LinkedIn’s latest announcement means that users will be able to segment their network of contacts in a variety of new, more granular ways. Though similar sites are being created every day, it is one of the original mainstream social networks and there are still many ways to use it to make networking more valuable, succinct and most importantly – successful. The following is the first of three sequential articles, that respectively cover creating your LinkedIn presence, developing your network and then utilising it.

Part 1: Creating Your LinkedIn Presence

The starting point of an effective LinkedIn strategy is clearly to work on developing one or more effective profiles within the site – which might comprise a personal profile, your company’s profile and indeed creating a themed group.

1. Personal - LinkedIn offers a number of suggestions for how to continually develop a personal profile, offering a percentage scale up to a fully completed profile as an indication of the completeness of a profile. The site recently confirmed an agreement with Twitter so, when creating a profile, Twitter users should not only ensure that they have added their profile name but also sync the two profiles. LinkedIn will then show Twitter updates within its status updates section, effectively keeping the content fresh.

As with any other marketing document, what others say is often regarded by readers as more valuable readers than any other aspect of the content – so when developing contacts, as per the next section, users should ask their contacts for recommendations, that will sit on the profile. Recommendations can be vetted and approved before going live, so it can’t hurt to ask.

2. Company – Company profiles are short, objective and factually-accurate overviews of a business which individuals can then apply to join. This is an excellent method of providing a central focal point for an organisation, which helps businesses to be found through the site and also for larger organisations to cross-network with colleagues.

3. Group – A group potentially represents the most significant time investment in LinkedIn as it requires ongoing effort – but consequently it represents perhaps the most valuable way of growing a network on a one-to-many basis. Groups tend to be based around a theme – which might be geographically specific or based around an interest, for example. Setting up a group is simple – the challenge is in curating interesting content to act as a social object which others will gravitate to, discuss and share, thereby extending the value of the group founder’s network (along with others in the group, potentially).

Having decided on and created the desired presence on LinkedIn, the next stage, which is ongoing throughout one’s usage of the site, is to develop grow the number of connections, which will be covered in part two.

Pete is MD of Punch Communications. For more information regarding LinkedIn or any other aspect of social media outreach please contact him on 01858 411600, follow on Twitter or connect with him via LinkedIn.