Those who have been following our work since 2006 know that Mike and I have gone through several iterations in the way we present ourselves and our body of work.

What we have found in this new online social world, is that focus is a key to success, however, covering the bases of interest that your followers want is also important.  We’ve been working diligently to provide the best content for everyone’s most pressing interest.

We’ve searched for a way to deliver the best content in an efficient manner that is easily absorbed by our readers and put into action and that still allows us to focus!

Rather than maintain a blog on each of our sites, we decided to combine all our blogs into one with links that lead you to the most relevant content while giving you access to related topics.

Click the navigation button above “Visit our blog”, to visit our sister site www.RockTheWorldMedia.com blog. You will be directed right to the How to Use LinkedIn for Business category. Feel free to peruse the other social media  topics as well.  You will find the historical record there as well as we continue to port relevant content to the most relevant categories to bring our body of work to one location that can be easily searched and accessed.

We’d love your comments below to let us know if what we’re doing is serving you well or if you have other suggestions about how to make this most relevant for you. Or feel free to send us a note to training@integratedalliances.com.

Things change in the online space, in the social media space. I like the way LinkedIn tests things with part of their community (about 10%) then they roll it out to more (about 30%) to test the scalability and finally roll new features out to the entire population of 135+ million users. Sometimes though things don’t work as planned or the novelty wears off.

For example, their Tweets application, which allows you to show the Twitter stream of a selected account on your profile, and allows you to use other great features like finding the Twitter accounts of your connections and reading the Twitter stream of your connections on your home page. I really liked it because it allowed me to interact via Twitter directly with my LinkedIn connections. I added people I followed inside of LinkedIn to my Twitter list “LinkedIn Users” (https://twitter.com/#!/list/loriruff/linkedin-users) so I could track with their conversations when we engage each other on LinkedIn. It made for a very synergistic environment.

Alas, today I received a message from LinkedIn:

Dear Lori,

At LinkedIn, we want to provide a simple and efficient experience for members like you. So from time to time, we take a look at our set of features to evaluate how they’re being used by our members. Part of this process sometimes means we decide to eliminate a feature, so we can better invest those resources in building more great LinkedIn products.

Recently, it was decided that the Tweets application, a LinkedIn feature that you’ve used at some point, will no longer be supported as of January 31, 2012. Starting on that date, you will no longer be able to post recent tweets in a module on your profile or view recent tweets in a separate module on the home page. However, you can still display tweets on your profile by binding your Twitter and LinkedIn accounts and then tweeting with an #in hashtag.

Thank you for your continued support of LinkedIn. If you have additional questions please visit our Help Center.

Even though it made it convenient for me to view my selected Twitter stream from within LinkedIn, I have Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/loriruff) and Hootsuite (http://www.hootsuite.com) open all the time so it’s not really a big loss. The upside is, as LinkedIn said in their message they “can better invest those resources in building more great LinkedIn products.”

Soon after I received the initial email from LinkedIn I received this follow up :

Dear Lori,

Earlier, you may have received a message from us about our Tweets Application. We could have done a much better job communicating about this change, so we want to clarify what this may mean to you:

1. We are not eliminating the ability to send updates between your Twitter and LinkedIn accounts. You can still go to your Settings page and choose to send either all tweets or only tweets with a #in hashtag to your LinkedIn status updates. It’s up to you. Again, tweets imported from Twitter into the LinkedIn network updates stream will not be

 affected.

If you haven’t yet joined your Twitter and LinkedIn accounts, here’s how you do it.

2. At the end of January, we will not be supporting the standalone Tweets Application on LinkedIn (see image), that displays tweets from everyone you follow on Twitter on your LinkedIn homepage. As of January 31st, this module will no longer be available.

If you have any additional questions, please visit our Help Center.

Thanks, 
LinkedIn

So while they are not completely cutting out the Twitter – LinkedIn connection, they are modifying how they implement it. The question I’ll pose to my readers then is what have you trimmed back on lately that will allow you to focus on more productive areas of your life? Not a bad lesson…

Rock On!

Original Post

Profile pictures are so important on LinkedIn, and the rest of social media. As the LinkedIn Rockstars, we tell people frequently to use a quality picture to help attract people to click through the profile. We have even heard it described that taking a headshot is the digital equivalent of looking someone in the eyes.

Lori,

I love your posts. I have recently started using social media. I find myself asking “Where have I been?”

Would you recomend a professional picture or a more working candid?

Thanks,

[name]

—-

I actually love the shot you have but would love to see it cropped in a bit to get rid of some of the background, which is a bit distracting. Otherwise, a great shot on a white background is brilliant for LinkedIn!

Lori

Hope that helps with your own profile development! Rock On!

Original Post

Recently an acquaintance on LinkedIn was interested in being introduced to a third level connection. Unfortunately on LinkedIn some wires got crossed. Using LinkedIn to expand your network is excellent, but there are definitely ways you do not want to go about it. If there is another means to be introduced to a third level connection, definitely do it. If you must request an introduction, take care that it does not go through any sort of competitor or manager.  I have posted the messages below to help you all avoid these same errors!

[name],

I see you were trying to connect with me today in which you have expressed interest in our candidate Angie for one of your open positions. Are you interested in making a shared placement together? If so I will call her and make the introduction and get you her updated resume.

Let me know,
[name]

Dear [name],

I believe there may be a mixup. I had actually reached out to Lori Ruff to see if she would be able to make an introduction. Sorry for the confusion.

Sincerely,

[name]

Wow – I’m sorry [name]! When you send an introduction request to a third level connection, LinkedIn gives you an option of who to send it through if you have more than one way to get to them, but they don’t allow us to choose who to send it though. Angie is a third level contact to you and Melissa popped up as the person to send the message through. I’m directly connected to her and she’s connected to Angie.

If you have a paid account I’d recommend using inmails for third level connections in the future. If you don’t have a paid account, you can purchase inmails, or if you can send me the person’s profile url, I can send one on your behalf.

Hope this works out!

Lori

I hope that helps you with your networking goals, and as always, Rock On!

Original Post

On LinkedIn Answers the other day I came across an interesting question:

In my group, KdL Web2.0, I got an request to approve a non-member’s discussion, but […] I want to see at least SOME of the discussion before approving it. Fair, right? Okay, well I can click through to the link she provided, which is for reference only. I cannot click through to [name]‘s actual discussion. All I see is the lead-in…
Is this yet another LinkedIn “GOOF?” Why would I approve a guest discussion – without seeing any of the CONTENT of it? Nonsense, right?

The situation does sound a bit strange. I responded initially with:

Let’s start with your group settings. The most open form for an open group is that you can choose to let non-members comment on discussions and submit dicsussions for approval.

***Group Settings***

Anyone on LinkedIn:
*Free to post comments, and submit discussions for approval.
*Submit both comments & discussions for approval.
*Submit comments for approval only (no discussions allowed).
*No contributions allowed.

What LinkedIn shows you is a portion of the discussion or comment to be moderated and the link to “see more…” if it won’t fit in the preview area. If that link isn’t available, it may be a bug but more likely there is a simpler explanation.

However, until I can see what’s actually going on, I can’t advise what that might be. I’d be thrilled to do a screen share via Skype with you. We offer people a free 30-minute consult. You can get LOTS of questions answered in that amount of time.

Rock On!

LinkedIn groups should allow the comments to be viewed before being approved. I hope this user will agree to a Skype chat, as I am sure there is an explanation for the problem. On the other hand, there have been bugs in the past that LinkedIn has had to work out, and they can only be discovered through their users!

Original Post

Recently I had a friend inquire about the discussion button that appears above your picture when you are on a group page.

He was a little confused, since when he clicked on the button nothing seemed to happen!

I answered him,

No worries [name]… I did that too.

The button is to switch back to a discussion if you click on the new poll button beside it.

So it may be a bit of a confusing layout, but think of it as a back button.

Hope that helps!

Original Post

This weekend I received the following message from a group on LinkedIn that I have been a part of:

“Lori, we noticed you haven’t visited [Group Name] lately. To help keep your email tidy, we’ve switched you from daily emails to weekly digests from this group – we hope this suits you better!”

This is not a way to run a group on LinkedIn. If you are a group leader you need to assume that the members of your group have their settings the way they want them. If they do not like getting emails frequently, they will take it upon themselves to change them. Switching settings for your members will only serve to alienate them in a deceived attempt to assist, and can only result in reduced participation, which helps no one. I responded to the group leaders with:

If I had wanted it changed, I would have done it myself. But thanks for the thought. I just don’t need you to make decisions based on your perception of my actions. I read the daily digest rather than visiting the group live very often. I’ve changed it back and am taking the time to send a message to ask you to leave my settings the way I have set them.

Thank you.

I hope this helps other group leaders out there!

Original Post

Image via Wikipedia

LinkedIn is a great tool to connect with friends, coworkers, and professional acquaintances; but, most importantly it is most used to build your network to access resources for business.  It is very important to maximize your time in this professional social site due to your visibility online.  Your new LinkedIn connections find opportunities to connect with you on a business level because of your activity on the site.  Somewhat like Facebook, but in a professional environment, you can post a status update (“Share an update”), send internal messages, communicate through Groups, create or answer polls and also embed applications in your profile to share in your travel, presentations, video, books you are reading  and other applications to boost your presence in a creative way.

You can easily manage your LinkedIn activity in 10 to 30 minutes a day.  Start by visiting LinkedIn “Home”.  View Updates for the Companies you follow and Individuals you have connected with.  The Home page will also show you statistics on how many times your page has been viewed, how many times you have come up in search results and other helpful profile activity from your network.

GROUPS

By receiving periodic (daily or weekly) email digests from your Groups, you can scroll through the lists of discussions to decide if you would like to contribute to the conversations.  In LinkedIn, you can also do this by visiting your “MyGroups” tab, selecting the group you would like to view, then scrolling through the discussions. Don’t have many groups? Check out the Integrated Alliances LinkedIn group at www.JoinIA.com.

INBOX                 

The message portion of the site is a great resource to quickly contact your network through individual messages, bulk messages and mass email (with a maximum of 50 contacts per message).  Your settings default to receiving messages in your Inbox as well as your primary email account. You can adjust those settings to only view the messages in your LinkedIn Inbox.

 The effectiveness of LinkedIn for you is a direct reflection of your profile presence and your activity.  Build your credibility, maintain a consistent schedule and your activity will derive much success.

Rock On!

Hollie Clere, The Social Pro is a social media manager, trainer and author in the LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog and social media world. You can connect at www.TheSocialMediaAdvisor.com

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Here’s an example of the rich media you can add to your LinkedIn profile followed by quick and easy steps to make your LinkedIn profile status update ROCK!

1. On your account settings, make sure your settings are set to “show rich media in your status update.”You can find this under Twitter settings. You’re looking for this checkbox language: “Show rich link display where possible (picture, page title, and short description).” It should be set this way by default but if this process isn’t working for you, this is the first place to look.

2. Next, when you update your stauts from within LinkedIn (easiest on your home page), there is a blue button to “Attach” a link.

3. Add the url and attach.

4. Next (really important!) you can edit the attachment, including which image—if there’s more than one—as well as the image title and content.  We try to make it specific to our update. Then click the blue “Preview” button and add your status (the first 140 characters will also show on Twitter if you click the Twitter checkbox).

5. Ask a couple of close friends who are in an industry targeted to your message to like it and comment on it to get it in their streams as well.  For example: when you put up cool stuff and I like it, people in my network see I liked or commented on your status.

6. Make sure your watch their updates and return the favor unasked!

7. If you want to view your status comments, you can do so from your “View my profile page. Sometime you can’t see your current status, but you can see your ‘previous’ status update in the “member activity” stream on the right column of your “View my profile” page.

Again, make it relevant and keep it professional.  If you have Twitter update your status, turn it off (or select, only tweets with “in”) so you don’t go through all this and then lose it to something less relevant.

P.S. if you click the picture above, you’ll be taken to Joel Comm‘s LinkedIn profile.  His question was the impetus for this blog post so click through, ask him to join your network and tell him I sent you.  He’s the best social media speaker I’ve ever had the privilege of seeing.  He not only knows his stuff, he’s excited to help folks learn new skills to improve their business and to inspire them. He has inspired me for years and I’m grateful.

Rock On!

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It’s great when my connections send questions via LinkedIn because I know other people must wonder the same thing. That makes really good fodder for blogs posts! So please… ask away!
On 12/03/10 8:55 AM, Heather wrote:
——————–
Good Morning

I have a social media question that I am hoping that you can clarify.  I just recently added a business Twitter acount and synched it with my LinkedIn profile.  I was wondering if there is a simple way of searching my current contacts in LinkedIn that have a Twitter account so that I can follow them.

Thank you in advance for your help!

And my answer…

——————–

Good question!  What I’d do is download your LinkedIn connections and then upload the list to Twitter.  From “Find People” follow the prompts to “Invite friends to Twitter via email”.

If you’re using the “Tweets” Application on LinkedIn, you can also use “Find Friends” and searching LinkedIn.  For me, that means clicking “Follow” 15 times on over 400 pages of people.  You can, however, also create a Twitter List of your LinkedIn connections.  That would help other people find you as well.

Hope that helps!

The Diva

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I receive about one request a week to “endorse,” or recommend someone on LinkedIn that I don’t know. Unless I know the person and have experienced their work, I usually reply back with regrets that I am unable to help them.

In one instance this week however, I replied and got back this response:

“Sorry about that miss understanding im still learning how to use linkedin correctly thought was a type of request were you would tell your connections about us sorry to have wasted your time Ive now had this feature explained to me look forward to talking with you more about what we do at …”

Two things struck me.  This is obviously from a person for whom English is not a native language. Secondly, the way the word endorsement was used on the site before their recent changes can be confusing even to native English speakers.

Can You Endorse Me?

LinkedIn Recommendations are called just that on your profile. However, when you Manage recommendations you’ve received”, the imperative below that headline is “Ask colleagues, clients, managers, and employees to endorse your work. Get recommended.”

The link then becomes “Ask to be endorsed” and the standard language is “Can you endorse me?”

Get Introduced Through A Connection

Now, when someone wants to be introduced, while they are visiting the person’s profile, there is a link to “Get Introduced Through A Connection.” In their documentation, they indicate: “Important: Only invite people you know well and who know you.”

If you know the person that you request to send the introduction, you might also ask for an endorsement based on their experience with you.  Keep in mind, however, that every party in the string of messages can see all the messages, so use care in crafting your message.

By the way, if you like our blog, our book, our training or speaking, we’d be honored to accept an invitation and a recommendation of our work. Here are the quick links to our profiles:

Mike O’Neil, The LinkedIn Rockstar

Lori Ruff, The LinkedIn Diva

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I recently received an standard invitation to connect in LinkedIn from Ben. Like I do for most people, I sent a thank you for the invitation, offered a short introduction of what we do and offered a couple of ways I might offer help in the LinkedIn community.

Ben’s reply was innocent:

Your number of contacts sure is impressive. I’m just a little bit curious about your business. Do you charge a fee or commission for introducing connections to other connections? And if I do decide I would like to connect with one of your contacts what kind of process does that involve?
Thanks Lori.
Ben

The answer I gave him is the one I’ll give you:

There’s never a fee to ask for an introduction through LinkedIn! That’s a great question! All you need to do is (on their profile to the right of their name) click “Get introduced through a connection”, select the common contact you want to send the introduction through, and write a short note to each party asking for the intro. its really that simple!

We do make a couple of recommendations like: always use a connection you know well if you can. Keep in mind that all parties can read all notes so choose your words carefully. And, rather than sending an introduction request to someone who is a 3rd level contact, join a common group so you can send them a message instead.

Our income comes from speaking and training engagements consulting and a bit of lunch money from books. If you’re as curious as Ben, try what I recommended to him: www.rocktheworldbook.com. Look at the blog and get the first book (the yellow one) to make the most of your time on LinkedIn. It’s a quick read and easy to implement!

Let me know how you like it

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So many profiles! So little time!

Often I find people have duplicate LinkedIn profiles. Sometimes they didn’t mean to, other times they mistakenly believed that they needed a second profile to represent a different focus.  The fact is that the LinkedIn End User License Agreement states that each user agrees and acknowledges that they shall have only one profile.  Any multiple profile instances and, whether you meant it or not, you are in violation of the agreement you accepted and in jeopardy of losing both (or all) accounts.

If you’re in this boat, here’s what you need to do. Just follow the steps that you need. Skip the ones you don’t. I’ve included a screen shot below as a reference.

1. Search your name on LinkedIn. If you find YOURSELF more than once, look at each profile and note the “Public Profile URL”. This URL is found near the bottom of the blue header area of every LinkedIn profile. For example, mine is http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/LoriRuff.
2. Look at each profile. Decide which you want to keep.  The easiest is the one with the most connections and/or the most recommendations. You can change everything else yourself; asking people to join you on your new profile requires forces outside of yourself to comply.
3. Next, if there is any text you want to save from the profile you have chosen to delete, be sure to copy and paste it to a Word document.  Alternatively, you can save all the text by selecting the pdf button on the top right of each profile. It will save an acrobat file to your computer so you have a copy of each profile.
4. Next, you want to capture your current connections so click on the top navigation bar on “contacts/my connections”. On the bottom right of the listing, you will see a small blue link to export your connections.  Just save the file, making note of where it is so you can access it later.
5. You also want to note any recommendations on the profile you will be deleting so you can copy it and send a note from the surviving account to those same people, explaining that you are combining profiles and giving them the text of their original recommendation.
6. Make note of groups that you are a member of in case you want to rejoin those again.
7. Go to your “Settings” link on the top right of your screen. (Note that anytime you try to access a sensitive area of your profile, LinkedIn will ask you to verify your password.) On the right, look under “Personal Information/Email Addresses” and make note of any email addresses associated with the account you are closing. You will want to associate them with the account you are keeping. Note that you must be able to confirm your email address in order to associate it with your account. If you cannot do that, this might make the decision of which profile to keep. Having all of your email addresses associated with your account will help prevent this from happening in the future. Think of all the business cards floating out there that have old email addresses on them!  People want to find you.
8. Finally, if you are ready, under “Settings/Personal Information/Close Account” You can follow the prompts to shut down the account.
9. If you are not able to access the account, you can follow all the steps above that you can, then send a message to customer_service@linkedin.com.  Ask them for help in shutting down the account (provide the public URL) to assist you in staying compliant with the End User License Agreement.

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As The LinkedIn Diva, I get many requests for help from individuals.  I can’t answer them all but I do try.  One method of sharing information is this blog. A message I get with some regularity is regarding the loss of online profile information.  Usually, it is caused by someone’s account being suspended, completely blocking access.  At times, however, it is caused by some random glitch or Internet gremlin that hides your data. An example is the quick message received below:

“My text suddenly disappeared from under a section of my Education. How can it be retrieved?”

My response included three options:

1. Wait for it.  If something you thought was there disappeared, it could be that you are just unable to see it at the moment.  Computers do strange things at times.  Don’t panic.

2. Contact customer_service@linkedin.com and let them know what the problem is. If you’re a paid subscriber, say so in the subject line. Ask for their help.

3. ALWAYS keep a copy of your profile from every networking site in a file on your computer or in the cloud – off site.  On LinkedIn, you can click the small pdf icon to the right of your picture under the contact options to save a copy of your profile as a pdf file. You can also visit http://www.rocktheworldbook.com/extras and use the download worksheet to save and even enhance your profile.

One more thing: consider a copy of our first book, Rock The World with Your Online Presence. It really is the most comprehensive and thorough book on the topic of LinkedIn profiles available. It is worth the under $20 investment in your success.  Try it and let me know if you agree.

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I’ve had lots of messages from subscribers and followers about the recent decline in my “daily blogging” and I’ve sent them each back a message something like this:

“Thanks so much for your loyalty to our blog and resources… just wait till you see what we’ve been up to!“

As we were preparing to schedule and begin writing our second book, Mike had a bright idea. (Aren’t they all?) He said: “Let’s do an introduction to social media for LinkedIn users!”

Brilliant. As we traveled the previous six months, more and more business people would ask us how they could make the move to other platforms; what they needed to know; where they should start.

Mike was right. And several adivsors we talked to about the idea asked us how fast we could get a manuscript ready.

That was mid-February.  By mid-August we submitted our completed manuscript to the publisher.  It now goes to the line editor, interior layout designer and finally, after a proof copy passes muster with us, it will go to the printer who will have 20 days to turn around the initial order.

So, mid-October will see Mike and I at the publisher’s digs signing thousands of first edition copies to fulfill pre-order sales before they ship for delivery by November first.

Here are some of the cool components coming:

First, since we’re social media folks, into crowd-sourcing, we thought reaching out to our friends and peers in the industry would be an appropriate thing to do. So we used the very social media platforms we discuss in the book to create it.

Next, we asked some of our best clients to share with us their favorite tips and tricks and tools that they learned from us or others. We included all of those in the book.

Finally, we wrapped what could be text of a typical business book in the music of fictitious characters, the classic rockers Pink and Floyd who, throughout the pages, shed light for you on the Dark Side of the Moon.

Take a peek at our home page and the publisher’s page for more information. Watch our Extras page as we complete development and upload additional resources to complement the first and second books in the Rock The World^TM series. And below, leave a comment. Let us know what you think, share ideas on marketing the book, and ask questions. We appreciate your input and will respond quickly.

Visit www.RockTheWorld2.com for details or to pre-order your signed, first edition copies!

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So many people are jumping on bandwagons these days, so many trying to find their next gig, trying to do something to pay the bills. And so the issue comes up that anyone can do anything for anyone if they just know a little more than the next guy. But is that good enough?

I received yet another notice in my inbox from a new social media “expert” that purports to have figured it out. When I looked at the facebook video link, it was of such poor quality that it was sad to watch. He’s sitting on an old couch in a wrinkled shirt with bad audio (making it hard to hear) on a dim webcam so the only feature I can really pick out against the background is rather large ears.

Am I dissing this guy? No; not at all. I am being honest about how he is portraying himself in his quest to “sell” social media training to small business owners. Maybe he will find success; perhaps he will help some people go further than they are going themselves. In the meantime, he doesn’t understand that he comes across as someone who’s not in it for the long haul, someone who will leave the side of his client the moment a job offer comes in.

Contrast that with the quality product a real training company or professional strives to provide and you’ll see a huge difference in the potential return on your investment. Here’s a real life example: Mike and I were recently at HyperThreat Studios to record a CD-quality audio companion to our first book Rock the World with your Online Presence. The picture attached to this post is my partner, Mike O’Neil in front of the microphone.

The point is, when people come across so much poor quality, they stop looking. They miss the real professionals who can help them navigate this new world. There are tons of people who are in the field, where good enough is just good enough, sort of like our friend described above. There are fewer real veterans who will someday (perhaps sooner than later) find themselves being inducted into the Social Media Hall of Fame. Those would be the likes of Guy Kawasaki, Jay Deragon, Chris Brogan, Joel Comm, Dean Holmes, Mike O’Neil, Ron Davies, Lewis Howes, Patrick O’Malley, JD Gershbein, and others.

The above is by no means an exhaustive list. Rather only the first who have come to mind. If you know someone who really knows their stuff, feel free to drop a comment below. We’d love to recognize real experts in the field who maintain a level of quality not because they have to, but because they are just that authentic.

#1 – If you find it annoying to attend a networking event with people that bring their resume with them, consider how it appears when you do this:

On LinkedIn, you send your resume directly to the email address of all of your first level connections, asking them to pass it along if they know someone who is hiring.

First of all, you haven’t even educated the recipient of the career move you want to make or the type of position you are looking for. You can’t expect them to take the time to open the resume document (if they are inclined to open an attachment anyway.

If they do open the attachment, you can’t expect them to know from reading your resume what it is you are looking for. Most are not trained staffing professionals.

The better option is to reach out to people ON LinkedIn, which always includes a link back to your profile. Let them know what you are looking for and ask, if they happen to hear of anyone hiring in that area, if they would keep you in mind to refer.

#2 – If you cannot pay attention to detail; then do not say you do. How annoyed do you get at people who send an open email message to an entire list, all included in the TO field rather than the BCC?

On LinkedIn, when you send a message or communication to more than one person, the box: “Allow recipients to see each other’s names and email addresses” is checked by default. Bad form: this sends the message to everyone’s primary email address in the TO field.

Not being caught in this etiquette trap takes only the effort to uncheck that box.

#3 – Broadcasting your message without considering where you are: if you don’t walk into church or the gym with your resume and business cards in your hand, don’t do it on LinkedIn.

Really, just by participating in the community, answering questions, engaging in group discussions, commenting on people’s status updates, all leave a digital business card that will lead people right back to your profile.

Rather than seem desperate and broadcast your search everywhere you go, practice subtlety and engagement. Just by being there, people will notice you. If you have an attractive and relevant headline, and a strong profile, inquiries will come to you as often as those you send out.

How about you? What are your pet peeves from people who just “don’t get it” on LinkedIn?



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“We estimate there are half a billion professionals in the world. And, we’re at north of 60 million [members] today.” Those are the words of LinkedIn’s CEO Jeff Weiner.  That means growth; that means opportunity; that means the more engaged a current user is now, the more benefit they will see moving into the future as the company continues to expand its reach.

Here’s the original article: http://money.cnn.com/2010/03/24/technology/linkedin_social_networking.fortune which includes a video link about half-way down the page.

Really, what we’ve been talking about all along is being recognized by others. LinkedIn is a place for business professionals to network. It’s not a social network, although there

LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner

are a few social components, like listing interests. But think about what you talk about at work anyway.  I find other music fans and sports car enthusiasts at work. We talk about the charities or professional associations that rock our world while we’re at the office, on a business lunch, etc.

Whether at work or in our personal lives, people want to connect on a human level. I think the brilliance of LinkedIn, is that it’s not just a place to store your resume. Rather, it is a place you can engage with and learn from and about other professionals interested in the same things you are interested in.  It is a place you can find a dozen people to do business with, and then select the best based on a cultural fit. Its a place you can connect with people on a personal level and provide service and support to people who know you will “get them” because you speak the same language outside of work.

So, are you “On” LinkedIn, or do you just have a profile full of facts and data.  If so, dust off that data, add some life, get engaged in the groups, answer a few questions, and breathe some life into the opportunities awaiting you on this growing and powerful platform.  It can change your life. It did mine!