My tips for using LinkedIn and the rules I follow maximize the return on my time investment.

1. Introduction to LinkedIn.com
•Profile
•Contacts - Connections
•Home
•STATUS UPDATES
•RECOMMENDATIONS
•GROUP UPDATES
•Inbox
•Groups
•Applications
•WHAT, WHO, HOW, WHERE, WHY?
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2. Introduction to LinkedIn.com – WHAT?
 Useful for networking with
 Sales
 Clients
 Prospects
 Vendors and suppliers
 Job hunting
 Filling job opening
 Fund raising
 Reconnecting with friends, schoolmates and colleagues
from your past – expanding your network
 Getting answers to questions from “experts” and others
 Having discussions with others that share a common
interest
 Create a poll to gather research
 A place to host your blog and build your personal brand
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3. Introduction to LinkedIn.com – WHAT?
 To find people and be found by others
 You have to put the effort in to get benefits out
 If you don’t see value in networking, then you won’t see value
in LinkedIn
 The power of the system lies with the quality and quantity of
you own connections
 Look at other people’s profiles and see what works for you
and apply those same techniques to your profile (e.g. bullets,
sentences, quantifiable results, name dropping, applications,
etc.)
 Recruiters use “key words” to find candidates and hiring
managers, so be sure to include words that identify your skills
and specialty – combinations count
 Key word repetition determines your rank when those words
are searched
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4. Introduction to LinkedIn.com – WHO?
 There are many ways to use LinkedIn and generally no
right or wrong – Decide how you want to use it and
stick with that – Determine your own “Netiquette”
 Should I share my connections with others?
 Should I include dates in my profile?
 Should I invite this person to connect with me?
 Should I accept this invitation?
 What should I show in my public vs. private profile?
 What does all this connecting do for me?
 Should I ask for an introduction to someone 2 degrees
separated from me? 3 degrees? What does that mean?
 Should I join this group? Can I start my own group?
 Should I add my LinkedIn profile site to my email signature?
 Should I include a picture in my profile? Which one?
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5. Introduction to LinkedIn.com
 My Rules
 I only connect with people I know, usually fairly well
(plus recommended recruiters I don’t know well, yet)
 My profile is 100% complete includes a picture and
mirrors my resume in more of a sentence style
 Someone’s profile included a story in the summary about how
she started her own business by patenting a new kitchen
product that she needed
 You can include hobbies, passions and volunteer work as well.
It’s up to you how you want to be seen and found.
 I keep my profile up to date and fill in “What are you
working on?” if I have something meaningful to show
 When you update your profile, the people you’ve connected
to will see that through LinkedIn updates emails to them the
same way you see it when they update their profiles, join a
group or make a recommendation (see Profile Updates >
Account and Settings)
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6. My Rules (cont.)
 My Rules (cont.)
 I don’t use LinkedIn messaging for “regular
communications” because I use Outlook to store that but I
use LinkedIn messaging for communications that relate to
something I see in LinkedIn – for example
 I like your new picture
 I see you’ve changed jobs
 I didn’t know you were working in Philly
 I see you’re connect to Joe Smith, how do you know him? We used
to be neighbors...
 After I respond to something in my Inbox, either through
LinkedIn messaging or email, I Archive it to keep my Inbox
current
 I usually follow through when someone asks for an
introduction
 I only join groups that I belong in
 I usually write to people when they change their profile in a
significant way to stay connected and current
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7. My rules (cont.)
 My Rules (cont.)
 I voluntarily recommend people that I have been
very impressed by and don’t like to recommend
someone when they ask me to although I do
anyway. I also don’t ask for recommendations
but try to earn them.
 You get what you give – don’t barrel in asking for
leads, sales and jobs; offer ideas, comments,
referrals, recommendations and help to others
and in time, you will get back what you need
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8. Building Your Network – HOW?
 How do you build your connections and network?
 Export you Outlook contacts into an Excel file, edit the
columns and save as a csv file. Import that into LinkedIn as
a mass mailing invite list.
 When you meet someone new that you’re interested in
staying in touch with, send them an invitation to connect
 Get their email first, you’ll need it.
 LinkedIn will provide list of people that share your
employers and schools that you can look through and
select people to invite to connect with - People you may
know
 This requires an up to date profile
 LinkedIn Toolbar for Outlook 2007
 When someone has accepted your invitation to connect,
you’ll get the following email:
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9. Building your Network – HOW?
 Click on the Continue building your network link
 Click on Add Connections to get to these options
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10. Building your Network – HOW? (cont.)
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11. Groups Are Everywhere! – WHERE?
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12. Joining a Group
If you check the boxes like those in this example, you will get
email updates of activity in the group. You can also allow other
members of the group to contact you directly, although they will
still not know your email unless you connect with them. This is a
key way for you to contact others through LinkedIn, that you
share a group with but do not know yet.
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13. Creating a Group
Creating a group is easy but it does come with responsibility if you
want the group to grow. The name and logo of your group is critical to
attracting new members. Use your imagination.
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14. What Else About LinkedIn.com – WHY?
• Why pay?
– Who’s viewed my profile?
– I want to send a message even though we’re not connected
– Use Profile Organizer to organize people’s profiles with notes
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15. What Else About LinkedIn.com (cont.) – WHY?
LinkedIn Jobs
• There are many jobs posted on LinkedIn using the
Jobs pages (these cost $ hundreds to post)
• In addition, there are many more scattered
throughout groups posted at no cost to the hiring
manager or recruiters
• If you apply for a job on line or through a contact or
a newspaper add, search for the manager of the
hiring manager and write to him or her through
LinkedIn about your application.
• Before accepting a job offer, contact former
employees of the company you’re considering,
especially people who had the same job you’re
being offered and left.
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16. What Else About LinkedIn.com (cont.) – WHY?
• Answers – becoming an “expert”
• Other social networking sites
– Plaxo – business and social
– Xing – European focus
– Jigsaw – “pay for” business cards
– Facebook – younger profile, way more social
– Twitter – short bursts, options, expertise, “Iran!”
– Spoke, Visible Path, Ryze, Meetup, WAYN, TeeBeeDee…
Here’s a site dedicated to social networking: http://www.smartblogs.com/socialmedia
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17. What Else About LinkedIn.com (cont.) – HOW?
• Building your credibility, your own personal brand
• “How can I help you?”
• If you give to others, they will give to you. What can you
give?
• Contacts
• Job leads
• News stories
• Answers
• Polls
• Knowledge, discussion, opinions, presentations
Email example…
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18. Other Social Networking Sites – What?
Here’s an interesting chart I found last year. I think
Twitter and LinkedIn are much bigger now. The
point is about overlap.
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19. LinkedIn – WHO?
There are now over 50 million LinkedIn users.
Compared to other social media options, LinkedIn
has the highest concentration of business people,
movers and shakers and people with influence.
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20. More on Social Networking and LinkedIn – WHY?
Large corporations are using social media to promote their
brands, their corporate image and dispel rumors and bad press.
LinkedIn can be a source of free, quality marketing research:
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21. LinkedIn strategies
Copied from http://bit.ly/8CrvPS
Are You a LION, Turtle, HoundDog, or Alley Cat? What's
Your LinkedIn Strategy?
LinkedIn is a fairly harmonious place. People tend to act
professional and when there are opposing opinions they
typically become a case where people “agree to
disagree”. Things change though when you began
discussing LIONS. Suddenly the conversation isn’t so
rosy.
LION’s, for those who don’t know are open
networkers. They connect to just about anyone. They
see opportunity increasing as the number of connections
increases. Those who disagree see LIONS as simply
driving their ego’s by counting the connections, as if the
purpose of LinkedIn is to proudly claim to have 1,000’s
of connections.
For the record I don’t consider myself a LION, yet I’m an open networker. When writing my first
LinkedIn book I identified three LinkedIn connection strategies. This year I added a fourth to
define how I now connect.
How you choose to connect will impact how you use LinkedIn and in the end your chances of
finding success.
Before we look at the four connection strategies I want to make one point. How you choose to
connect on LinkedIn should be of no concern to anyone else. It’s your network and your
strategy. As long as it works for you that’s all that matters.
The Four LinkedIn Connection Strategies:
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22. My Rules on LinkedIn
The LION
As stated above LIONS are completely open connectors. They seek to increase their
connections through actively sending out and accepting connection invitations. While I’m
sure there are a few who take pride in touting the specific number, the majority simply
believe that large networks lead to more opportunity.
Steve Burda is a LION with over 30,000 connections. I don’t know Steve but I’ve seen
countless references to his taking time to help others. So yes he has a large network, but
no its not about the number. Its about having the opportunity to help a significant
number of people. If this leads to new business for him, more power to him.
The Turtle
Turtles are the opposite of LIONS. Turtles primarily only connect to those they know
well. They see value in having a tight network made up of individuals that they
completely trust. Their networks tend to be highly selective and can be counted on to
pass on introductions, much like a private networking group.
I don’t know many Turtles but the ones I do know are like Steve interested in being a
productive resource for those they choose to connect to. LinkedIn is a way to enhance
their offline networking making their existing relationships a little more connected.
The Hound Dog
When I first joined LinkedIn I was only aware of LIONS. I knew right away that LinkedIn
added an additional layer of connectivity to those I knew. I also realized that it could help
me meet other local business professionals that I did not know.
At each Chamber meeting they would pass out copies of everyone’s business cards. After
each meeting I would see who was on LinkedIn and then invite them to connect. At the
next Chamber meeting the connection provided a great ice breaker. It also established
connections with those people who only attended a single meeting.
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23. My Rules on LinkedIn
I also used LinkedIn to seek out people I would like to connect with. Doing this allowed me
to establish connections with other business professionals who might help my clients,
become a referral partner, and some who were prospects. This ability to hunt for specific
people led me to define the strategy as a Hound Dog.
A Hound Dog is someone who uses LinkedIn to connect to those they know, to connect to
those they would like to know, and accepts invitations from those that would be
beneficial to be connected to.
For the first year that I was serious about using LinkedIn I followed this strategy. Then one
day I had a thought, “How do I know whether or not a connection I know could benefit
from a connection that I didn’t know?” The answer was that I didn’t know.
It was that at this point that I changed my strategy for connecting on LinkedIn.
The Alley Cat
I still only send invitations to people I know or people that I have a specific reason for
connecting to. What changed is that I now accept invitations from just about
anyone. There is value in knowing your connections but there are also unexpected
opportunities that develop from establishing new connections, known and unknown.
This connection strategy supports my overall LinkedIn strategy which is this: I seek to
provide value to and help as many people as possible. Much of that value is provided
through the Social Media Sonar blog, sharing tips and strategies with others on how to
more effectively utilize LinkedIn and social media/networking. Sometimes its through
being the hub to connect two people. At other times its through conducting workshops,
writing LinkedIn books and guides, etc. The more people I am connected to the more
people that I can share with.
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24. My Rules on LinkedIn
I believe that to create opportunity you have to first be willing to help others. Then, by
consistently sharing value over time, you allow people to move through the Process of
Familiarity. A process that has to happen before someone will choose to do business
with you.
What I call the Process of Familiarity likely has been called many things by other
people. The three components are:
People need to Know You or at a Minimum Know Of You: Often connecting or engaging in
conversations will accomplish this.
People Must Like You or Have a Positive Opinion: How you interact with others and the value
of the content you share will help here. If people like your content they will like you.
People Must Trust You: Building trust is dependent upon engaging on conversations or
sharing value consistently over time. As people see you on an ongoing basis and are
exposed to the value you share the “Like” will grow into “Trust”.
Through this process here’s what I’ve seen happen. Each week I write one or two blog posts
that show people how to utilize LinkedIn. I then use the tools LinkedIn provides to
communicate that there is a new blog post. People visit the blog for the first time or as a
repeat visitor. At some point they check out my profile and learn what it is that I do and
see how I can help them.
If they like the content they begin to have a positive impression of me and this eventually
moves to a sense of trust. At this point if they ever have a need for my services I am top
of mind and they will contact me.
Something else happens as well. People like to share content on other Social Media sites so
at some point they become my social media amplification system. This introduces my
blog to people outside of the communities I’ve built.
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25. My Rules on LinkedIn
Wrap Up
The connection strategy you choose will depend upon how you want to use
LinkedIn. There is no right or wrong choice as long as your connection strategy supports
the goals you have determined. For me the change to an Alley Cat has helped generate 3
to 5 contacts per week about my services.
Which strategy are you using and why? If you agree or disagree with the post please leave a
comment. Your perspective is as important as mine, so share it with everyone.
Sean Nelson is the author of the Social Media Sonar blog and has written three LinkedIn
eBooks including one of the first books detailing how to strategically use LinkedIn to
grow your business. "LinkedIn Marketing Secret Formula". He is a Partner
inSONARconnects.
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26. My Rules on LinkedIn
 More to come – send me your feedback to
DLZatz@gmail.com.
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