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In this article, Linda provides readers with a basic overview of LinkedIn, and how you can use it as a stationery and low-maintenance tool that will help your career.
By this time, you may have set up a Facebook and Friendfeed account and perhaps even started a group at one or the other – or both. Now you're ready to set up a LinkedIn account, where you can send prospective clients to view your resume and your professional side. In this article, Linda provides readers with a basic overview of LinkedIn, and how you can use it as a stationery and low-maintenance tool that will help your career.
Step One: Setting Up LinkedIn
When you arrive at LinkedIn, you'll see the page shown below:
Unlike Facebook or Friendfeed, it seems that LinkedIn frowns
upon multiple accounts. Not that you can't open multiple accounts, but why
bother? Unless you have two businesses, the site is set up to accommodate just
one personality. So, when you sign up for LinkedIn, use your real given name
and surname (you might want to follow your surname with an email address, such
as: Smith ( joe.smith@joesmith.com)
– this is one easy way to provide all viewers with an email addy – including
spammers and email farmers, but you may land a job or two by using that tip).
Use a business account email and create a password. Once you've clicked the
"Join Now" button, you're a member of the LinkedIn community.
Your Profile
The next step to the LinkedIn process is to fill in the profile portion of your LinkedIn page. You will need your resume to accomplish this task, and you can fill in or omit as many processes as you'd like in the beginning. However, over time, you may want to accomplish all the tasks contained within the profile – otherwise, you and your viewers will see that you've only accomplished a portion of your LinkedIn profile goals. In some people's minds, this lack of ability to accomplish a task may be taken seriously.
Now, I'm not a LinkedIn fanatic, and I do let things lapse in my account. Additionally, I've opened two LinkedIn accounts – the one shown above and one for Appomattox News – and I've learned the hard way that two accounts just aren't worth the trouble. Hence, my advice at the beginning of this article. As a writer, I needed one account only, as I could use this account to reach out to all my clients and prospective clients. Having two LinkedIn accounts merely doubles the trouble and takes up too much time in the long run.
The image shown above is my personal account profile page. You can see all the "edit" areas in brackets in all areas where you can change your information. Your LinkedIn page is not set in stone, and it can become as malleable as your career...just don't forget to make changes as they happen. Here is a list of some vital information that you need to add on the front end:
1. Your contact information – do up the full works, including phone number and your mailing address.
2. Add a photo – not a logo. I made this mistake, and I learned that a photo can warm people up to you more than a logo. You don't have to be pretty – just personable.
3. Your jobs, or your main work (things that make you stand out or things that bring you pride in your work).
4. Your education and any associations or clubs where you hold a membership.
5. Your Website (You also can call this "My Portfolio, My Website, My Blog, My RSS Feed or 'Other'" - use the latter choice to name your Website).
Make your profile a bit personal, too – although I want to know your qualifications when I read your LinkedIn profile, I also want to know a bit about you. If you have hobbies or other passions than programming or Web design, I want to know what makes you tick. Are you an advocate for cancer research? Do you like French or California wines? These hobbies don't turn people off as much as give them a bearing as to who you are as a person.
If you're a risk-taker, you can say this in other ways than stating that you bungee jump into live volcanoes.
Note a few things as your finish each step of your profile. First, the bar on your page at top right will begin to show a "completeness" factor:
This bar will be completely filled in once you've completed all the LinkedIn tasks, including providing and receiving a "recommendation." Don't worry about this part just yet, as you want to look as complete as possible before you accomplish that last task.
Also notice in the image above that you can forward your profile to a connection (like a prospective client), you can edit any contact settings at any time and you can create your profile in more than one language. Plus, you can create your information in a PDF file or print it out for others.
Linda Goin
Linda Goin carries an A.A. in graphic design, a B.F.A. in visual communications with a minor in business and marketing and an M.A. in American History with a minor in the Reformation. While the latter degree doesn't seem to fit with the first two educational experiences, Linda used her 25-year design expertise on archaeological digs and in the study of material culture. Now she uses her education and experiences in social media experiments.
Accolades for her work include fifteen first-place Colorado Press Association awards, numerous fine art and graphic design awards, and interviews about content development with The Wall St. Journal, Chicago Tribune, Psychology Today, and L.A. Times.