HOW TO: Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile

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With more than 85 million members in more than 200 countries, LinkedIn is a professional social network worth using, understanding and optimizing.

After you’ve covered the basics of setting up your LinkedIn presence, features including recommendations, applications, LinkedIn Answers, and the Resume Builder can add value to your profile. Many of these highly useful features, though, are often overlooked or underused by newcomers.

We spoke with four LinkedIn aficionados to get their top advice on making the best use of these tools. Read on for their thoughts and let us know which tips you’d add for optimizing LinkedIn profiles in the comments below.

Cover the Basics

The first step to spiffing up your
LinkedIn profile is to fill in as much information about your work experience as possible. It’s your online resume; pay as much attention to it as you would your cover letter or paper resume.

Sharlyn Lauby, president of Internal Talent Management,
HR blogger and guest contributor for Mashable, believes that a person’s LinkedIn profile should, at minimum, reflect his or her current situation. That includes an up-to-date headline along with information about his or her most recent position. A recent photo and contact information are also musts.

If you’ve covered those bases, our experts recommend focusing on making connections, joining groups, getting recommendations and posting status updates. Once again, the focus should be on quality additions in each of these areas.

“[A status update] is a great place to share an article of interest or something new you?ve been working on. People do comment on status updates, so it?s a nice way to start a conversation,” says Lauby.

If all else fails, just follow LinkedIn’s built-in status bar for recommendations on how to complete your profile. When you hit the 100% mark, though, don’t think you’re finished; there’s plenty more to be done.

Ask for Meaningful Recommendations

Astute recruiters aren’t going to take your word for granted when you describe your top-notch abilities. Instead, just as in offline recruiting, they will want to hear from those who have worked with you and have a grasp on your working style, personality and skills. That’s where recommendations come in.

Lauby notes that gathering recommendations is all about quality over quantity. “If someone has dozens of recommendations that are generic in nature, it?s not as valuable as a handful that are specific about a person?s experience and contribution.”

Focus on asking for meaningful recommendations from your supervisors and colleagues who work closest to you. Before sending out a request on LinkedIn, approach each contact in person to explain the importance of his or her recommendation. Adding a personal touch to your request will probably result in a better response rate, as impersonal, default requests can sometimes fall on deaf ears.

Be sure to thank each of your colleagues who recommend you on LinkedIn, and consider returning the favor with a follow-up recommendation.

Use Value-Added Applications

One of the hidden jewels on LinkedIn is its ability to incorporate applications. Check out its
Application Directory for a taste of apps that can spice up your profile.

Here are a few of my personal favorites:

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  SlideShare Presentations: If you’re a public speaker or publish lots of reports,
  SlideShare is a useful tool for getting the word out about your work. If you don’t have a SlideShare account, get one. If you do, this app is a great way to showcase your most recent reports or presentations on your LinkedIn profile.

  
  


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  WordPress: Add personal flair to your LinkedIn profile by importing your latest WordPress blog posts onto your profile. You can choose to display all posts or only those tagged “linkedin.”

  
  


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  Tweets: If you’re a huge LinkedIn buff with a passion for
  Twitter, Tweets is a great Twitter client for accessing the microblogging service right from LinkedIn. Plus, you can choose to display your most recent tweets on your profile.

  
  


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  My Travel: Powered by TripIt, this app enables you to see where your professional network is traveling and post your upcoming trips. It then shows you who in your network will be close to you on your travels.

  
  

These apps give visitors to your profile a better idea of who you are as a person and job candidate. Lauby also recommends checking out the
Events app, which enables you to discover professional events and indicate which ones you’re attending, giving you more opportunities to connect with fellow attendees.

Become an Expert With LinkedIn Answers

LinkedIn Answers is a
Q&A platform that enables members to demonstrate their business acumen by answering questions from other members. When questioners choose another user’s answer as best, that user gains points of expertise. These points rank members on the Answers leaderboard, called “This Week’s Top Experts.”

We asked three of this week’s top experts about their best practices on using the product. Each of these experts spend a few hours per day answering up to 50 questions daily, which is the maximum for 24 hours.

Cristina Falc

HOW TO: Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile