How many of you have already known LinkedIn? Do you have a LinkedIn account? So what is LinkedIn anyway?
When you join, you create a profile that summarizes your professional expertise and accomplishments. You can then form enduring connections by inviting trusted contacts to join LinkedIn and connect to you. Your network consists of your connections, your connections’ connections, and the people they know, linking you to a vast number of qualified professionals and experts. Through your network you can:
- Manage the information that’s publicly available about you as professional
- Find and be introduced to potential clients, service providers, and subject experts who come recommended
- Create and collaborate on projects, gather data, share files and solve problems
- Be found for business opportunities and find potential partners
- Gain new insights from discussions with likeminded professionals in private group settings
- Discover inside connections that can help you land jobs and close deals
- Post and distribute job listings to find the best talent for your company
From my point of view, I think that LinkedIn is a good business tools for marketing over the internet today. Most people use LinkedIn to “get to someone” in order to make a sale, form a partnership, or get a job.
Here are some tips for you to get the most out of LinkedIn
- Increase visibility by adding connections so that people will see your profile first when they’re searching for someone to hire or do business with. In addition to appearing at the top of search results, people would much rather work with people who their friends know and trust.
- Improve connectability by filling out your profile like it’s an executive bio, include past companies, education, affiliations, and activities
- Improve your Linkedin profile Search Engine ranking by creating a public profile and select "Full View". Also customize your public profile’s URL to be your actual name. To strengthen the visibility of this page in search engines, use this link in various places on the web.
- Gauge the health of a company by performing an advanced search for company name and uncheck the “Current Companies Only” box. This will enable you to scrutinize the rate of turnover and whether key people are abandoning ship. Former employees usually give more candid opinions about a company’s prospects than someone who’s still on board.
- Integrate into a new job. When people start a new job, ordinarily their roots aren’t that deep in the new company. However, with Linkedin, new employees can study fellow employees’ profiles and therefore help them get to know more people faster in a new company.
- Fill out your LinkeIn profile. First, some people search profiles for keywords, so make sure the words you hope people are seeking when they think of you exist inside your profile. Use real captivating words up front, not like a resume or CV, but instead, like an advertisement for you, because that’s what LinkedIN is!
- Ask and answer questions by using the Answers feature brings your name and profile around to people you’re not exposed to directly. This means more opportunities for someone to recognize your authority in some field, and to reach out and contact you for something further. It means sharing the fruits of your networking with others, and potentially connecting 3rd parties to each other for something bigger. This comes in handy when it becomes obvious that you’re also a good connector.
- Help others. The best way to network is to help others succeed. They’ll never forget you, and you will be paid back tenfold some day. Use LinkedIn to help others promote them, link to them, connect with them, recommend them, answer their questions.
- Use LinkedIn as Market research tool. Planning to launch a new product? Do a little research into what companies are offering similar things, about what kind of potential customers are out there, and what they’re like, and what their needs are, and what kind of demand there is for your type of product. It can take some creative searching, but the information is there, waiting to be mined. Talk to employees or former employees of similar businesses, or of potential customers, and you can get the answers you’re looking for.
- Check references for potential hires. Trying to hire the perfect widget maker? Well, you’re not likely to find out about an applicant’s sordid past mistakes by calling the references on their application. Do a search for others who worked at the same company at the same time, and get a better background check in minutes.
There are still many other tips it mostly depends on your usage.
By the way, the world has been changed. The raising of Web 2.0 makes social network goes up also. In a near future, you will see that the recruitment will happen on the internet, through Social Network tools. You will see a lot of messages like this “Oh, crap! We need to get on Twitter! And Facebook! And MySpace! And LinkedIn! Grab interns who know this stuff, quick!”.
Well, is it hot? Why don't you open the LinkedIn and create your own profile?
Here is my LinkedIn profile http://www.linkedin.com/in/hieuletrung and if you're Global CyberSoft employee, make sure you enter Global CyberSoft network when joining LinkedIn
References:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LinkedIn
- http://press.linkedin.com/about
- http://www.recruitingblogs.com/its-time-to-take-social-recruiting-to-the-next-level
- http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/twelve-ways-to-use-linkedin.html
- http://venturebeat.com/2007/12/09/linkedin-launches-platform-redesign-a-better-business-social-network/
- http://faq.programmerworld.net/misc/get-most-out-of-linkedin.htm
- http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/linkedin_and_the_future_of_business_social_networks.php
- http://blog.linkedin.com/2007/12/10/the-intelligent-2/
- http://bx.businessweek.com/linkedin/
