It has been a few weeks now since LinkedIn released their new “Follow Company” feature. Rather than be brash and predict what would happen with the appearance of this new feature, I always like to look at things with a little historical perspective and try to understand how professionals can truly leverage these new LinkedIn features. As you are most likely aware of by now, just as you follow someone on Twitter to subscribe to their tweets in your news feed, LinkedIn now allows you to not only get “Company Updates” on your LinkedIn home page but also receive notifications …
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I attended a great local Tweetup last night in Orange County. There were many people who I had communicated with on Twitter and finally had the chance to meet…the feeling was almost like seeing long lost friends! I will save Tweetups for another blog post, because what interested me last night were how many people I met last night that were active on Twitter but not at all on LinkedIn. Many saw the latter as just being a site for “professionals” or really didn’t know what to do with it. The good news is that my Windmill Networking book on …
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Today’s blog post is influenced by an article I read from the comments made by LinkedIn at the Social Recruiting Summit. Let me further expand the argument for the case of LinkedIn. Like many others who have learned to embrace LinkedIn, I did so when I was in transition. I realized that I had not been digging my well before I was thirsty, and I vowed to not only build up a larger network, but also to both stay in better touch with that network as well as provide more value to those in my network. As I mentioned in …
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After networking with several great people over the last several days, which have in essence been conversations that seem more like a veritable cross-breeding of ideas, I believe that more and more people are starting to see the potential value of meeting new people on LinkedIn. Now, just because you are open to doing this does not mean that you necessarily need to become a LinkedIn Open Networker, or LinkedIn LION. There are many methods to the madness of connecting with new people. My method for connecting with new people is using the vehicle of the LION brand. You can …
read moreWe wake up and visit LinkedIn after booting up our computers. And before we turn them off at night we are again checking in with LinkedIn. For the many of us who consider ourselves “Power Users” of LinkedIn, the social networking site for professionals is an integral part of our professional lives. And because of that, there are particular things about LinkedIn that may annoy us in a peculiar way more than others. I thought that I would write about this as it came up for discussion the other day at a networking group meeting. These particular attendees pointed out …
read moreYesterday I wrote my own definition concerning what a social media expert is, so today I wanted to look specifically at what I feel makes a LinkedIn expert. Recently I was named a LinkedIn expert on the site of the LinkedIn and Social Media Training Company Integrated Alliance’s blog post. And on that same post there was recently a comment by a reader that debated those guidelines on qualifying a LinkedIn expert. I appreciate that Integrated Alliances, for the first time that I know of, actually started discussing what the potential guidelines could be in qualifying a LinkedIn expert, and …
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There are so many features on LinkedIn, and so many ways to utilize them, that it always surprises me when people just don’t see the same value in features, like LinkedIn Answers, that I do. I always hope, through this blog, that you will get more tips for not only being more effective with LinkedIn but with social networking as well. If we all get better at social networking, it helps out everyone in all of our networks. For this post, I am glad to announce that it will be featured on the blog of my new friend, Jonathan Milligan. …
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LinkedIn in 2009 continues to upgrade their service with minor tweaks and additional functionality, but I am starting to find a gap between what features some people can see and some cannot. I have never heard of this on Facebook or Twitter, but this is definitely happening on LinkedIn, and it is troubling. And these are all people using the free service, not a free vs. paid account argument. Let me explain what I have experienced in three distinct examples. Do we have all access to the same LinkedIn features?
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LinkedIn, as you already know, is a social networking platform for professionals. It is no secret, then, that there is business to be found on LinkedIn for companies of many sizes and industries. If you are a small business owner, you may be confused as to whether you should use your company name or personal name for your LinkedIn Profile name. Be confused no more, as I always recommend you use your personal name, and here’s why:
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Today I received a question from a LinkedIn newbie which reminded me that sometimes I need to get back to basics and answer simple questions that sometimes may be confusing to others. The question I got today, although worded differently, is someone that is worried about sending out invitations to people that were 2nd degree connections, i.e. people that should be 1st degree connections but weren’t. It really comes down to the basic question of who to invite join our LinkedIn networks? While there is no single rule as to who to invite as this depends on your reason why …
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