With all of these LIONs (LinkedIn Open Networker) that are openly accepting invites as well as inviting people that they don’t know, you have to wonder as to what LinkedIn’s policy is on the matter. After all, this goes against the entire premise of LinkedIn that you only connect with people that you know and trust. And this is why there is an “I Don’t Know” response should you decide not to accept an invite from someone that you don’t know. The problem in LinkedIn’s eyes concerning LIONs is their potential to spam people because of the enormous numbers of …
read moreThere has been some heated discussion this morning on a LinkedIn Group Discussion Forum that I belong to concerning this topic of displaying your profile picture (I hope you’ve also been maximizing your LinkedIn Group membership!). One of the Group members attended a LinkedIn seminar where the presenter said that those in transition should NOT include their picture as part of their profile, the reason being that it would be an Equal Opportunity violation if a recruiter selects you after seeing what you look like. Furthermore, the presenter went on to say that most recruiters actually restrict their search …
read moreToday when I went to the LinkedIn Homepage I mentioned a little message at the top promising me “a smoother experience”. This was a pleasant surprise. After all, LinkedIn is known to be notoriously slow by all who use it. If ”a smoother experience” means that it will be faster it is a welcome feature. So what are extended logins? Here is the way it is described straight from the source:
read moreLinkedIn 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?
read moreLinkedIn, 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:
read moreToday 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 …
read moreI 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 …
read moreI recently did a Twitter Chat for #smbiz on tips for utilizing LinkedIn for small business. You can find out more about what we discussed here, but since then I have been contacted by small businesses looking for advice on how to utilize LinkedIn. I decided to answer this particular question on my blog because it did not come up on the chat. Furthermore, I have even had a member of my So Cal Sushi LinkedIn Group recently add a similar tip of this blog post to the Discussion Board there (which you can access if you are a member), …
read moreI 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 …
read moreI 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?
read more










