Thriving Thursday ~ today in our Weekly Productivity Program we focus on wrapping up as much work/projects and tasks that are on our list we plotted to get completed this week. We know Finish It Friday is around the corner and we get to celebrate for the awesome job we did all week!  We are energized and keep it moving – how is your week looking?

LinkedIn is it only for corporate people?

People ask me all of the time “Do I need to be on LinkedIn?” and “What exactly is LinkedIn?” LinkedIn is a business related social networking site.  As apposed to Facebook LinkedIn do not promote just “friendly chatter” this is a site that was corporate based for connections.  LinkedIn has relaxed a bit from how it started but it still centers around promoting business, doing business and finding jobs.  LinkedIn centers around corporate connections and has small business and home based business owners as well in their community.  LinkedIn is  known to be the largest s”professionals” ocial network community to date.  The average household income for it’s readers and participants is over $88,000 per year.

I do believe if you are doing business you need to have a LinkedIn profile set up – do you have one?  If you do be sure it is up to par and give it a tune up as we go (I have to admit, my profile needs a tune up bad…)

Increase Visibility in LinkedIn

Here are some suggestions on creating or updating your LinkedIn profile:

• Your Profile box should be completely filled out.  Be sure you plan for the headline, you can only use 120 characters for this.  Use a clear professional picture – if you have already started branding with a picture or image use it here too, stay consistent.  For where it would like your work history – list at least two – the current one being your business.  By adding the educational side you might connect with people based on where you went to High School or College so do not leave this info out, it really helps with searches.  ALWAYS add in your website address here – this is an easy way to introduce people to you and what you are doing in a passive way.  You may list up to three so take advantage of listing even your Facebook page.  You can customize your website section when you go into edit so it does not have to read “my website” – I recommend you updating this to be more descriptive so people are interested to click!  Edit the “vanity” url from LinkedIn – mine has been edited to look like this: http://www.linkedin.com/in/christinalw  By keeping it your name it will allow your LinkedIn profile to come up in searches where people use your name.
• The LinkedIn Summary section should contain key words – this area cannot be seen on your profile but it offers you a lot of opportunities to billboard your abilities, specialties, products and business in general.  You will write your “story” here but be sure to include keywords.  In writing your story talk directly to your reader – it becomes more personal to them.  In the “specialties” section here you can really go into detail and be sure to use those keywords so search engines will catch them.
• Keep up with important and in the moment in the LinkedIn news status updates – there is a section at the top in the navigation for “news” – check it a couple times a day and see what LinkedIn Today has to say.  You can customize the info that comes in here to the areas and industries you are interested in by following them. This can spark conversations not only with in the LinkedIn community but you can share the info in Twitter and Facebook.
• Connections – LinkedIn calls it “connections” (Facebook, friends and likes – Twitter, followers) – be sure to maximize your connections and LinkedIn gives you four areas to do this…please be sure to go through them all. – Under contacts go to “add connections” – the four ways to connect are listed there: add connections – you can send an invitation to connect on LinkedIn to your existing contacts (this sends them an email and once they connect great other wise it keeps sending them reminders – be sure the contact email address you have in your files IS their LinkedIn email address or they cannot accept it, colleagues this is based through your present and past work experience info you filled in and it will show you some suggestions, classmates again from your school info you filled in it will show you some suggestions, people you may know is LinkedIn’s suggestions of connections.
• LinkedIn Groups – take a second and look around the LinkedIn Groups and join a few – participate in them – build relationships!  Groups are important to your business you can use them as focus groups, you can test market with them and you can gain some very valuable insight to what is happening in your areas.

LinkedIn with a reported 100 million users is not a little pond – you deserve to be in this body of professionals too!

Using LinkedIn as one of your Social Media outlets can really change the visibility of your business but also the relationships you build for and around it.  I strongly suggest you get out there and start using this tool and building bonds.