LinkedIn Tips to Boost Your Usage

Recently, I had a meeting with LinkedIn's Director of Corporate Communications, Kay Luo.  She was in Chicago because LinkedIn sponsored TECH Cocktail, which is a local technology event that took place on July 12.  Kay was kind of enough to contact me and a few other people including the guys at MidwestBusiness.com.  Everyone in the meeting, including myself, are users of LinkedIn.   Kay found me because I write the Tech Connect column at MidwestBusiness.com.

I will admit that I don't use many of the features on LinkedIn.  I just use the basic functionality of connecting with people.  In fact, I am not a heavy user like some people who I know.  If I spent the time, I could easily increase my 141 connections.

Anyways, part of Kay's job is to educate people in various cities on the usage of LinkedIn. She told us that Chicago has about 300,000 users. Right now, LinkedIn is experiencing much of its growth overseas.  An interesting fact that I learned was that LinkedIn is only in English and they still have users from around the world. Kay said that they are developing some other languages for LinkedIn.  This should help to accelerate its growth overseas.

Here are a few things that I learned from Kay that go beyond some of the basic features:

• Improve Your Google PageRank - LinkedIn allows you to make your profile information available to search engines.  This is a good way to share information about yourself when people search for you.  To make it public, create a public profile in the system.  Also, don't use the default profile URL.  Instead, customize it to be your actual name.  As an example, here is my mine: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonjacobsohn.
• Get involved with "Answers", which is a new service that lets you post and answer questions.  By taking the time to provide thoughtful information, you will build your credibility in the system.  The better your response, the more people will want to look at your profile. This will help you to build your social capital with your own network.
• To find referenceable service providers, check out LinkedIn's Service Provider Recommendation section.  This area allows you to find outside help for your business or personal life. The neat thing about this is that it stays true to how you typically find service providers, which is through referrals and good recommendations.
• Advanced Searching - LinkedIn really allows you to search in advanced ways. For example, if you want to find someone that likes the Chicago Cubs, then you can put in the keywords and see who pops up both in and out of your network.  If you are doing some research on a person and would like to know who else this person worked with at a particular company, then you can find this information.  Journalists can use this tool to find people to talk when researching a story.

I plan on using LinkedIn more now. Thanks Kay for taking the time while you were in Chicago to meet with me.

Here are some of my past posts that mention LinkedIn:

Building Community with Blogs

Open Up Your Rolodex

MyBlogLog Announces Changes

Create a Digital Identity

Use LinkedIn Wisely

Facebook Adds Classified Ads

LinkedIn Makes Changes

Networking On Steroids

Comments

[Mike Maddaloni]

I regularly go back to the LinkedIn home page to see "what's new" in my network. It will show who has recently had changes to their profiles (which could indicate a job change) as well as who is growing their networks. They recently added a "recommendation" of people to connect with, which has given me suggestions for people that I really am connected with!

mp/m

[Jason Jacobsohn]

Thanks for the additional tip Mike. I plan on exploring LinkedIn more to get more value from the system.