Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn

"All 500 of the Fortune 500 are represented in LinkedIn. In fact, 499 of them are represented by director-level and above employees."

I found the statement above intriguing because I had always thought of LinkedIn as a way that small businesses and individuals were interacting on the web rather than large corporations. While that may be true, what this statistic reveals is that the individuals who are on LinkedIn are connected to all these large organizations, and, importantly, in significant roles! That has a lot of implications when thinking about how this tool might be useful to someone using it for networking.

This blog entry outlines a short list of ways to make use of LinkedIn:

1. Increase your visibility.
2. Improve your connectability.
3. Improve your Google PageRank.
4. Enhance your search engine results.
5. Perform blind, “reverse,” and company reference checks.
6. Increase the relevancy of your job search.
7. Make your interview go smoother.
8. Gauge the health of a company.
9. Gauge the health of an industry.
10. Track startups.
11. Ask for advice.
12. Integrate into a new job.
13. Scope out the competition, customers, partners, etc.

For a more detailed discussion on each of these ideas, click on the title of this posting to go directly to the original blog that I have quoted.

These are just ideas that others have collected, and they will be more effective for some people than for others. For example, it appears to me that there is a definite "age bias" inherent in this kind of tool. My connections who are over 55 do not seem to have as many connections as my connections who are under 55. With a networking tool like this, it becomes more powerful and useful as more people use it more fully.

The message for us all in this article is that there is a new tool available to anyone who can make something of it, and using it is free and relatively easy. Keep in mind that LinkedIn also has a paid option that offers more features and power, so if you are in the group (or want to get into the group) for which this tool works better, you have the opportunity to "gear it up" a notch.