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10 practical tips for using LinkedIn

A few practical tips for best practice of using Linked In, for some of you it maybe common sense but you will be surprised what we see….

  1. Create a headline that says what you and your company actually do Particularly in some sectors where the trend has been for companies to change the name to initials, it may help to add a strap line that says what you do. Same applies for your job title they can mean different things at different companies so again explain also use the summary and description part of your role to expand on this.
  2. Double check your spelling and your grammar We all make mistakes but just think how it reflects on the quality of your work. If you can’t spell your job title right, for example, what impression does that give?
  3. Good profile picture Use a professional head and shoulders picture so it is well lit, recognisable as you, current (tempting to use one from 10 years ago I know!), the right way up ( yes I’ve seen it happen!!). If it’s a good picture it will help people recognise you when they do meet you at that networking event with 100 other people.
  4. Protect your personal information Yes Linked In gives the option to give your address, full date of birth and marital status but you dont have to complete it all. Your work address or at least town/city is good but your home address, particularly when combined with your full date of birth, leaves you too open to ID theft.
  5. Recommendations Don’t recommend someone straight after they recommend you, it looks like “you do me a favour I’ll do you one” rather than a genuine recommendation. By all means recommend them but leave it a couple of months at least.
  6. Add documents or presentations to your profile (since the autumn 2012 change to new personal profiles this has limited access) Using the Slideshare app you can add additional pdf’s or PowerPoint presentations to your profile. As a business owner or if you work in sales or business development then the obvious choice is the company brochure or presentation and any other supporting information about your products and services. If you work in HR then you might want add a careers brochure to attract future employees.
  7. Add more than one e-mail address to your profile It’s not that you have to show them both on your account. Just imagine the scenario your primary e-mail address is your work e-mail address, you change jobs and because you haven’t logged in for a while you can’t remember the password. If you have a second e-mail account on there you can get the password reset and get back in. Don’t worry the e-mails from Linked In only go to the primary address so your not going to get umpteen copies of everything! If you don’t again imagine how complicated you are making it for people when they find you have 2 or even 3 profiles.
  8. Personalise your public profile link It will help people find your profile both from within Linked In and when they run a standard Google search.
  9. Edit your public profile settings You can control how much of your profile someone who isn’t registered on Linked In can see (yes I believe there are some people out there not on Linked In 😉 )
  10. Personalise your website titles You have the option to instead of just putting ‘Company website’ and ‘Personal website’ as the links if you use the ‘Other’ if gives you another box to personalise so you can use the company name, name of the professional body, service line, networking group. For example, ‘CQ Strategic Marketing’ and ‘Linked In Workshops’. I hope these tips prove useful for you, I will be ‘blogging’ on some more advanced tips soon…so come back soon.

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