Network socially and professionally.
Oh, how I love LinkedIn! I often speak and write about LinkedIn, as well as provide a great deal of training to help others get the most out of the most powerful professional networking site online. As much as I also adore Twitter and Facebook, LinkedIn is still the one place to get started building your brand and career online.
LinkedIn doesn't get much love in the "I can't wait to go online and have fun with my friends" category of social networking sites, but make no mistake - for professionals, wannabe professionals, businesses or non-profits, LinkedIn is where the real action is. While you may be getting benefit out of Twitter or Facebook, LinkedIn is probably where I'll find you first when I google you and where I'll look to get an early sense of your reputation.
Welcome to my shortest blog post ever. The response to my recent post about how to select the right photo for your online profile has been fantastic. I invite you to watch this video to find out... How you can get valuable feedback on the photo you've chosen for your profile As my friend, Hjortur Smarason says, we should think of this photo as our own personal logo.
You know you've seen it. That cringe-worthy photo from your friend's beach vacation that he's using as his LinkedIn profile photo. "What in the world is he thinking?" you asked yourself. "I'd never use a photo like that to represent myself online." Really, Ms. Look-at-me-and-my-super-cute-puppy?
You've taken the job of connecting with the right people online seriously. You've methodically built your professional network of connections on LinkedIn. You've added your family, friends, old classmates and co-workers to your list of Facebook friends. This is a wonderful way to stay in touch by keeping up with status updates and photos, but what if you want to send a private email to one of your connections?
I already know almost all of you will be in one of two camps. Some of you will immediately feel my pain and totally get what I'm talking about. Others will think I'm making much ado about nothing and ought to let go of my outdated idea of how and where content is best shared. There will be a handful in the middle; those who can see both sides, but there won't be many of you in this third group. That said, let's get ready to rumble!
Remember how excited you were when you learned that you could connect your Flickr account to Facebook so that all of your photos could easily be uploaded and shared with your friends? Or, how intrigued you were with the idea of posting every single update to all of your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn friends simultaneously?
Ah, the challenge online. How to appear that you fit in while also appearing to stand out from the crowd. We really work hard to think of just the right words to use to let others know how irresistibly awesome we are. It appears that many others believe they are as irresistible as we are and are using the exact same terms in their LinkedIn profiles.
Rod asks: "I see that I'm able to see some people's full LinkedIn profiles when clicking on their link, but when clicking on the link to my own profile, I see very little information. Do I need to have a paid membership to have everything visible"
Does it ever feel that there is a non-stop downpour of Facebook posts, YouTube videos, Twitter tweets, LinkedIn connections and blog posts? Do you ever feel like you're drowning in content? If so and you spend any amount of time online, it isn't just your imagination. The larger our networks of contacts, the more information we see pushed in our direction every time one of our friends shares a link to a news article, their latest blog post and a funny video of a cat dressed as Lady Gaga.