The document provides tips for getting the most out of LinkedIn, including completing your profile with current and past work experience and education, connecting with colleagues in your network, and leveraging your network by posting questions, looking up profiles of contacts, and finding service providers through trusted recommendations. It also discusses using LinkedIn to improve search engine rankings, research competitors and check references, and shares some statistics about LinkedIn users.

1. LinkedIn By: Rachel A. Adler

2. New User Starter Guide Get the most out of your LinkedIn by starting with these three easy steps.

4. This is helpful & it helps the right people & opportunities find you.

5. Add a professional profile photo- People never forget a face!

7. Leverage the power of your LinkedIn Network! Post a question on Answers & tap into the experts you’re connected to & the entire LinkedIn network. With more then 80+ million professional communities- this is the PERFECT place for those to ask questions. Look up someone’s profile before you meet them. Learn their background & see who you know in common to get off to a great start! Search for Service Providers & select based on trusted recommendation from people in your network. Anonymous web searches to find providers are a thing of the past.

8. 7 Ways to make LinkedIn work for You!

9. Step 1 Sign up for an account with your Penn Mutual e-mail address. Remember this is your account & you want to make sure everything is good with compliance. If you have a previous LinkedIn account under a different e-mail you can add your Penn Mutual E-mail as your new default or create a new profile.

10. Step 2 Create your profile. It is definitely encouraged to keep this hygienically clean (up to date) & honest. Your bluffs will be called & your past will come back to “haunt” you, if you are fluffing.

11. Step 3 Upload your address book & connect with everyone who is already a member of LinkedIn. *NOTE: LinkedIn makes it extremely easy to upload your online address book (like one through Gmail, Yahoo Mail, &/or Hotmail) Always use extreme caution with giving up your password. **You can also export your LinkedIn address book**

12. Step 4 Selectively invite people from your address book. My experience has been that unless there is a personal invitation sent with a really good reason why they should join, there is a REALLY low response rate. [Really low response rate] Sending a personal message will usually explain your reasoning, or guilt-trip them into signing up just for you.

13. Step 5 Start recommending anyone & everyone you can. If you give a good enough review of someone, they are quite likely to return the favor! Besides, it’s a lot easier than begging for recommendations & makes for a good start meeting new people.

14. Step 6 Obviously, the more recommendations & the more connections the better. The best part is that once you get even one recommendation, you’ll start showing up in that person’s list of recommended service professionals.

15. Step 7 PROMOTE your LinkedIn profile on your website with a badge or with your Penn Mutual E-mail Signature.

16. But why LinkedIn? Five Most Helpful LinkedIn Uses:

17. Five Most Helpful LinkedIn Uses, Part 1: Improve your Google Search Rank: When your profile is set for public viewing [standard], your profile information becomes available for search engines to index. Since LinkedIn profiles receive a fairly high Page Rank in Google based on LinkedIn’s pre-established repertoire, this is a good way to influence what people see when they search for you – your professional side and personal accomplishments. To do this, create a profile and select “none” under the “public profile” tab. Also, customize your public profile’s URL to be your actual name instead of using the default URL provided. To strengthen the visibility of this page in search engines, use this link in various places on such as in your email and forum signatures.

18. Five Most Helpful LinkedIn Uses, Part 2: Make your Meeting Go Smoother: You can use LinkedIn to find the inside scoop on people that you’re meeting/about to do business with. Knowing your adversary is always beneficial [necessary].

19. Five Most Helpful LinkedIn Uses, Part 3: Perform Reference Checks: Research the Competition: LinkedIn can be used to research your competition & their team before a business startup and during a campaign project. Find out their team of customers & partners, & use this knowledge to your advantage. For example, if your competitor’s VP of marketing came from McDonald’s...you’ll know he/she probably has a wide range of global marketing experience. Now that LinkedIn has started teaming up with different resources such as Businessweek, checking up on a company or persons references becomes even easier. By inputting a company name & the number of years a person worked there, you can utilize the reference check tool to search & find the people who worked at the company during the same time period. This tool can even be used to double check your prospective manager’s reputation.

20. Fun LinkedIn Stats: The average number of LinkedIn connections for people who work at Google is forty-seven. The average number for Harvard Business School grads is fifty-eight, so you could skip the MBA, work at Google, & probably get most of the connections you need. Later, you can hire Harvard MBAs to prepare your income taxes. Most members tend to be between 30 & 55 years old. 97 % of LinkedIn users join based on invitations from existing members. People with more than twenty connections are thirty-four times more likely to be approached with a job opportunity than people with less than five. All 500 of the Fortune 500 are represented in LinkedIn. In fact, 499 of them are represented by director-level & above employees. Out of 840,000 members - 10,000 are venture capitalists. LinkedIn users accept 83 percent of referrals

21. are you ?

22. Sources: http://www.linkedin.com/ http://blog.linkedin.com/category/new-linkedin-features/ http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/01/ten_ways_to_use.html#axzz1C3nCub9d http://learn.linkedin.com/students/step-1/