Linked In is a great social media site to join and participate in, no matter what industry you’re involved with. It is considered one of the largest social media sites today so now is a great time to get involved and get connected. It was created for more professional networking and there are many opportunities to connect with other professionals and spread your reach online with this tool. As with any social media site, you get more out of something that you’re more active with. So we’ll cover a few different ways to get involved and stay active at Linked In, and how to grow your network and find more business.

Linked In provides a great alternative to Facebook and Twitter, for professionals that want to connect with other professionals. Your profile includes a work history and more content that would be relevant to your career and the workplace. One of the greatest tools that Linked In has are recommendations, which allow current or past clients to write about what they thought about working with you, and recommend your services to others. Here’s a short video that does a good job of introducing Linked In and what you can use it for.

Search Engine Optimization

One of the greatest benefits of using any social media site professionally is that it provides another avenue for people to find you. Search engines crawl the internet daily, reading through all the content and ranking things based on the number times they’re found, among other things. Linked In is a pretty prominent site and provides a great professional place for you and your company to be found.

Your profile also allows you to add lots of great keywords about your company and your services, giving you a great opportunity to be found for those keywords. Within your profile, you can add keywords by sufficiently filling out and using your title, summary, specialties, and experience areas. Filling our your profile completely is very important. It gives people a chance to see everything about you, getting a better idea of your services and capabilities, but it also shows that you’re active and involved on Linked In. People are going to be more likely to connect with you if they see you’re involved.

Groups

To get started building your connections, you’ll want to upload your address book and invite people you know to connect with you. This will help you start to build your network, and you can branch out from there. One of the greatest ways to connect with people you don’t know on Linked In is to join some groups. I recommend joining some groups within your specialities and career field, as well as some local business and entrepreneur groups.

After you’ve been approved to join each group, you can participate in discussions and start some topics of your own. This is a great way to get your name out there and link up with others in the group. You can showcase your expertise and knowledge by answering questions or providing input when people ask for feedback. I recommend the two different types of groups because the audiences will be different and you can reach different people in both that will be beneficial to you.

Company Profile

Linked In added Company profiles in the last year, allowing businesses to create a profile and list their services and products. You can invite your clients and colleagues to follow your company, which allows them to receive updates from you and helps your company extend it’s network. In your company profile you can add different services you provide. In this area, you can add images, videos, and text that highlight your products and tell people what you offer.

Linked In a very robust networking site and I’ve only touched on many of the possibilities that it has to offer. Sign up for a free account today if you haven’t already and check it out for yourself. You can connect with Shannon on Linked In and Snoack Studios. If you currently use Linked In, we would love to hear your experiences with it in the comments below.