LinkedIn and Business Networking Websites: Intro, Video, and Links

What is Linkedin?

Linkedin is a social networking website for business.  “Our mission is to help you be more effective in your daily work and open doors to opportunities using the professional relationships you already have. This isn’t networking-it’s what networking should be.”

Linkedin is just one of many business networking sites, known for its concentration of professional and corporate members over 40.   Here’s a link to my post listing other alternatives, some aimed at niches like entrepreneurs or those in the software industry.  This post describes Linkedin as a prototype for online business networking.

How Does it Look?

Click this link to see a profile of my colleague Jacob Cynamon.

Get Started Links

In Make Your LinkedIn Profile Work For You, Chris Brogan offers advice about creating your LinkedIn profile.

Now watch two very short but charming videos that explain how Linkedin works and how it benefits a small business. (Click twice on arrow in the middle of the screen to start the video.)

More Info

7 Ways To  Generate Business with Linkedin slideshare slideshow  ZaleTabakman

Five Ways Your Business Can Use Linkedin Wendy Bounds, Wall Street Journal

100+ Smart Ways to Use LinkedIn Linked Intelligence

LinkedIn is For Connecting. Solutions Are Power blog

Why LinkedIn Is The One Social Network I Couldn’t Work Without Jennifer Laycock

LinkedIn for Startup Entrepreneurs: 5 Hypothetical Reasons to Join

Peg’s and Jacob’s Experiences with LinkedIn

I’ve been a member for about a year.  As I have gotten more comfortable with the site, I have added more and more information.   Here’s how I use it:

1.  It’s my Roledex.  After I meet someone, I look the person up and link to them so I can contact them again if needed.

2.  I uses it when I don’t have an email. I wanted to get permission to use a graphic on Anita Campbell’s blog. I found her in Linkedin, sent her a request to connect and asked for permission, using the internal email system.

3.  I use it to ask others for business advice and information.  I have posted two questions in its Answers section.  To one question, I got more than a dozen responses in 24 hours.  Learn about what happened in my Linkedin Epiphany: Getting a Fast Answer to a Biz Question post.

4.  I update my status when I log in, so that my business activities are displayed in other people’s status feeds, indirectly promoting my activities.

If I were back in my old sales jobs, I’d deep in here, using this great networking tool like crazy.  In short, I’m a fan.

Jacob Cynamon gave me three ways he uses LinkedIn:

1.  “LinkedIn helps me stay aware of any new developments in the lives of my friends and colleagues – e.g. new jobs, revised contact information, relocation.”

2. “For me, LinkedIn serves as an advanced curriculum vitae.  Not only do I market my skills and experiences in my profile, I also maintain updated recommendations from colleagues, business partners and managers AND use the LinkedIn Answers section to demonstrate expertise in subject areas germane to my job.”

3. “With the introduction services on LinkedIn, I am able to reach out to “friends of friends” to expand my business network and increase my effectiveness in the working world.”

What’s your LinkedIn experience?  How do you use it?  Share it in a comment, please.

Networking Online: A List of Business-Oriented Social Networks, Forums and Online Communities

See all my Delicious bookmarks on Linkedin

See other posts in my Online Marketing Series, which has 20 link-rich posts on 18 online marketing techniques.