Linkedin is a website used by professionals for business. Founded in December 2002 and launched in 2003, it’s a social networking site for business where professionals link with one another for the purpose of doing business.
For the professionals who want to use Linkedin the first step towards this is creating your own profile. Your profile may sometimes resemble a CV because with Linkedin you are encouraged to put your previous job roles within it. You should make a point of developing a profile that is well focused.
At your first connection with others do not try to praise yourself and the skills that you have. Just engage your prospects in useful conversations without telling them about all your earlier roles in the companies where you used to work. Focus your discussions on the kind of help you can offer them. To many professionals this is a place for business and a place where they can get useful ideas to help them benefit in their professions. Make your profile a platform for introducing yourself in the best way possible.
Avoid the temptation of making your profile look like an application for employment in a certain company because this is not for you. The names of places where you have worked may enhance your credibility but it’s not a must that you include them.
After establishing a profile makes sure that you add connections so that you can link with other professionals for the purpose of doing business. Without these connections you may end up doing very little with your profile. It’s of no help to have a profile with no connections or with very few connections. You can make use of the Linkedin tool bar for easy invites to your outlook contacts and those who send emails to you on regular basis.
There are two strategies that one can use for connecting on Linkedin. They are open networker and trusted partner. With open networker, you can make as many connections as possible. The strategy behind this is with so many connections you are more likely to come across great contacts and therefore enhance your chances for more opportunity. This is a very effective way of growing your network quickly. However, with this strategy you don’t have enough information about the connections you are making, you’re just in it to growing the size of your network. This would be the equivalent of having thousands of friends on facebook.
With the trusted partner connection you find few connections but they are those that you very well know and you trust. These are the people you can even meet physically apart from meeting them online.
These are some of the important benefits of using Linkedin to connect to other like minded professional for the purpose of doing business.
