For many, LinkedIn causes confusion – what is it, exactly?  Is it a virtual Rolodex, a place to showcase one’s resume, or is it a social network?  My answer – yes, yes, and yes.  Here are 7 tips and tricks to greatly improve your LinkedIn experience and make it a site you want to visit every single day.

1.  Expand Your Network

With a limited number of connections, LinkedIn is going to be pretty darn boring for you.  There will be few updates for you to see, and virtually nobody will read your status changes.  So, how do you expand your network to include relevant connections?  Send the invitations yourself!  Don’t be shy about it, either.  I say go for the gusto, invite the CEO of your company to connect, invite the awesome presenter that enthralled you at the latest conference, invite anyone that you either know well or want to know better.

But, when you do send the invite, follow these tips for how to properly construct the invitation.

2. Be Creative With Your Headline

Most tend to assume that a LinkedIn headline should include only your precise job title.  Why?  The LinkedIn police aren’t going to hunt you down for adding a bit of creative flair to your profile.

After all, it is highly unlikely that your job title alone does you justice. You might officially be an “Account Executive”, but that title tells us next to nothing about what you actually do. Look to these examples for inspiration on how to amp up your LinkedIn headline.

Marci Reynolds – Operations Leader | Expertise in Call Centers – Sales Ops – eBusiness | Blogger & Social Media Enthusiast

Dan Schawbel – Personal Branding Expert, Bestselling Author, Speaker, Consultant, Columnist, Publisher and Blogger

Liz Isaacs – Connector ♦ Passionate Writing & Marketing Communications Strategist ♦ Writing Coach ♦ Author & Screenwriter

To make the change, navigate to LinkedIn > Edit My Profile > Edit Headline.

3.  Incorporate Twitter

LinkedIn and Twitter integrated with one another in November of 2009.  The unlikely pairing instantly changed the way many use and think of LinkedIn.  By incorporating a select* number of tweets into your LinkedIn status updates, you can form a much closer bond with many of your business contacts.

*But a word of caution – many LinkedIn users won’t be used to a Twitter-like bombardment of updates, so be thoughtful with your frequency.  And remember to keep everything business-appropriate.

4.  Access LinkedIn Via Mobile

Only staying connected to your network when you are chained to your desktop is so 2009.  Several months ago LinkedIn released a completely new interface for their iPhone app.  The result?  Functionality shot through the roof, and the mobile experience instantly improved.  The LinkedIn iPhone app is the reason I now visit LinkedIn every single day.

5.  Ask Questions

Most often my advice is for folks to answer questions on LinkedIn, showing their specific expertise via the official “Answers” section.  But this is about making your experience better, so go ahead, start off by asking a few questions of your own.  Here you will see the power of the LinkedIn community – try and stump them by asking a doozy of a question.

6.  Join Groups (Even Cool Ones)

I know what you are thinking.  “Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard of LinkedIn groups, but why would I want to join? They seem boring.”  Maybe you are a skateboarding champ who happens to love The Simpsons, and you think there is no LinkedIn Group worth your while.  Think again!  You can join the “Action Sports Connect” and “Simpsons Fan” groups, and find a few like-minded individuals in your industry.

7.  Create Your Own Group

What is better than joining a group that suits an interest of yours?  Creating your own, of course.  You can create a group around any niche you want – be it topical, age-based, geographic, anything.  Sure, your group might start out small, and maybe it will stay small.  Who cares?  The connections you make via a small, tight-knit group in your industry are likely to be stronger than any formed in a group of thousands.

These are just seven ways of many to improve your LinkedIn experience.  If you haven’t logged in to LinkedIn for a long while, give it a shot again – I think you will like what you see.

Now seems like the perfect time to connect on LinkedIn, right?  Connect with Ryan Rancatore on LinkedIn here, or on Twitter here  @RyanRancatore.  Swing by Personal Branding 101 too if you are cruising for more personal branding tips and tricks.  

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The social media world has tools,  tools, and more tools at your disposal to connect you with any number of networks.  You are most likely on Facebook and LinkedIn.  Maybe you are on Twitter and YouTube.  And maybe you’re even on a few additional sites like MySpace, Ning, Plaxo, Yammer, any number of blogs, and too many other sites to list.

The ability for you to expand your online network has never been greater.  And while all of these avenues are available for you, this is not what is important.  What is important is how you use any of these networking tools to your advantage.

If you want to converse with anyone on any topic, you are most certainly able to do this.  What you need to consider is how to best assert yourself, and your brand, in the best light.

Yes, it is important to be on a network with a lot of people.  But it is even more important to be on a network where the “right” people are located.  If you are working for the government or government agencies, you will want to check out GovLoop to network more effectively with those in your core business area.  If you are a doctor then you might be interested in Physician Connect.  If you are in Human Resources or Recruiting then you will be interested in SHRM or ERE.

Whatever your profession, passion, or area of expertise, you should consider an alternative social network.  It’s one more way for you to expand your connections and your passions with those sharing similar interests.

Take the time to do the research to find what communities may impact you the most.  Two books I definitely recommend, written by Gary Vaynerchuk and Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, both speak about passion at great extent.

Follow your passion and go to where you will add to your personal brand, make the most impact and create trust with your network.

—

Keith McIlvaine is a Social Media Strategist within HR and Recruiting for a Fortune 500 company.  When he is not focused on leveraging social media and networking, Keith is also a personal branding coach and social media mentor.  He is passionate about his family and is a major soccer fanatic.  Connect with Keith on Twitter and LinkedIn.  The statements I have posted on this site are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.

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If you are interested in personal branding, chances are strong that you regularly engage in some form of social media.  If so, I ask you this question – is social media truly beneficial to your brand, or is it a giant waste of your time? (Not a rhetorical question, let’s hear your answer in the comments section!)

For comparison’s sake, let me make a few generalizations about your social media activities.  My guess is that you are active on Facebook and/or Twitter, and have a profile set up on LinkedIn.  Aside from the “big three”, you probably have a few accounts at smaller niche sites.  Altogether, you might spend an average of 1 hour per day networking online.

Assuming the above is true, or close, you spend roughly 365 hours per year on social media.  Allow me to play the role of devil’s advocate, and offer a few alternative ways you could spend that 365 hours:

• -Take a college course from Harvard, Stanford, or Yale.
• -Work part-time at $10 per hour, and earn an extra $3,650.
• -Reading 1 page per minute, 300 pages per book, you could finish an extra 73 books, for free.
• -At 10 minutes per mile (a speed of 6 on the treadmill), you could run 2,190 miles per year.
• -Writing 1 page every 10 minutes, you could write 7 books of your own.
• -Find an internship, and work the equivalent of 2 full-time months.
• -Learn a new language. Or two.

Honesty time – I haven’t done any of the above.  Not even close.  Instead, while writing this article I’ve clicked links from Twitter, updated Facebook, and even formed a new connection on LinkedIn.  Why?  Because I’m a huge believer in the brand-building power of social media.

But, after reading the alternatives above, let me ask you again:  Is social media worth YOUR time? If so, prove it in the comments section below with concrete evidence – who have you met, what have you learned, or how exactly has your brand benefited as a direct result of social media?

Ryan Rancatore can also be found discussing social media and more at Personal Branding 101.  Connect with Ryan on Twitter at @RyanRancatore, or on Linkedin, Facebook, or Brazen Careerist.

Photo credit, gnackgnackgnack.

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Social media is becoming more intertwined every day.  There are countless tools to utilize and social networks to join and connect with others and there are even big name integrations that occur such as Facebook with Twitter and, maybe more importantly, LinkedIn with Twitter.  This integration allows you to connect your Twitter account and feed updates into your LinkedIn profile, and vice versa.  Also, as both LinkedIn and Twitter only allow for 140 characters in their status box, it is a natural fit.

Initially, this was a great move for LinkedIn to capture another audience and put what was largely an under-utilized status box into more of a prominent position for its users.  However, if you look at this from another perspective, it may not be an ideal solution for everyone.

Twitter is an outlet for you to share a wide variety of information, from personal to professional and from insignificant to breaking news.  LinkedIn is very much a professional networking site where business-related topics are shared and discussed.  With the integration between Twitter and LinkedIn, the LinkedIn professional updates are becoming gray at best for some of the members.

Some individuals on LinkedIn may choose not to use Twitter or are not active on Twitter.  These individuals are now getting your “noise” on any topic, including the non-business variety of message.  This could be viewed as a negative within your network and could result in the loss of connections.

What is also important to consider is that you may not be connected to or following individuals on purpose on Twitter.  Maybe you are not following your boss or coworkers for fear over what you may post.  Now, because of this integration, you maybe exposing your messages and putting them in front of the individuals you were trying to hide them from.  You are also exposing when you are “tweeting” during the workday.  It is important to recognize that there is more to your tweets than just their content; the time at which they are posted can tip off a boss to an unproductive worker.  Think about it.

Personally, I have linked my LinkedIn and Twitter accounts because I felt this was a fantastic merger from a business perspective.  I am now able to communicate with two potentially different  networks.

My strong recommendation is to not allow every “tweet” into your LinkedIn profile.  LinkedIn was smart in how they allow you two choices as to what “tweets” are connected.  When you link your accounts, you are provided the options to select either the “all tweets” option or the “only tweets with #in within the message” option.

The first option, the “all tweets” option, carries a high probability of producing messages which are perceived as spam to your connections on LinkedIn and potentially damaging professional relationships if you tweet often or tweet on mostly non-business topics.  The second option, the “only tweets with #in within the message” is much better in my opinion and appears to be a more sensible option for the LinkedIn and Twitter integration.  Simply keying “#in” within your message on Twitter will post to both Twitter and LinkedIn.  This provides you a greater ability to stay on the course you have chosen on Twitter while increasing your ability to post business information on multiple sites.  Or you may post a message on LinkedIn and push it out to Twitter.  Either way, you are in control as to what messages you share on LinkedIn.

Easy steps on how to adjust your Twitter settings within LinkedIn:

1. Log into LinkedIn
2. At the top right corner of the page, select the “Settings” option
3. Under “Profile Settings”, selection the last option for “Twitter Settings”

This integration may not a perfect solution for reaching both audiences in an ideal manner, but it definitely can work well depending on how you choose to use it.  What this integration continues to reinforce is that you must be very smart with what information you choose to publish online and to what audience.  There is definitely a big upside to this feature. Just remember, this is your personal brand you are looking out for.  You spent a lot of time and effort building it up, so make sure you’re taking the proper precautions to maintain it.

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