potential sales lead. It will, for example, let you know whether anyone at your company is connected with anyone at a company you are targeting.
Read the rest of the SocialMediaFrontiers article
