If you already have a profile created on LinkedIn, it’s a great time to revisit and refresh your presence!

Or if you’re just wondering how to get started, these 5 simple steps will help you make the most of your time and effort!

Why LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is the largest professional social network online today, with over 100 million professional users. The average household income of LinkedIn users is over $88,000 per year, which outpaces the average income for the readership of the Wall Street Journal, Forbes and Business Week!

If you are a professional or a business owner, you can’t afford to miss out on the opportunity to build relationships with potential customers, clients, partners and peers on LinkedIn. It’s a powerful audience that you can engage, interact with and influence.

#1: Complete your LinkedIn “profile box.”

When visitors first land on your LinkedIn profile, a box displaying your profile highlights fills the screen. Given the importance of first impressions, the information in your “profile box” should be complete, current and optimized.

This is your best chance to make a good impression. In many cases, someone may read through your entire profile, but most people are going to get the information they need from your profile box.

Here are the steps to complete your LinkedIn Profile.

Upload a professional image. This is your very best opportunity to make a great first impression and is essential to attracting connections. No professional photo? No credibility.

Create a compelling headline. You only have 120 characters at the top of your profile to describe who you are, whom you serve and how you help. Use brief, descriptive, compelling keywords so the right professionals on LinkedIn can discover you. Focus on terms that your target markets are more likely to search for. What language do they use? Make your headline text compelling, but use words that resonate with your market.

List your current position and at least two past positions. If you don’t list at least two past positions, your profile won’t be considered “complete,” which can mean missed opportunities to be discovered by prospective clients and customers. Make sure to describe each of your roles in depth, and again use those keywords that will resonate with your target markets! It is also okay to list two or three positions that describe your current role, as I have done in my own profile.

Add your education information. List colleges and the high school you attended in this area. Why? One of the primary search tools within LinkedIn is the ability to locate people with whom you attended school. This is a potential connection point that can open doors for you.

Customize your “website” listings. Under the Websites section of your LinkedIn profile, you can have up to three listed. Choose the “Other” option when setting up each of these links and describe the links to your brand with relevant terms. For example, rather than using the phrase “my website,” I use “Smart Social Pro Blog.” Not only is this more descriptive, it also gives me a better opportunity to rank for those keywords in search.

Include a link to your Twitter profile. Add your Twitter handle to your LinkedIn profile. Visitors to your profile can now follow you on Twitter directly from within your profile box! LinkedIn and Twitter are tightly integrated. You can share your tweets as LinkedIn status updates (best practice: add #in to the end of specific tweets rather than choosing to send all tweets to LinkedIn), and you can share LinkedIn status updates as tweets!

Edit your “vanity” LinkedIn URL. An example is http://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniesammons. This will enable your LinkedIn profile link to show up in search results under your name on all the major search engines! It is important to claim those results for your name as they provide a gateway into your personal brand.

Following these seven tips will ensure that you put your best foot forward with a comprehensive snapshot of who you are, what you do and where people can learn more about you. Your LinkedIn profile should serve as one of your most valuable professional digital assets.

#2: Use keywords within your profile summary section

The summary section on your LinkedIn profile is where you have the most flexibility to expand upon who you are, whom you serve and how you help your clients. Although this section is not as visible as your “profile box,” it’s still important.

Write the text in your summary section in the first person, as if you were talking directly to potential clients. Begin with “My name is…” Why? Because your name is a keyword, and this provides a simple introduction to your story. Your summary section should include keywords that describe how you help your clients in language that resonates with them! Try to stay away from industry jargon if possible. Also, don’t stuff your summary section with keywords. Simply use effective keywords and phrases where they fit.

Hint: The “specialties” section of the summary is a great place to list your areas of expertise using descriptive keywords.

#3: Leverage your existing natural network

Your existing contacts—your “natural” network—can provide a rich online networking experience and can help you quickly ramp up your visibility. This foundation network is key to creating a powerful presence on LinkedIn!

To uncover all of your connection opportunities, go to “Add Connections” in your navigation menu, which is listed under “Contacts.”

Thoroughly review LinkedIn’s connection channels.

There are four natural connection channels provided by LinkedIn. Make sure to go through all four connection channels to make sure you find all potential connections who can be a part of your network.

Regardless of how many connections you may already have on LinkedIn, it’s worth your while to go through this exercise monthly because membership growth continues to be very strong on LinkedIn!

1. Send a LinkedIn invitation to connect to existing contacts though the “Add Connections” feature.
2. Review colleagues from your current and past work experience and send invitations to connect.
3. Find classmates from high school and college to connect with.
4. Review the “People You May Know” list. This is LinkedIn’s connection suggestion engine!

#4: Focus on timely and relevant status updates

LinkedIn is a professional business network; therefore, it’s busy during business hours! You should strive to be visible and valuable during that time. Your status updates should add value to your target markets.

A best practice is to update your status two to three times daily. Also, spread out your updates rather than posting them all at once.

A fantastic tool for adding value in your industry is to take advantage of LinkedIn Today. This is LinkedIn’s top news tool available right there inside the network. You can customize your news updates by industry and easily share relevant stories with your connections. Top news is surfaced by the people, not by an editorial staff! Learn how to use LinkedIn Today to find popular content.

See articles shared by your connections, save articles and follow industries.

#5: Join and participate in groups

LinkedIn Groups recently got a major upgrade with the new LinkedIn mobile application. You can now participate in group discussions on the go. This is a great way to remain visible and valuable in your target markets.

Strive to review and participate in group discussions at least once per week. You can join up to 50 groups, but your time will be best spent focusing on three to five at most. Otherwise it will be difficult to keep up with all of the conversations.

By visiting the “Groups” tab on your LinkedIn navigation menu, you can easily find groups to join, access existing groups that you belong to, review and follow existing discussions that you are a part of, and view “groups you may like” suggestions from LinkedIn. In addition, you can use the LinkedIn search function to find groups.

Join groups that are relevant to your business and target markets. For example, if you have a local business, look for groups that are organized around where you live or work! Consider joining alumni groups, peer groups and groups that are organized around professional and personal topics that you are most interested in.

Lastly, think about groups where your target markets might be hanging out so you can find ways to be creatively visible and valuable to them with the resources and insights you share.

Share relevant, resourceful, rich content with your groups that can help other members. Ask questions and respond to comments! Learn more about effectively participating in LinkedIn Groups.

Final Thoughts

There are so many features and tools available with LinkedIn. It is essentially a networking treasure chest for any businessperson, filled with opportunities to deepen existing relationships, meet new professionals and add value to members of your target markets. To take advantage of all of these opportunities, it is important to spend time learning as much as you can.

I hope that these five steps will help you maximize value and minimize time as you ramp up your LinkedIn presence.

What do you think? Could your LinkedIn presence use an overhaul, or are you just getting started on LinkedIn? Share your thoughts in the comments box below.

You can start your own LinkedIn Group based on any of the following categories of professionals: prospects, peers, alumni, geographical, existing organizations, interest and more. You are limited only by your creativity!

In my experience, professional people are busy and if they’re going to participate in LinkedIn Groups, they really only have enough quality time for 1 to 3 groups weekly.

What follows are best practices for becoming a top group for your target market and specialty category.

#1: Choose a narrow niche and specialty category

This is probably the most important key to success for building a group on LinkedIn. You need to have a narrowly defined group in order to attract the right members!

Social Media Marketing is a popular group on LinkedIn.

For example, my target market is financial advisors, but my category is blogging and social media marketing. Just starting a LinkedIn Group based on your target market, assuming you’ve defined one, is not enough. You need to take it a step further and highlight exactly what specialty category you want your group to be known for!

Do some research on the LinkedIn Groups that already exist in your industry, and think about how you can differentiate your group from the pack. Also, think about your ideal clients. Who are they? What do they do? What do they care about? How can you help them?

A narrow niche and category are crucial for building a successful group. You can’t be all things to all people and you won’t get as high a quality of membership if you cast a wide net!

#2: Create a group description that includes the name of your target market and your specialty category

It’s very important to include relevant keywords in the title of your group and in the description of your group so that when members of your target market are searching for groups to join, they will find yours.

If you utilize keywords that describe who you are trying to attract and position the specialty category using words that your target audience uses to describe your category, you will have a much better chance of being found in LinkedIn Group search.

Also be clear what your group is about. I’ve joined groups that have ambiguous descriptions just to see what they are about, and what I’ve found is that in those groups, there is no real focus or value for the member. In many cases, those groups are filled with marketers who are trying to promote their products and services to the masses! Be selective with your descriptions and make sure they resonate with your target markets.

Wired Advisor, my LinkedIn Group for Financial Advisors, shows up first in search results for social media.

#3: Make your group an open group with member pre-approval

When you start your group on LinkedIn, make it an open group and then decide who gets in. Everyone wants to be a part of something exclusive! If you create a group where new members must be pre-approved to join, you’re creating exclusivity and it will make your group more attractive to potential members in your target markets!

An open group gives your discussions more visibility.

I’m very clear with regard to who can be accepted into my LinkedIn Group and it is well-defined in my description and “Group Rules.” Unfortunately, not everyone will read these rules. When you set up your group to pre-approve members, it does take some maintenance to go through and approve or decline new member applications, but it’s well worth it and your members will appreciate it. If you let anyone and everyone in, you’ll undoubtedly end up with significant spam in your group, and you will lose engagement and members very quickly!

When you make your LinkedIn Group an open group, discussions will be indexed by search engines and can be shared on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter as well as LinkedIn.

In addition, members will be able to share general information about the group itself on social networks. With an open group, be sure to allow only members to make contributions. Managers have the ability to set this parameter. Otherwise, it defeats the goal of exclusivity if you allow nonmembers to contribute!

Hint: Sharing information about your group and discussions from your group on social networks can increase your visibility and drive new memberships!

Making your LinkedIn Group an open group will also help you gain visibility more quickly, and you can encourage members to share the group or specific group discussions with their social networks and connections as well. Post the invite link to your LinkedIn Group on your blog, email marketing template and other social profiles where you have a presence. In addition, cross-promote your group on Twitter and Facebook frequently.

When you switch to Open Group, LinkedIn will immediately let all members know about the change and future discussions will be viewable online.

#4: Closely manage and monitor your group

If you want to keep your group free from spam and marketers, you will have to not only manage memberships but also closely monitor the group’s activity.

Typically I have to send 1-2 personal messages per week to members who either shouldn’t be members (yes, this will happen from time to time), or to members who have posted something promotional or completely off-topic. There are people who will pose as a member of your target market just to get into your group, when in fact they may have moved on in their careers and are in another related role now.

You can easily send personal messages to members of your LinkedIn group.

I also have a number of talent recruiters and marketers applying to join my group on a daily basis. Just watch out for those individuals who are looking at your group as a marketing opportunity for their businesses. You’ve worked hard to build your group, so you can make all the rules and manage it as you see fit!

From time to time existing members will post their own articles and newsletters. This is OK as long as they don’t auto-post into the group and accompany the message with a question, or a request for feedback to initiate discussion.

If members post jobs, I simply redirect the discussion to the “Jobs” section. If I find that a post is too self-promotional or off-topic, I will flag it and put it in the “Promotions” section of the group.

Manage discussions effectively through the Promotions and Jobs tabs.

Ultimately, the rules and parameters you put in place early on will drive the success and quality of your group. It is very important to establish those boundaries with members up front, as it is difficult to go back later and change the rules!

#5: Position yourself as the leader of the group

In order to position yourself as the leader of the group, you must lead! Empower and engage your members. Challenge them, ask good questions, ask for the opinions of others, provide your unique insight and commentary on as many discussions as you can and contribute content that can spur conversations.

Use your updates to start conversations.

Spend your time giving kudos to group members who start discussions and contribute to discussions by commenting, liking and sharing their posts. Also, share top discussions on social networking sites as you see fit to provide those members with greater visibility.

Each time you start a discussion, keep in mind that in LinkedIn Group digests that go out to members daily or weekly, your name and your discussion topic will appear in that email. If you’re the group leader, you need to be showing up in that email as one of the primary influencers in your group!

There are a few ways that you can safely and softly introduce your business as well as your group leadership. Make the “Manager’s Choice” something that can add value to members and is related to the theme of your group. For example, I offer a FREE “10-tips email coaching course” that members can sign up for that links to a landing page on my website.

LinkedIn also allows group managers to send one customized weekly email announcement directly to members. Be careful not to abuse this privilege. I’ve seen a few group managers blast out their own blog posts through this channel each week when they’ve already posted the article as a discussion in the group. This is redundant and not a good use of the tool.

Use this email announcement functionality for special “opt-ins” and value-added programs that you are providing to members only. They will appreciate it and probably be more likely to sign up for what you’re offering!

The point is, always be a leader in a group that you start. Leadership happens through consistency and conversations. Don’t ever forget that!

An example of how I utilize the "Manager's Choice" section in my LinkedIn Group.

#6: Promote your group to build your membership

There are several ways to grow your group membership, but you must be proactive and consistent in order to do so. However, once you get to over 500 members, your group will begin to take on a life of its own in terms of membership growth!

Make sure when you first create your group that you tell your appropriate LinkedIn connections about it if they fit the profile. LinkedIn will allow you to send out up to 50 announcements per day to your connections. Also, you can upload emails from a .CSV file from your own email contact list and send an announcement to those contacts from your group management dashboard.

Send out invites to relevant LinkedIn connections and business contacts.

Finally, it’s acceptable to visit similar groups of which you’re a member and politely compliment that group while mentioning that you’ve got another interesting group that members may want to consider joining. I’ve had modest success with this, so it may be worth your while to try it.

If you’re successful with your LinkedIn Group, you’ll begin to see copycat groups pop up, which is exactly what I’ve experienced. If you are able to join those groups, I think it’s perfectly fine to mention that you have a similar group that members may enjoy as well, or you could even link to an interesting conversation taking place in your group. The fact is, professionals on LinkedIn can join up to 50 groups!

Spending your marketing time in relevant LinkedIn Groups can be a terrific strategy for engaging with prospects and clients, but if you truly want to be considered a thought leader, you should start your own targeted group and build your own community of members. Not only will you expand your influence, but also you will have a forum that you manage where you can cultivate successful business relationships over time.

I hope this article gives you the inspiration to go out and create your own success! What are your thoughts? Will you start your own LinkedIn Group? Why or why not? Leave your comments in the box below.

What’s New This Week?

Klout Comes to Facebook Pages: The social marketing platform Involver joins forces with the online influence measurement tool Klout to bring Klout to Facebook pages. This gives brands a new way to engage with their most influential fans, and to reward consumers based on their influence as measured by Klout.

Brands and agencies can now engage Facebook fans based on Klout scores.

Roost Introduces the Local Scorecard: This is a cool way for local businesses to focus on local market penetration in social marketing. The Local Scorecard gives businesses a sense of how their Facebook marketing is doing in their local markets.

Businesses can find out important data such as how many of their Facebook fans live in their city.

Wildfire Adds Social Marketing Suite: The popular service for Facebook promotions adds a new paid social marketing platform for “an all-in-one solution for marketers to grow, engage, and monetize customers using social media.”

Wildfire's new social marketing suite provides several dashboards for you to manage your Facebook marketing.

Foursquare Reaches 10,000,000 Members: If you’re following location-based marketing trends, check out this storyline infographic on Foursquare‘s expansion.

Click through to see the full-sized animated version of this.

LinkedIn Looks at the Gender Divide in Social Networking: This study shows men are better than women at professional social networking.  LinkedIn breaks down the results by industry in the infographic below.

Check out the gender differences in online professional networking behaviors.

Here’s a social media network worth noting:

Social Buzz Club: This new club provides Internet and social media marketing professionals with a way to share content through a highly developed network of other professionals who all use the Social Buzz Club technology.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNntFvCWy7A

And don’t miss this:

Get your FREE chapter of Launch: How to Quickly Propel Your Business Beyond the Competition to discover the formula Michael Stelzner used to make this blog one of the top small business blogs in the world (according to Technorati).

What social media news caught your interest this week? Please share your comments below.

What is LinkedIn Company Search?

According to LinkedIn, your professional network isn’t just about the people you know, it’s also about the companies in your network and how you’re connected to them. LinkedIn’s new Company Search provides an opportunity to discover connections in your network and filter them by the companies they work for.

Why is this important? Not only can you search for companies by attributes such as location, industry and size, but also by how you’re connected! Ultimately, LinkedIn Company Search can help you expand your professional network in ways that you may not have thought about.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1j5VoN_v-Us

How Can You Utilize LinkedIn Company Search to Expand Your Professional Network?

LinkedIn Company Search results are more robust than the “People” search results for those who do not have a Premium LinkedIn account. These search results appear to be unlimited for the time being, as long as a particular company has created a company profile.

How to Expand Your Professional Network Using LinkedIn Company Search

#1: Set your Company Search parameters

Navigate to Company Search, located underneath the “Companies” tab. Next, refine your search in the left-hand column using the following parameters for the most relevant results:

• Location (focus on your city)
• Industry (target a single industry initially)
• Relationship (choose second-degree connections)

Hint: Your current number of first-degree connections will directly impact the number of second- and third-degree connections that you have. If you don’t have many first-degree connections at this point, you’ll want to focus on building meaningful connections as quickly as you can!

Filter search results for location, industry and second-degree connections.

#2: When viewing these search results, look for the number of people in your network for each company listed

Each company that shows up in your search results will showcase a link to the number of people who are in your network. These “people” will all be your second-degree connections, given that you filtered for this parameter. The search results may also show you job postings by the company if you choose to view that parameter.

Identify the number of people who are in your network for each search result.

#3: Click the link to “View all X people.”

To expand the list of second-degree connections from each company who are in your network, you’ll need to click the “View all X people” link (see image below). Once you click this link, you’ll see a list of all of your second-degree connections who are associated with this particular company, along with the number of shared connections that you have with each person.

Click to view all of the second-degree connections who are in your network from this company.

Note that when these results are shown, in order to see those individuals who work in your specific geographical area, you’ll have to reset that search parameter in the LinkedIn Company Search filter on the left-hand side of the results page. (Just as you did in step #1, refine your search results by location once again.)

Now you’ll see the list of second-degree connections who are in your network and work for this particular company, as well as the number of shared connections that exist between you and this individual. LinkedIn will also show you any groups that you have in common with this list of second-degree connections, which could open up the opportunity to make a direct connection. (LinkedIn will allow you to send invitations to connect with mutual group members.)

View the list of individuals with whom you have a shared connection.

#4: Click to view your “shared connection(s)”

The most exciting part of this search is being able to see exactly how you’re connected to this new list of people! Your shared connections in many cases will be key in providing you with an introduction to a new second-degree connection and can also share with you what they know about the person.

Make a connection and if someone else is connected to that person as well you have a shared connection!

#5: View the second-degree connection’s profile and connect!

I suggest that prior to asking for an introduction from your shared connection that you spend some time learning more about the person. For example, view the profile of the second-degree connection and look for common experiences, interests or additional places on the web where you can connect.

Does the person have a blog you can subscribe to? Do they have a Twitter account that is visible on their LinkedIn profile? Are there groups that they are a member of that would make sense for you to join as well? Do you share common personal interests or past work experiences with this individual? You might also Google the person to gather additional intelligence.

This research prior to asking for an introduction to connect or sending any type of direct invitation to connect helps you have a more meaningful dialogue once you’ve become connected on LinkedIn.

#6: Promote, refer and engage your new connections.

If you want to build influence on LinkedIn, always remember to focus on promoting, referring and engaging your connections. You can “like,” “share” or “comment” on their status updates, invite them to join interesting groups or attend local events, and suggest or refer any of your existing connections with whom they can benefit from knowing.

In addition, you should consider sending relevant news and resources to your new connections that can help or benefit them in their business and networking efforts.

Don’t forget to be consistently updating your LinkedIn status on a daily basis if possible. This will also expand your visibility and increase your opportunity to be seen as value-added to your new connections.

As you can see, leveraging LinkedIn Company Search is not only a powerful way to manually build a qualified list of prospects by location and industry, but you also have a connection pathway to meet these individuals through an introduction or by sending a direct invitation, depending on your account level. Keep in mind, however, that the best new business relationships often come by way of referral or introduction!

Spend some time doing these kinds of searches for your business. If you have a Premium LinkedIn account, you can actually create folders and save the profiles of all of your new and prospective connections.

What do you think? Have you experimented yet with LinkedIn Company Search? If not, will you utilize this strategy to find new connections and expand your influence? Leave your comments in the box below.

There are several options to choose from. Which one would be right for you?

In this article, we cover what you actually get for your money and how you might use some of the enhanced features.

Let’s take each area of the business upgrade in turn and run through it.

Here's what you get for your money, but what does it all mean and how are you going to make use of it?

#1: InMails per Month

An InMail is simply an email that can be sent to anyone on LinkedIn, whether they’re in your network or not. Before you say, “Why don’t I just call and get the person’s email address and use that for free?”, the LinkedIn InMails work much better. In fact, LinkedIn actually states that InMails are 30% more effective than using regular emails.

They’re more successful because they’re less of a cold, spammy email, the person to whom you’re sending it instantly knows that you’re part of the LinkedIn community and the receiver can also simply click on your name and check you out very quickly. If they like what they see, they may respond favorably.

The really cool thing here is if you don’t get a reply within 7 days, you get the credit back to your account where it can sit for up to 90 days. In effect, you get a refund.

I’ve used InMails very successfully and my secret to you is keep the content light and be yourself. No carefully crafted company content here. You may simply want to send a message of congratulations to a CEO who just won entrepreneur of the year, or some other little snippet that you’ve picked up in the news.

You can then put a quick one-liner at the end to say something like “Now you know I exist, if you ever need any help with (insert industry), you know where I am.” All you’re trying to do is put yourself on their radar for the future, so don’t overdo it! Remember, they can very easily just click on your profile and see what it is you do.

#2: Profile Organizer

This is a great tool if you’re doing a lot of research on LinkedIn. Ideal for recruitment, or simply prospecting, you can create folders and add profiles to them.

You don’t have to keep rerunning a search and wondering where you are with the search results, as the profile organizer also allows you to make notes and add contact details only visible to you about each profile. When you go to your profile organizer, you can see what messages you’ve sent as well as the notes and what folder they’re in.

Makes it easy to "file" people.

#3: Premium Search Filters

With the upgrade, you can find exactly who you’re looking for in half the time, view their full profile and then make contact with InMail. With the free version, your search is limited and you’re much more restricted. It can be time-consuming to check through each profile for criteria you’re looking for.

You get the extra search functions (highlighted with the gold logo).

#4: Profiles per Search

With a pro account, you’ll get up to 1000 search results. This is very handy if you use LinkedIn a lot. In the free version, you get a maximum of 100 results per search, even if there are thousands to choose from, and LinkedIn will automatically pull to the front people within your network. By network, I mean your first-, second- and third-degree connections. The search function will then look for profiles outside of your network if it needs to.

#5: Saved Search Alerts

Another labor-saver that you can set up is when someone either changes their job role or joins LinkedIn and matches the criteria you’re looking for, you get an email. Almost like a Google alert, you simply get the information in an email.

Set up an alert to make search easy.

#6: Introduction Requests

Introductions are available with the free account also, but with the upgrade, you’re allowed to have 50 outstanding at any one time.

Introductions simply allow you to send a message to someone you’re not connected to, via someone you are connected to. You can write a note for the person you’re trying to contact (person A), and write a separate note for the person you want to pass it on (person B). The beauty is that person B can see what you want her to pass on to person A, and make a decision whether she’s happy to do so. Person B then has the option to send it on or decline.

You can send an introduction to people in your second- and third-degree network. The only thing I don’t like about this is the message doesn’t appear in your regular email box (i.e., in Outlook), it only appears in your inbox in LinkedIn. So you need to visit your inbox on LinkedIn regularly.

#7: Profile Stats

Now I really like this as it gives you a good insight into how people are finding you. You can see who has viewed your profile (as long as they’ve not opted to be known as “anonymous user”), the keywords that were used to find your profile and the number of times you appeared in the search. That’s great to know so that you can tweak things on your own profile if necessary.

How often do you appear in someone's search?

#8: Expanded View

Sometimes you may do a search and the results come back with PRIVATE. This happens when the person you’re searching for is out of your network. Even with the upgraded version, you won’t get to see the expanded profiles of everyone on LinkedIn.

What you will get though is the full name of your third-degree connections; whereas the free users will only see their third-degree connection’s first name and last initial. You can’t ever see the full name of those people out of your network unless you’re searching via their name.

A workaround is to simply Google the current position information and, very often, you’ll find your answer. You can then search for the person in the usual way on LinkedIn and send an InMail.

No more secrecy.

#9: Open Link

Allow people to contact you.

Another option to consider is whether to use the Open Link icon or not. On my profile I want people to contact me. So by having this little icon present, it allows anyone on LinkedIn to get in touch with me without having to use an introduction or an InMail, so it’s free and easy to do.

#10: Sneak Peeks

When any new features are due to come out, you get a sneak peek of the upcoming features. Very cool.

The beauty of the upgraded version is that you can simply try it out to see if you like it. There’s no contract, so if you change your mind, you can revert back to the free version. Although you may wish you hadn’t. You get quite used to the extra functionality.

For more on LinkedIn, read the 26 Tips to Enhance Your Experience on LinkedIn and find out How LinkedIn Apps Can Promote Your Business.

Do you have a new or improved idea for a LinkedIn feature? Are you currently using the upgraded version? Leave your comments in the box below.

Ahhh yes, the lovely LinkedIn.

She warms me up with friendly introductions to powerful decision makers. She brings a smile to my face from the absurd amount of targeted traffic to my websites. And she goes WAY over the top with the number of direct sales referrals she gives me.

It’s a digital romance we have, and I’ll profess my love for her ’til the end of time.

In all seriousness, I’m a big fan of LinkedIn because of the direct business I receive from it. And although I’ve written books about LinkedIn, given webinars and presentations on the topic and written articles like Top 5 Ways to Market Your Business With LinkedIn, I’ve never done a dedicated article about the advanced applications… until now.

Get More With LinkedIn Applications

In this article I want to share with you the top apps you can leverage to get more leads, traffic, product sales, brand awareness, ticket sales, investors, sponsors, consulting engagements and more.

Let’s dig into some of my favorite apps and how to get more from them.

Add Your Blog to LinkedIn

Surprisingly, I’ve seen some of the top bloggers in the world miss out on displaying this app. Failing to include this WordPress app on your profile is a huge mistake because it can help you drive more traffic and shows those who come to your profile how to learn more about your expertise.

This is a simple app that every blogger should have on his/her profile.

Autoplay a Video!

Imagine someone lands on your profile and instead of seeing the same old boring profile, they hear a voice. This voice either comes from you or a raving fan giving a testimonial. This technique is used so rarely that people can’t help but be shocked when they hear a voice and watch a video on your profile.

Adding the SlideShare.net app allows you to showcase presentations you may have, but it also allows you to add a video that autoplays when people land on your profile. Currently the video must be on YouTube for it to work, but it definitely adds a nice touch. Learn more about how to add video to your LinkedIn profile here.

Showcase Your Books or Others’ Books

Many bloggers are coming out with their own books, but are forgetting about a valuable resource to help promote and sell more of them: their LinkedIn profiles! The Reading List by Amazon is great because it helps you to stand out while adding to your credibility.

Even if you don’t have a published book on Amazon, you can still add this app and include the top books that you’re currently reading to give others a better sense about your interests and ongoing education.

This allows you to add a picture of your book on your page.

Syncing With Twitter on LinkedIn

I synced my Twitter account to LinkedIn when this app first launched. Some said they were annoyed when they saw all of the Twitter updates come to their home feed, but after about a week people got used to it.

I find that I often get as much or more interaction from my Twitter updates that sync to LinkedIn than those same updates on Twitter. Your messages don’t get lost in the feed as much on LinkedIn and there are threaded conversations similar to Facebook so you can continue the dialogue for days after.

I recommend doing this if you’re active on Twitter as you will look like you’re interacting on LinkedIn and continuing to stay on top of the minds of your LinkedIn connections even if you don’t use LinkedIn very often.

A great way to stay connected and updated.

Feature Your Events on LinkedIn

Hosting a major industry conference, regional networking event or maybe a small TweetUp and want to get more exposure and ticket sales? If so, look no further than the most powerful events promotion tool online today—LinkedIn Events app.

An example of a major professional event by Gary Vaynerchuk.

Here's an example of how powerful promoting your events on your profile can be.

You can see how many people have RSVP’d for your event, who’s interested and who’s exhibiting. You can also see a picture of those who are attending or interested, their industry, how you’re connected to them, what company they work for and more.

There are a few features I wish they would add to help event organizers promote better (like adding a messaging ability to all of those members who are interested), but other than that, I love the way you can use this app to get the word out about your events.

More Advanced LinkedIn Apps

There are a handful of other apps I haven’t mentioned that help a variety of industry professionals.

Business Apps:

There are a number of general business apps. Some of my favorites include Box.net Files, Tripit Travel, Google Presentation, Huddle Workspaces and Polls.

Legal Apps:

There are two apps specifically for lawyers. The Legal Updates app allows you to “get legal news that matters to you and your business. (Lawyers, upload your articles and other content. Be found for your expertise on LinkedIn).”

The Lawyer Rating app allows you to “showcase your Martindale-Hubbell® Peer Review Ratings™ and Client Review Ratings™ to further validate your stated credentials and help you make the right connections.”

Designer App:

The Creative Portfolio Display allows you to “showcase your creative work in your LinkedIn Profile with the Creative Portfolio Display application. Free, easy to manage, and supports unlimited multimedia content.”

There are a number of other apps that you may or may not feel are valuable to include on your LinkedIn profile, but my suggestion is to try a few out and see how you like them.

Since the release of the advanced application section on LinkedIn, they continue to release new apps every so often. Make sure to check the application section for future updates, or find out more by following the LinkedIn blog.

Have you tried using any of the advanced LinkedIn applications on your profile? If so, what is the one you like the best, and why? I’d love to read your thoughts in the comments box below.

Regularly updating your status, joining and participating in groups and answering questions is just the start.

There are also a number of ways to build deeper relationships with your connections on LinkedIn. I’m going to ask you to shift your thinking and consider the following:

Spend some time on LinkedIn connecting your contacts.

If you truly want to build social influence with your connections and become more valuable to them, dedicating time to strategically helping others can elevate your “social” status.

People want to be connected with a connector! Connectors are considered valuable resources because they’re genuinely interested and engaged in helping others succeed.

Working to connect your connections on LinkedIn not only helps you become a more influential person, you’ll also benefit from triggering the rule of reciprocity. Essentially, the rule of reciprocity states that when you do something that can benefit someone else, you’re making a psychological deposit with that person and he or she will feel obligated to repay the favor.

LinkedIn is the perfect environment in which to put the rule of reciprocity to use.

Why? Mostly, the network is transparent. LinkedIn members are sharing not only information about their professional background, skills, and experience, but they’re also sharing personal hobbies and interests. Never before have you been able to see all of these details about your professional network laid out right in front of you. The power of the LinkedIn network provides a compelling opportunity to grow your business.

A 3-Step Process for Connecting Your Connections on LinkedIn

#1: Analyze Your First-Degree Connections

Here’s a big-picture exercise that will get you thinking about who you know, what’s important to the people you know and who should know one other within your LinkedIn contacts.

Go to the Advanced People Search tool within LinkedIn. Under the “Relationship” section on the left, filter for your first-degree connections only (see image below).

This will bring up a list of all of your first-degree connections. Make sure to choose “Expanded View” to see more details about your connections within this search. A free LinkedIn account will show you up to 100 profile results per search.

The Advanced Search tool is located at the top right of your profile page.

Filter for first-degree connections.

Once you’ve pulled up the search results, scroll slowly through your entire list of first-degree connections, looking closely at faces and titles. Simply spending some time scanning through this list of connections can help trigger and uncover common ground among your connections that you may not have thought about. Take notes as you go through this process.

Next, identify your 10 best business relationships from this list and jot them down. Also add the 10 most influential people you’re connected with (there may be some overlap). Now it’s time to analyze your first-degree list of best relationships and top influencers.

Are there similar personality types? Do any of the career and business paths of your connections intersect or have complementary characteristics (i.e., could you connect an executive leadership coach with an executive, or an entrepreneur with a venture capitalist)? Whom can they benefit from knowing, being connected to, or working with on your list? Do any of these individuals live in the same geographic area? Do any of them have similar personal interests or belong to the same LinkedIn Groups or outside organizations?

Unfortunately there is no quick way to conduct this in-depth search other than to view the profiles manually and identify all the potential links. However, it will be well worth your time! Bringing together your best relationships with your top influencers is a very powerful exercise and you should get to know as much as you can about these individuals.

An example in action—connecting the dots:

John owns his own technology firm and Sam is a financial professional. They live in different states but they’re my first-degree connections. Through my relationships with these two individuals I’ve learned that they’re both Ironman triathletes who blog about their triathlon training and experiences, and they both strive for their personal best in business and in life. In my mind, these two must know each other and there could certainly be an opportunity for them to do business together as well.

Both John and Sam were extremely grateful for the introduction and were thrilled to meet a like-minded acquaintance with a passion for competing in triathlons. In this example, I was able to come up with this mutually beneficial connection by simply scanning through my first-degree connections and concentrating on what I know about each person, both personally and professionally. It’s all about connecting the dots!

#2: Filter Your First-Degree Search by Geography, Industry and/or Keywords

This time, start your Advanced LinkedIn search for first-degree connections, but run some filters. We’ll start by filtering your search results for geography and get more specific from there.

Using the Geography filter, choose the location where you have the most connections. Now study these profiles and go through the same questions listed in exercise #1. Who in this group of connections should be connected to one other and why? Can you see any professional common threads among those professionals who live in your area?

Now let’s narrow it down further and apply some filters for industry. First, view your connections who work in the same industries. Are there any opportunities for these individuals to benefit from networking with industry peers? Next, check the boxes for a handful of industries that could be complementary (i.e., financial and legal, marketing and design). Are there opportunities to connect any of these individuals where it could be mutually beneficial from a business standpoint?

Finally, let’s narrow it down even further by applying a keyword filter that describes a hobby or interest. The strongest ties are those that center on personal interests. The Keyword search box will be at the top left of your Advanced Search screen. If you need help coming up with a keyword for personal interests, look at your own interests that you’ve listed on your profile and use one of those words or phrases. What are you interested in and passionate about? What are your best connections interested in and passionate about?

An example in action—personal interests are powerful:

I’ve got about 130 professional LinkedIn connections in Dallas where I live. After I’ve run the first two filters (location and industry), I’ve got a list of 37 people whom I feel would benefit from being connected on a professional level. I then decided to run a keyword filter for the word “golf,” and that narrowed it down to 4 individuals! Now I’ve identified 4 of my connections who all live in my area, work in similar or complementary industries and enjoy golfing. I can decide from here whom I want to connect, and even connect the entire group of people through a golf outing!

Filter your searches to find common ground among your first-degree connections.

Go through this process numerous times with your first-degree connections, but reverse and play around with the order of your filters.

For example, start with a keyword based on one of your interests, and then filter for geography, followed by industry. You can certainly connect others across the country as well. There are really no rules here other than the more common ground you can identify among the connections you connect, the more relevant and meaningful that introduction will be for both parties.

#3: Send Both Connections a Private Message

Before you utilize the LinkedIn introduction tool, I strongly suggest you send a private message to each of the individuals you’re going to be connecting. First you’ll need to decide who’ll be the person you introduce and who’ll receive the introduction. Send a private message first to the person you’ll introduce. Use something like the following to let him or her know what to expect:

For the person who’ll be receiving the introduction, send him or her a private message as well as notification that your introduction will be coming soon. Always send these private messages first to make it clear to both parties what you’re trying to accomplish, otherwise it can be confusing.

Once you’ve sent the private messages, you can send over the official LinkedIn introduction. You can access the link entitled “Make an Introduction” from your connection’s profile.

LinkedIn makes it simple for you to introduce others.

The best way to ensure that these new connections you’re creating on LinkedIn will evolve into potential relationships is to do the work up front, and uncover all of the potential intersecting points or commonalities with your first-degree connections. The more people have in common—especially around personal interests—the more likely a new relationship will develop and thrive! You’ll be appreciated and respected for taking the time to connect the dots and piece these introductions together, and most importantly, you’ll build significant social influence!

It takes work to be a connector, and the benefits may not be immediately measurable. Long-term, however, you’ll reap the rewards in ways that you may not even be able to imagine today. Not only will you become a more valuable and influential person to your existing connections, you’ll open the door for new connections and introductions for yourself.

Have you tried connecting people on LinkedIn? Do you have any tips to add? Please share your story in the comments box below.

Be honest. Do you follow up on every LinkedIn connection request you get? No, probably not. I’ll bet you click “accept” and that’s as far as you go.

When someone requests to connect with you and you simply click “accept” and make no effort to carry on the conversation, you’re both simply saying hello to each other and it stops dead there. The only thing you gain by doing this is a string of connections that don’t have any real value. You become a connection collector.

So how can you use social etiquette to really make your LinkedIn connections valuable and stand out from the crowd at the same time?

Follow the 4 steps below and watch your reputation grow.

View LinkedIn as your own boardroom of connections versus your coffee shop connections on Twitter or Facebook. They tend to be managers, directors, business owners, CEOs and the like.

#1: Send Personalized Connection Requests

When you first send a possible contact an invitation, do it from his or her own profile page by clicking the Add to Your Network link.

We’ll use Paul as an example. By adding Paul this way, rather than simply going to the Add Connections tab, you can send a personalized message such as “Thanks for the coffee yesterday! It was great to catch up.”

This gives you the opportunity to remind Paul where you know him from. This is particularly useful if you’re getting back in touch after a long period of time, say from an old job or your school days.

If you simply send a connection request from the Add Connections box, there’s no facility to personalize your message.

This might be a quick and easy way to add a handful of new connections, but spend the time and do it right by adding your personal touch to each one by following the steps above.

#2: Reply When Accepting a Connection Request

All too often, I receive the standard email from LinkedIn that says a connection request has been accepted, but I rarely then get a short message from the new connection saying “Hi.”

So what should happen? Well, the same thing that happens in real life!

When Paul has accepted my connection request, he could then send a short message back. I like to take a look at my new connection’s profile if I’m not too familiar with him, and find something I can comment on. That may be something like he comes from my home town, or works for a company I know well or perhaps I can see from his interests that he’s a cyclist like me. Whatever it may be, try to find something to start a short conversation to build on your relationship. Make the effort to find out more.

So I’ve covered a couple of the initial steps we tend to forget about. Let’s look at composing a message to a group of connections.

#3: Composing a Group Mailing

First, you can only send a message to 50 people at any one time. This is a good thing; otherwise, I’m sure you would see a lot of spam. There are a couple of things to note here:

• Your Opening: If you’re sending an email to a group of connections, think about your greeting. How are you going to address them? I suggest you start with something like “Hi everyone” or “Greetings to you all” and then immediately say “Please excuse my lack of personalization in this email, as I am sending this out to a group of connections.” That way, you can be forgiven by any possible bad manners critics.
• Hide Others’ Email Addresses: Always uncheck the box that says, “Allow recipients to see each other’s email address.” This makes the email a BCC (blind carbon copy). Value other people’s privacy by not sharing their email addresses with everyone else.

When you receive a message yourself this way, respond where possible, depending on whether the content is relevant to you. If the sender has followed the rules below about message content and what to add, hopefully you found something of interest.

What about the message content?

If you want your connections to leave you in droves, feel free to write about all the good things you or your company can do or offer!

I’ve made this mistake in the past myself and then I came to my senses. I realized I needed to treat this form of communication just the same as my newsletters: add valuable resources.

People don’t want to hear about you all the time and what you can offer, but they do want to know about how you could possibly help fix one of their problems.

A recent example of an email to my connections looked like this.

Nowhere is there anything about my company; simply three bits of information I thought would be great to pass on. The message contained a great book that most businesses could probably utilize, a free event being put on by two great companies and a website that may save a business a bit of money.

By keeping in touch this way, my aim is to simply add value, but at the same time, put myself back on the radar of my connections.

#4: How to Ask for Recommendations

Recommendations are a valuable part of your LinkedIn profile and could be the one thing that gets you the deal when a possible client is comparing you to your competitor. Most people only have a couple of recommendations so you can stand out from the crowd with a good number of genuine and applicable recommendations. I suggest 10 as a minimum, but feel free to ask for more.

You’ll notice there’s another auto-generated template that needs personalizing, not only the body of the message but also the subject line. I like to change mine to read something like “Recommendation request” as the subject line and “Are you able to write a recommendation about the presentation I did for your company last week?” in the main body. Don’t make the request too long, but be clear on what you want a recommendation for.

If you’re asking Paul for a recommendation about a seminar he attended that featured you as a speaker, you could change the message to say, “I hope you enjoyed the seminar last week. If you feel that you’re able to write a brief recommendation about how you found my presentation and speaking skills, I would appreciate it. I totally understand if you would prefer not to. Kind regards…”

There’s no need to open your message with “Dear …” as LinkedIn will automatically add that for you.

One last tip I’d like to share with you is to install a spellcheck in your browser bar if you don’t already have one. Go to www.google.com/toolbar and download it free of charge. You just need to remember to click the little icon each time you’ve completed a space where you want to check your spelling.

You’ll be amazed at how many times you make a mistake and need to correct it. You can then use this on any form field you fill out online, not just for LinkedIn. Remember, first impressions count, so don’t let all of your hard work be undone with spelling mistakes.

In a nutshell, you should personalize every aspect of LinkedIn that you can, make each standard template your own. It may take you a little longer, but the value you’ll get from doing the job right will far outweigh the effort.

Ask yourself, if you were meeting face to face, what would you do differently?

People easily judge on first impressions, so make yours a great one, each and every time you connect.

I would love to hear your thoughts on how you get your personality across when connecting online, so feel free to share your ideas or add comments in the box below.

Are you on LinkedIn?  Do you feel like you’re not “part of the gang?” or that LinkedIn is not for you?  Be sure to share your comments below…

Editor’s note: Be sure to check out more of Sean’s artwork here.