Interactive Insights Group

Trying to figure out how you can use LinkedIn to grow your business?

Have some questions about how to set up your LinkedIn profile for maximum impact?

Wondering what you should avoid doing on LinkedIn?

I’ve been using LinkedIn for years and have found it to be one of the most useful professional networking sites online.   It can help you build your professional network, establish your brand/image, and market your services.  I’ve even found LinkedIn’s group feature to be a helpful tool for driving traffic to this blog.

I’ve covered LinkedIn a bit in some of my recent posts – “How-To: Build & Manage Your Brand Identity with Social Media” and “Ultimate How-To: Grow Your Social Media Network.”  Here I provide a comprehensive guide to a range of tutorials/how-to’s, tips, advice and tools to help you become a LinkedIn power user.

Want to connect with me via LinkedIn? Feel free to send me an invitation on LinkedIn explaining why you’d like to connect with me on LinkedIn.

Tutorials and How-To’s

• LinkedIn Learning Center
  Official Linked In Site with information on learning the basics, information on site features (e.g. profile, answers, mobile) and a link to a New User guide.
• LinkedIn How-Tos
  From Linked Intelligence: Practical collection of How-To’s from Dave Taylor including figuring our your Linked In profile URL, how to make your Linked in profile public, deleting contacts in Linked in and more.
• The Social Media Starter Kit: LinkedIn
  From Altitude Branding: Beginners Guide to Linked In by Amber Naslund.
• Video: What is Linked In? from CNN.com
  CNN’s Sasha Herriman gets a refresher course on LinkedIn, an online social networking site aimed at professional
• How to Use LinkedIn
  From BNET: Excellent how-to/tutorial from Jake Swearingen on creating a good profile, building your network, getting the most from your connections, and managing your network. Includes good checklists and don’ts as well.

Tips and Advice

• The Official LinkedIn Blog Official Linked In Blog with advice and tips.
• 10 Part Series: Can LinkedIn Work for You?
  From Linked Intuition: Advice on using LinkedIn in 10 parts – includes enhancing your networking, establishing credibility, connecting your offline brand to your online brand and more.
• Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn
  From How To Change the World: Guy Kawasaki offers up solid tips on the top 10 ways to increase the value of LinkedIn including advice on increasing your visibility, improving your connectability, improving you Google PageRank and more.   Also see Guy’s post:  LinkedIn Profile Extreme Makeover.
• LinkedWorking: Generating Success on LinkedIn the Worlds Largest Professional Networking Website
  In this book, Frank Agin and Lewis Howes show you how you can leverage LinkedIn and position yourself to capitalize on opportunities.
• 10 Tips to Use LinkedIn Like a Professional
  From AriWriter: Ari Herzog provides solid advice on using LinkedIn in a more effective manner for professional networking – from “keeping your profile updated” to “writing in first person instead of third” to “actively asking and answering questions” and more.
• How To Get More From LinkedIn
  From Sitepoint: Article outlines a few of the ways to get more from your LinkedIn account- from optimizing your profile to finding groups to join to using the Linked in Answers feature to searching more effectively on Linked In.
• Top 10 mistakes people make on LinkedIn From Grow My Law Firm: List of things you want to avoid doing on Linked In.  Also read 7 more things to avoid on LinkedIn with 7 more things not to do.
• 5 LinkedIn tips on effective personal branding
  From the Official LinkedIn Blog: Personal branding guru Dan Schawbel offers up five tips on using a professional networking site like LinkedIn to build your personal and professional brand on the web.
• 33 Ways to Use LinkedIn for Business
  From Work Worker Daily: Post from Meryl Evans offers advice on how to use LinkedIn for business.
• Five LinkedIn Tips
  From Stepcase Lifehack: Advice on enhancing your use of Linked In – tips like adding your email address to your last name, filling out your profile completely, getting recommendations from colleagues and more.
• HOW TO: Build Your Company’s Profile on LinkedIn
  From Mashable: Advice from Adam Ostrow on building a profile for your business on LinkedIn.
• How to Be a LinkedIn Superstar
  From iMediaConnection.com: Tips on how to best utilize LinkedIn for you and your business.
• 100+ Smart Ways to Use LinkedIn
  From Linked Intelligence: Broad collection of advice on using Linkedin as a business tool – with links to articles on a wide range of specific topics in usage categories such as Business Development/Marketing/Sales, Career Management/Personal Branding/Resumes, Job Search, Recruiting, Growing your Network, Keeping in Touch, meeting Face to Face, Organizing and Extending Groups and more.
• Get Ahead on LinkedIn
  From Wired’s How-To Wiki: Primer on using Linked in from “planning your profile” to “working your network” and more.
• How to Get the Most Out of LinkedIn
  From Mashable: Brian Wallace provides advice and tips on how to leverage LinkedIn.
• Advice on Using Linked in Groups
  • 5 ways to get more from your LinkedIn Groups
    From the Official LinkedIn Blog: Here are 5 ways to get the most out of your group memberships on LinkedIn.
  • LinkedIn Groups Add Marketing Power
    From Mashable: Adam Ostrow gives a rundown on a number of features that give group admins of LinkedIn groups more marketing muscle – from the ability to send announcements via email to group members to the ability to import RSS feeds into the News area of groups.
  • 5 Tips for Creating, Promoting and Managing a LinkedIn Group
    From Hubspot: Solid advice and tips for leveraging the power of LinkedIn groups – from creating a group to promoting a group to managing a group.
• Advice on Linked In Profile and Profile Elementss:
  • Make Your LinkedIn Profile Work for You
    From chrisbrogan.com: Advice on writing a solid LinkedIn Profile.
  • Are You Missing An Opportunity With Your LinkedIn Tag Line?
    From I’m On LinkedIn – Now What???: Jason Alba offers up advice on how to use your LinkedIn tagline to your advantage.
  • Write Your LinkedIn Profile for Your Future
    From Chris Brogan: More great advice from Chris on creating your LinkedIn profile with a focus on demonstrating not only where you are now but also where you plan to go next.
  • Elements of a Good LinkedIn Recommendation
    From Chris Brogan: Smart advice from Chris on how to write good LinkedIn recommendation for others as well as how to ask others to write LinkedIn recommendation for you.
  • What recruiters look for in a LinkedIn profile: 8 tips
    From the Official LinkedIn Blog: Advice from Executive recruiter Matt Schwartz on some key characteristics of a LinkedIn user that grab his attention.
• Top 3 Ways to Add LinkedIn Connections and Why You Should Care
  From Peopletoucher: Advice on why it is imperative to add connections and grow your network to add to your searching ability on LInked In – and how to go about doing this.
• Optimizing your LinkedIn Search Experience
  From the Official LinkedIn Blog: Advice on designing an improved user experience for Search.
• LinkedIn help
  Official blog behind the book:”I’m on Linked In, Now What?” with advice on getting the most out of LinkedIn for professionals and for your career.
• Advice for small businesses:
  • Using LinkedIn as a Small Business Owner
    From Social Media Today: Advice for small business owners on how to use Linked In to enhance their business success.
  • 7 Ways Linkedin.com will Improve Your Small Business
    From Inovedia Marketing: Advice on leveraging LinkedIn for small businesses.

Tools

• LinkedIn: LinkedIn Tools
  Official LinkedIn Tools that allow you so search, build your network and manage your contacts from the applications you may already be using – includes Outlook Toolbar, Browser Toolbar, Email Signature tool, a Google Toolbar Assistant, and more.
• Linked In Tools
  From Linked Intuition: List of LinkedIn tools such as the LinkedIn Presence Scoring Tool along with LinkedIn browser toolbars, widgets and more.
• LINKEDIN TOOLBOX: Top 10 LinkedIn Tools
  From Mashable: Review of tools, scripts, and plugins to manage Linked In and make it better and easier to use.
• Alltop – Top LinkedIn News
  Alltop’s collection of headlines covering the latest stories from the best sites and blogs that cover LinkedIn.
• LinkedInABox: Unleash Your LinkedIn Profile
  LinkedInABox™ is a simple widget that can be embedded on any web page and provides a summary of your personal profile, as presented in your LinkedIn account.
• TopLinked People on LinkedIn
  Listing of the top (by numbers of connections) LinkedIn networkers and their number of connections.

May 12th, 2009

Tags:   linkedin · social networks20 Comments