LinkedIn and Business Networking 3
After reviewing LinkedIn connections options and groups, and getting to know how to grow your network of business connections through LinkedIn, in this post I would like to review and recommend a few more useful features.
One of the most useful and effective tools on LinkedIn is recommendations.
LinkedIn recommendation link
On LinkedIn you can recommend or get recommended by any of your connections. Recommendations are added to your public profile, and can be seen by anyone.
Recommendations on LinkedIn profile
Take the time to ask your connections on LinkedIn to write a few kind words about you. The importance here is that your LinkedIn profile is part of your online reputation, seen by people you would like to conduct business with or have them hire you or be your customers. These are the exact people that will see your recommendations if you would have them. In many cases, colleagues, former employers or friends will have no problem recommending you (it doesn’t have to be more than a 4-5 lines). Of course I would suggest writing a few recommendation yourself to help friends and colleagues and to return a favor.
Another important thing is to know about the applications you can add to LinkedIn. There are many around and I will give one as an example I added to my profile. I added the wordpress app a short while ago. This application retrieves new posts from my blog (this blog in this case) and shows a preview of it in my profile.
Wordpress app for LinkedIn
In this way, my blog gets more exposure, and my connections can get closer and know what I’m writing about or what interests me. There are many more linking to other applications outside LinkedIn for many purposes.
In conclusion to the last three posts on LinkedIn, I recommend setting up a LinkedIn user, getting connected with it. Use its features as explained on this blog with recommendations, groups and applications. After a short term of 2-3 months your profile will be a substantial point on your map of business network.
…One last thing, when you need to introduce yourself to new people, provided your LinkedIn user is up and running, you could export or link in an email your public profile instead of a short CV or abstract. This way people can see everything they need to know about you (and only what you chose to show…). Here is mine.
