I have had the opportunity to engage with many lawyers recently, both in person as well as online through LinkedIn, and the sudden interest in social media that they seem to have has been surprising to me. I had always envisioned the legal profession as more of an old-school, conservative group of people that would not have an interest in social networking. The interest from them that I have seen clearly shows that LinkedIn, and social networking, are phenomenons that are here to stay. If you are in the legal profession and are already on LinkedIn, you may not be …
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I just got asked this from an old friend from elementary school (!), who I have been able to keep in better touch with thanks to Social Media, Facebook in particular. He, like many others, wonders what the real value in LinkedIn Recommendations are when there are a lot of ”if your rub my back, I’ll rub yours,” recommendations on LinkedIn, which, in my friend’s words, “somewhat limits the credibility of the action”. Another way of looking at LinkedIn Recommendations is what my old boss once told me. ”You know when someone is looking for a new job when they …
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I received this question yesterday from an engineer who plans to start evangelizing LinkedIn to an engineering community who may not have the same view of Social Media like I do. As part of this person’s LinkedIn Objective, he wants to create his own brand of being the Pioneer of Connecting Engineers on LinkedIn. I think this is a great idea, as every professional should be on LinkedIn, and it brings up a good question as to how an open networking or LION tag can help in doing so. But what about the idea of a selective LinkedIn LION?
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This question may sound confusing, but since there are now more than 260,000 (!) LinkedIn Groups, maybe there is one that is actually officially affiliated with the site that could be an interesting one to join to learn more about LinkedIn? I am happy to report that there is at least one official LinkedIn Group that exists. The catch is that you may (read below for more details) have to be a Group Manager to join, but if you are, I highly recommend that you join the LinkedIn Groups Product Forum. This is an amazing Group where both internal employees …
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I had dinner last night with a publicly elected official from a large American city. I was impressed with his understanding of Social Media, and he had already created and implemented a strategy to utilize Facebook for political purposes. But what about LinkedIn? LinkedIn is still seen as being a boring, static medium when compared, as it often is, to Twitter and Facebook. This is because LinkedIn is pretty much a closed world, with only a few LinkedIn applications available that you can use to make your profile more interactive. What a lot of people are missing is the interactivity …
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LinkedIn recently updated their blog with a post entitled 5 Ways to Get More from Your LinkedIn Groups. But, as with information that LinkedIn is beginning to religiously blog and tweet about, I find it is too little and too late. After all, I was first in providing LinkedIn advice for College Students before the LinkedIn introduction of their Grads Group (at least to my knowledge, if I am incorrect in the timing please correct me!), and I find the best practices information that has recently provided on Groups can be further enriched by this blog. After all, this blog …
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Your LinkedIn Status Update – What Should You Use it For? Do you ever notice that “What are your working on now?” question on your LinkedIn Home Page? The one that appears under your Inbox and at the top of your Network Updates section? Anything you enter here, which I will refer to as a “Status Update”, will not only get broadcasted on your profile right underneath your Profile Headline but will also appear on the Network Updates on the Home Page of all of your connections should you have allowed your updates to be sent and your connections are …
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I once answered this on this blog when I answered the question “Why Do So Many People Keep Their Connections Private?”, but since it has been awhile, and since this question was asked from a different perspective, I think it is important to revisit the topic. First of all, in order to even potentially be able to browse anyone’s connections, you first have to be directly connected to that person. I realize that in other platforms like Facebook the option exists to allow everyone to browse your friends, whether or not they are connected with you. Remember, LinkedIn is different …
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I was a little confused when I received this question recently from a former colleague. I mean, LinkedIn is really about getting plugged-in to a huge database of professionals. Why would you want to be part of this huge network but not want anyone to see your profile? I suppose that for some, the ability to find far outweighs the benefits of being found, so this may shed some light on his request. Or perhaps it was the reception of “spam” mails like invitations to connect, join this group, take this poll, etc. that caused my colleague to want to …
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It is amazing how often I not only get asked this question of how to disconnect from someone and remove LinkedIn connections from my own personal network but also how frequently it appears on LinkedIn Answers. If you think of connecting to someone as their joining your virtual world, if the relationship does not work out because you feel you are being spammed or for another reason, you do have the option of disconnecting from them and removing them as a connection. Connecting with someone is not a marriage by any means! Hopefully this gives those who want to build …
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