Friday, October 29, 2010

Top Ten Popular Ways to Use LinkedIn

People use LinkedIn to make a business connection, make a sale, network, or to get a job. In today’s market, professionals and business people can have an edge over their counterparts by taking advantage of the opportunities available by participating in online social networking sites and by gaining contacts on sites like LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a useful tool that enhances and expands on job applicant’s ability to make valuable professional connections. Following is a top 10 list of ways to increase your value on LinkedIn.

1. Promote your Brand
You can promote your personal brand and qualifications and form relationships that are critical to your career success and progression. Your profile helps you find and be found by former colleagues, clients, and partners. You can add more connections by inviting trusted contacts to join LinkedIn and connect to you. LinkedIn not only promotes your brand, but it help you network more effectively and efficiently.

You can also quickly learn a lot about a potential business partner or contact by reading their profile.

2. Provides an Opportunity to Learn and Share
Connect with people before you meet them for interviews. LinkedIn also provides an opportunity to research the industry of your competitors or get connected with people who worked for them. You can also seek advice of people who have already left the companies to gauge valuable inside information. With LinkedIn, if a person is not interested in a job, they can refer someone who might be interested in that position.

Through LinkedIn, you will also have an opportunity to help out those in your network by answering questions, providing relevant leads, and helping them make connections to further their goals.

3. LinkedIn Provides Solid Networking Foundation
LinkedIn invitation provides the foundation to build personal connection with professional members, and should be used as a valuable commodity to build and strengthen your personal network. Search for jobs, and make personal connections in relation to job opportunities. Your network, and the people they know, provides you with an opportunity to be linked with thousands of qualified professionals.

4. Employer and Recruiter Connection
LinkedIn job search feature allows employers to find people with the education and professional qualification which match their needs. LinkedIn job information with partnership with Dice and Simply Hired ensures that advertised jobs by employers are marketed beyond monster.com or careerbuilder.com.

Headhunters are now using LinkedIn as one of their primary tools to source new talent for employers. Employers have also become aware of just how useful LinkedIn is to search for talented professionals to fill positions.

5. Find Experts with Answers
LinkedIn’s newest product, LinkedIn Answers, aims to enable this online. The product allows you to get answers to your business and professional related questions from both your network and the greater LinkedIn network. You can find reputable professionals that you would otherwise not have known about.

Also, by answering questions, you make yourself be perceived as an expert (contributions in Answers and in Discussions and Expert points).

6. Raise Your Credibility
By listing your past professional performance, jobs, current role, qualifications, and other achievements raises your credibility with your network connections. Also, request references and testimonials, from friends, satisfied clients, or people who you have worked with, as this provide you with a solid credibility.

It also provides word of mouth publicity by receiving recommendations and people talking about you in discussions, mention you as the expert in Answers or talking about you outside of LinkedIn.

7. Great for College Students
LinkedIn is also tremendously valuable for college students entering the work field. Prospective employers will be able to find, contact and hire college students- all through this business networking site.

8. Improves your Google, Bing and Yahoo SEO page ranking
LinkedIn allows you to make your profile information available for search engines to index. LinkedIn provides high SEO page ranking with most of the browsers, and can influence what people see when they search for you.

9. Add LinkedIn to Your Blog
Bloggers can use LinkedIn to drive traffic to their blogs and get more exposure. Add your blog to your LinkedIn account as this is a fantastic method of blog monetization without the need for PPC ads. Setting your LinkedIn profile and connecting it to your blog could possibly provide new opportunities which may not have been available otherwise.

10. Instant Job Notifications
With network updates, you can receive instant notifications when someone changes jobs. This is a trigger to contact them to see if you can help them or apply for their position if it matches your criteria.

Good luck with you job search. If you want instant exposure and thousands of LinkedIn connections, visit ResumeCart today. ResumeCart distributes job seekers professional LinkedIn and resume profile to thousands of recruiters and employers nationwide.

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