LinkedIn is a professional social networking site used by over 41 million professionals. It allows users to connect with colleagues and peers, find potential job opportunities, stay informed about industries, and build their professional brand. Some key benefits of LinkedIn include accessing executives from major companies, finding people through extended networks, collaborating in groups, and using various features to promote oneself or their business.

1. The Who, What, When, Where, and Why of this Strange New World By http://www.linkedin.com/in/kirkhill (aka Kirk Hill) & http://www.linkedin.com/in/johnm (aka John Moore)

2. What is LinkedIn? Who uses LinkedIn? Why should I use LinkedIn? When should I jump in to using LinkedIn? Where do I find _________ on LinkedIn? Q & A with Kirk and John

3. It is NOT MySpace, Facebook, or Twitter LinkedIn is a community of over 41 million professionals A new member joins LinkedIn approximately every second A place to stay informed about your contacts and industries of interest to you A portal to find the people & knowledge you need to achieve your goals A way to control your personal brand

4. Access executives from all Fortune 500 Lets you see how people are related to each other Find the people that know the people you want to meet Collaborate with other like minded people with the groups feature

5. Entrepreneur Creates New Company Because of Advice and Connections He Found on LinkedIn Advertising Professional Finds Investors and Helped his Sales Team After Layoff, Worker Lands New Job By Using LinkedIn Groups Company Hires Chief Administrative Officer and Another SVP Grad Student at Brown University Lands Job at Microsoft Before Graduation

6. Venture Capitalist Uses LinkedIn to Get Connected CEO Uses LinkedIn Jobs to Recruit Talent, Saves Tens of Thousands in Recruiter Fees SVP Gets $250,000 Opportunity Because of LinkedIn Investment Banker Uses LinkedIn to Land $300,000 in New Business CEO Lands Million Dollar Client Via LinkedIn

7. Looking for a job or looking to hire someone Looking to connect with others in the community Gathering information Building credibility and referrals Assisting with sales Finding resources

8. Reverses the Sales Process Open up what you offer to a much wider audience An accepted way to sing your own professional praises Gather and publish recommendations Track your contacts

9. Immediately if not sooner Profiles can be built up over time so don’t worry about having all information right away Probably many people that you already know are on LinkedIn Also take a look at the LinkedIn groups that are relevant to you

10. Starts with resume type information Job Experience Education Specialties (or Keywords) Interests Groups and Associations Add in cover letter or marketing summary Point to company or personal websites/blogs Small status line that gets posted to your connections home page and email notifications

11. Ability for people to post recommendations to your profile – great marketing tool Tips for getting people to write recommendations for you Start by recommending others Ask people to recommend you Write recommendations and have people approve and submit them using their LinkedIn account

12. One way to share contact information with people that you meet, however: No phone, fax, or cell numbers on your contacts’ profiles so you will need to either enter it into the LinkedIn contact manager (Beta) or use another tool for keeping this info Have access to the contacts of your contacts You may have 100 first level contacts If those contacts each have 100, you have access to 10,000 second level contacts If each second level contact has 100, you have 1,000,000 third level contacts

13. Interesting data about your first three levels of contacts Number of people at each level Percentage of connections by world region Percentage of connections by industry Allows you to get a quick understanding of what types of people are in your network

14. Thousands of groups/associations that you can join and participate in Discussion Boards Bulletin board functionality allowing members to share information and interact through comments News Allows group members to highlight and comment on news stories that are relevant to the group Job Board Directly contact and connect with other group members

15. This is the real power of LinkedIn groups Group managers have control over group Manage the group profile page which includes short and long descriptions and a group website link Can either open group to everyone or accept members on an individual basis Mark discussions as featured and to moderate discussions and comments Ability to send announcements to the whole group

16. Promote Everywhere Twitter LinkedIn Status Facebook Blogs Start, comment on, and mark as featured relevant discussions on the discussion board Discussion boards are heart and soul of the group Consider having or encouraging face-to-face, offline networking events

17. Post and comment on relevant News articles Use announcements intelligently and solicit feedback on the relevance and usefulness of announcements Cross post relevant discussions to other groups with links back to the group that you are promoting

18. LinkedIn Answers Post a question to your connections and to the LinkedIn community as a whole LinkedIn Polls Use these when you want to poll the LinkedIn community In addition to asking questions and posting polls, remember to answer questions and polls to get your name associated with a particular area of expertise

19. If you are not on LinkedIn you need to get on now LinkedIn has a ton of benefits for professional social networking Online Resume Online Branding Groups Questions and Answers Polls