I’m On LinkedIn - Now What???

Don’t Create Another LinkedIn Account!

Having problems with your LinkedIn Account?  Wait, don’t create another one YET!  There are two reasons I suggest you don’t create an account.  First, and not the most important imho, is that it’s against policy:

Of course, putting an e-mail address in the name field is against policy also, but it’s sparsly enforced.  That’s another subject :p

The other reason, and I think the most compelling reason, to not create a duplicate account on LinkedIn is because you lose the power of the connections.

Think about it - let’s say you have 100 connections on LinkedIn.  You create a new account - are you going to reinvite those people?  You’ll start to get branded as a social networking nut, probably.  Trust me, start sending me multiple invitations and you’ll start to get more of your e-mails to me going to my mental spam bucket, quick!

Also, what if you have recommendations on the old account?  Are you going to ask those people for new recommendations?  You certainly don’t want to lose them.

Of course, if you think you want to have two active accounts, it’s a pain to maintain the profiles, and juggle who you connect with…

I’ve heard of a few reasons why people would want to set up multiple accounts but I always recommend against it… it’s just too much work!

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I Knew My LinkedIn Profile Needs Work, But THIS???

When I speak or consult, I use my profile as a “bad example,” and have some other favorites that I use as ideal examples. I really need to carve out an hour one of these days and just clean up my summary (perhaps on a flight, when I have hours of downtime).

Today as I was doing the post on my JibberJobber blog called LinkedIn Maintenance: Do This Right Now (or else?), I noticed something that cracked me up… check this out:

Investment banking??? How did that get there?  I’m sure I chose that late one night, probably as I was poking around… but I’ll confess now, I couldn barely get a C in my MBA finance classes… no way I could get a job in investment banking :p

BTW, go spend a couple minutes reading the LinkedIn maintenence post and then a couple minutes doing the maintenance … it will provide you peace of mind!

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Steve Tylock, author of The LinkedIn Personal Trainer, on Groups (must read!)

Steve Tylock wrote his book, The LinkedIn Personal Trainer, the same time I was writing I’m on LinkedIn — Now What??? He actually beat me to press, though… so I can’t claim the fame of having the first LinkedIn book (darnit!)

Anyway, he’s a very nice, savvy guy, and he has EXCELLENT thoughts on the groups stuff.  Here are two posts he wrote about LinkedIn Groups:

Group Search Available On LinkedIn - he says “It’s not perfect, but it’s a whole lot better than what you could find out yesterday” …

What We Didn’t Know About Groups… - probably the biggest issue the new LinkedIn Groups search function exposes is the number of like-groups … that is, the number of groups dedicated to a single cause or group, exist.  In Steve Tylock’s example, he says there are four alumni groups for “SUNY Buffalo”… doh!  Which one is school-sanctioned?  Which one should I join?  Which ones should I NOT join???

This can be (will be) a big issue.  Now, interestingly, my JibberJobber Career Management LinkedIn Group has almost 1,000 members (I think it’s around 800 right now).  If someone started another JibberJobber group, I don’t think I’d have a problem with that, as I’d love to have a fan create a group and promote it… how cool would that be?

Whoa… but what if someone who is a competitor, or a leech who just wants to benefit from a brand I’ve created comes along… then I have a typical branding issue.

This is exactly what has been exposed with the Groups searching ability on LinkedIn… interesting problem, eh?

Unfortunately, it’s not the only problem that has come to light because of the searching ability on LinkedIn Groups.  The comments about LinkedIn Group searching has created a storm over on the My Virtual Power Forum (used to be My LinkedIn Power Forum), which have really been an interesting read.

More on that later.

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Searching for LinkedIn Groups? Now you can… finally!

I got an e-mail from LinkedIn yesterday, as a group owner, that they are building a search feature into the LinkedIn Groups page by the end of this week.

It’s about time :p Whenever I talk about LinkedIn Groups, one of the most common questions is “how do I find LinkedIn Groups I should join?”

I’ve even blogged about finding LinkedIn Groups before, and tried to piece together some sources for you… but maybe that will all be useless and outdated once July 11th comes around.

There’s a bunch of information on yesterday’s blog post at the LinkedIn blog about this feature… the thing I found most interesting is they say there are over 90,000 LinkedIn Groups.

Man, that’s a lot more than I would have guessed!  After they release the search feature we’ll be able to see which Groups we should join

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Job Seekers Don’t Know About LinkedIn …. Whuh???

If anyone should know what LinkedIn is, it is the job seeker.  Not that LinkedIn is just for job seekers, or just for employment purposes, of course.  But it’s a great place to be if you are a professional concerned about your career (job seekers fall into this category).

So I was quite curious when I was on JobDig’s website and saw their poll asking “Are you on LinkedIn?”  Check out these results:

I couldn’t believe the response… 51% has never heard of it??? Job seekers who don’t know about LinkedIn?  Lots of thoughts flew through my mind, one of which was, no matter how much press (and money) LinkedIn gets, and what their growth rate is, there is still a TON of opportunity to grow.

Here are other misc thoughts:

1. Maybe JobDig has a readership/viewership that is not the same as LinkedIn’s (avg user makes over 100k, etc.).
2. What is “our” role in spreading LinkedIn’s brand?  Isn’t it good for us if more people join and use LinkedIn?  (my answer is NO, I’m NOT an evangelist for LinkedIn, and people are going to use it or not… but it’s not my role to be their marketing agent)
3. Many of these job seekers probably don’t understand the value of networking in a job search… I know I didn’t when I started my search in 2006.
4. There is a lot of noise online, and with hundreds of thousands of social networks, it’s easy to get lost in the fray.

And, with enough people logging on and wondering what the heck they are supposed to do (same prob I have with JibberJobber.com), they aren’t getting as many product evangelists as they could.  That’s the nature of the beast, though… a sophisticated system isn’t always intuitive.

For the 25% who said “yes, I think I still have an account,” or “Nope, what’s the point,” perhaps they should pick up a copy of I’m on LinkedIn — Now What???

Thanks, JobDig, for the survey results!

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LinkedIn Summary Is Not The Only Place To Look Sharp

On the JibberJobber blog I just wrote about a great write-up on Deb Dib’s profile… in the company section!

The problem was that she went from a buyer at Macy’s to an executive career coach… something I was trying to figure out.  Was there something there she hadn’t explained?  Something she was hiding… or what?

I didn’t think too much about it until she e-mailed me the new verbaige on this section, which explains the transition.  It’s actually quite brilliant, and something that I think a lot of us could do on our own profiles.

I talk a lot about the summary, but this is the first time I talk about doctoring up your company description… jump on over to the JibberJobber post to see what she did!

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Want to own a LinkedIn Group? Expect lots of e-mails!

Well, maybe not “lots of e-mails,” but you will likely get e-mails as people join your group.  Here’s what they see when they join:

When you click on the “Please notify the group manager” link, it opens an e-mail with your e-mail client (one of my pet peeves on the Internet) and this subject:

I would like to join your group; my membership is pending approval

Just so you know, when I get that, I go in and approve the request (no more than once a day, I wish it could be once a week), and then reply back to say “okay!” or something simple like that.

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What is LinkedIn going to do with $53M of new funding?

Jennifer Leggio interviewed Allen Blue on her ZDNet blog, and got some good answers.

Of the more interesting points to me personally was the idea from Jeremiah Owyang that LinkedIn could, with some work, become a corporate standard for Intranets.

I may have no vision, but I don’t understand how in the world this would work.  My first real job was developing an Intranet with an amazing team at Simplot, and back then (pre-2000) our Intranet was amazingly functional.  And very customized to our company needs.  Is LinkedIn getting into the corporate intranet space?  I have a hard time seeing that play out.

Along those lines, Allen says that LinkedIn employees refer to LinkedIn as a “productivity tool.”  This makes a lot of sense.  I found it interesting that they are a productivity tool for assumedly (is that a word?) employed professionals… which is great because I certainly don’t want them taking any of their money and putting JibberJobber functionality into their system (inevitable, I’m guessing, but still :/).

And, along those lines, Allen says “Some of that investment may turn into a partnership or a purchase…”

I would LOVE to know what kind of technologies LinkedIn would be interested in partnering with or purchasing. I happen to know a bunch of JibberJobber users who would love a tighter integraton with LinkedIn

Take a few minutes and click over to Jennifer Leggio’s interview with Allen Blue.

What do YOU think LinkedIn should do with the $53M in funding?

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LinkedIn Recommendation Thoughts

I continue to hear about LinkedIn recommendations, and various ideas about their value. Are they fake? Are they worthless?

I talk about LinkedIn Recommendations in my presentations, and how valuable I think they are. Of course, they can be junk, but if you go about it with a smart strategy, I think they are worth it. Giving them and receiving them.

Here are a few things that have come up over the last year:

On Giving LinkedIn Recommendations:

Rule #1 is only give a recommendation when you can, or should. Have you worked with the person in a capacity where you can professionally endorse them? If you can’t, then don’t leave a recommendation.

Think about it, when you meet someone in the grocery store for the first time, can you really professionally endorse them? Not likely.

Beyond that, the best LinkedIn Recommendations are specific, not vague. I blogged about this here.

On Requesting LinkedIn Recommendations:

I talk about 3 ways to request a LinkedIn Recommendation. I don’t like the first option, moderately like the second option, and recommed the third option (which is to GIVE a LinkedIn Recommendation first).

When I talk about this, Rule #1 from above applies… don’t go give them out like they are candy, rather, only when you can professionally endorse someone.

Beyond that, when you give a LinkedIn Recommendation, make sure do so without expecting a reciprocal favor. In other words, give it because you genuinely mean it… not because you are trying to entice someone to recommend you back! Of course, if they do, that’s great! But don’t expect it.

When should you ASK for a recommendation, and how should you ask? Let me know what you think… and then I’ll let you know what I think!

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LinkedIn and YOUR Video!

Harry Joiner has an excellent post recommending you get a video, post it on YouTube, and then link to it from your LinkedIn profile…. !

Brilliant!

He links to Susan McKenna’s LinkedIn profile… to get to her video is the second link.

Harry’s point applies whether you are a professional in a job search, or not, or a company, etc. This is just brilliant.

Regarding the comments on Harry’s post, which are just an absolute trip, I’ll blog about that on the JibberJobber blog… I’m thinking of titling it “how to make yourself look like a complete a$$ by commenting on someone’s blog when you shouldn’t.”

Posted in Using LinkedIn | 3 Comments »