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We’re nearing the very end of our series on LinkedIn tutorials – so please let me know if you have any questions that you think haven’t been addressed, and I’ll answer them in our last LinkedIn post next week! 

Today, we’re going to talk about the Company feature on LinkedIn.  There are a few different ways you can use this:

  • Create and edit your own company page.
  • Follow other company’s pages.

Today, we’re going to focus on how to follow other company’s pages, and tomorrow we’ll look at creating and editing your own company page. 

Let’s see what LinkedIn has to say about it in their Learning Center. Continue Reading LinkedIn Tutorials – Companies

Another one of LinkedIn’s features is their "Answers" section.  This is a place where you can share business knowledge with others on LinkedIn – you can ask your question to get fast, accurate answers from your network and other experts, showcase your knowledge by answering questions, and stay up on the latest information in your industry.

I’ll point out a caution here – One of our attorneys mentioned to me yesterday with respect to recommendations that attorneys need to be careful of the rules about endorsements within their respective jurisdictions.  This is similarly the case for answering questions on LinkedIn.

I liken answering questions on LinkedIn to answering questions after a panel discussion or at a cocktail party.  Most questions you can answer in an academic way, that makes it clear you’re not creating an attorney-client relationship.  Other questions cross into a grey area, so you need to make it clear that you’re not offering advice.

With LinkedIn questions, since it’s optional, you don’t have to answer questions that you think enter into that grey area, or you can suggest to the person asking that they retain counsel.  So let’s go into this discussion of Answers bearing in mind this caution. Continue Reading LinkedIn Tutorials – Answers

And I’m back. It was a rather eventful week off for me here on the east coast, with a mild earthquake as I was staining my deck, and then having to evacuate because of Hurricane Irene over the weekend.  My thoughts go out to everyone still dealing with flooding, power outages and damage – I was fortunate that my house near the bay never lost power (the yard floods on a good day, so a sump pump is a necessity) and that the damage wasn’t at all severe.  

Today, we’re back to talking LinkedIn, and I’d like to focus on recommendations.  Before we get into the how, let’s talk about about the why. 

Continue Reading LinkedIn Tutorials – Recommendations

Yesterday, we talked about how to get involved with groups.  The only thing left for us to do with groups is to create our own! 

You might not be sure if you want to, but perhaps you want to re-think that.  What if you want to start a group for those interested in legal issues in the construction industry in New Jersey? Check first to make sure there isn’t a group out there like that already, but then start your own – guess who’s going to join a group like that? 

That’s right, potential clients.

And you don’t want to be using your group to just promote yourself, but offer items of value to those people, and they’ll come to see you as the go-to resource for information that they need.  And THAT’S when they’ll start to think that you’d make a good attorney for them.  Plus, if you’re getting access through your group to the decision makers that you want to be meeting at potential clients’ companies, use the platform to send out invitations to an event – host a cocktail party for the group, get together at a local bar for some beer, invite them to a presentation you’ll be doing on a topic that’s of use to them. Take the relationships OFFLINE to cement them. The possibilities here are endless. Continue Reading LinkedIn Tutorials – Creating Your Own Groups

Who thought there would be so much to say on LinkedIn Applications? (Truthfully, not me when I started to talk about them – I thought I’d do just one post!).  But there’s a lot of utility in these applications, particularly if you’re looking to make the most out of your LinkedIn experience. 

So today we’ll talk about a few more apps, starting with Huddle Workspaces.  

Huddle Workspaces

Huddle Workspaces is an application that allows you to create "workspaces" for different groups of connections, and you decide who sees what. Your documents are kept private and secure, and you can access them from anywhere at anytime. 

This is another situation where you can start with a free account, but Huddle.net also has an upgrade if you’re interested.  

Continue Reading LinkedIn Tutorials – Is there an App for That? Part III

Following yesterday’s interlude about settings, we’re back to Part II of LinkedIn’s applications! I’ll focus on a few important ones, and briefly talk about the ones that might not be as meaningful for you. 

We’ll start with Company Buzz.

Company Buzz

We’re going to be talking more about Twitter in a later series of posts, but I’ll give you a very quick overview. Since Twitter says it best, here’s what they say about themselves: 

Twitter is a "real-time information network that connects you to the latest information about what you find interesting." You "simply find the public streams you find most compelling and follow the conversations." 

"At the heart of Twitter are small bursts of information called Tweets. Each Tweet is 140 characters in length, but don’t let the small size fool you – you can share a lot with a little space. Connected to each Tweet is a rich details pane that provides additional information, deeper context, and embedded media.  You can tell your story within your Tweet, or you can think of a Tweet as the headline, and use the details pane to tell the rest with photos, videos, and other media content." 

Continue Reading LinkedIn Tutorials – Is there an App for That? Part II

Although today’s post should be our Part II about applications, I’m going to take a bit of a break to talk instead about some settings.  I know we’re all concerned about (and should be) the settings that we have in these various social platforms, and one came to the forefront today – which I’ll get to in a minute.

First, I want to make a comment about privacy – the short version is that nothing on the internet is private.  That’s right, I said it – nothing.  Whatever you write, post, tweet, tag, etc. lives somewhere online forever.  Even if you have the strictest of privacy settings, what you say can become public.  So just bear that in mind whenever you’re using social media – if it’s not something you’d say to your grandmother or show to your grandmother, you probably shouldn’t post it. 

I also recently heard someone suggest you ask yourself these questions – "is it nice? is it necessary?" when posting.  Or do as my friend Heather suggests and ask yourself – "Does this need to be said? Does this need to be said right now? Does this need to be said by me?"  Most companies’ social media policies will boil down to "Don’t be an idiot" and I think that’s good advice. Continue Reading LinkedIn Tutorials – Some Important Settings

So you’ve got your profile almost complete and you’ve started to connect with people in your network…now what? 

There’s so much more you can do with LinkedIn, but we’re going to start with what I think is the most important – engaging.  There are a few ways you can do this, including answering questions and joining and participating in groups, but today, we’re just going to focus on how you can engage with people through your home page and profile.

I recently suggested to some of our lawyers at our Annual Conference that they set LinkedIn to open when they log into their web browser, so that they can spend five minutes a day connecting to someone.  A number of them thought this wasn’t reasonable, but even five minutes a week can make a difference.Continue Reading LinkedIn Tutorials – You’re Connected…Now What?

Yesterday’s tutorial covered how to export your contacts from Outlook and upload them into LinkedIn.  But this is limiting – although it cuts down on the investment of time you need to make in order to connect with people, it doesn’t give you the flexibility of personalizing the invitations to make engaging more likely – and that’s the goal with social media: engagement!

So today, we’re going to go into more depth about adding contacts manually.  I’m the first to admit that manually adding contacts is a pain, and can be time consuming.  But if you take the time to send a personal note to those you add, they’ll be more willing to accept your invitation and subsequently engage with you.  You don’t have to take a whole afternoon to work on this – I know everyone is busy!  Instead, when you first come in to the office in the morning and are having your cup of coffee, log into LinkedIn and add five people.  It won’t take you very long at all, and soon you’ll have a nice list of connections built up.  Even if you do this once a week, it will make a difference.Continue Reading LinkedIn Tutorials – Let’s Get Connected! Part II

Yesterday, we went through the basics of setting up an account and profile on LinkedIn.  Today, we’re going to look much more in-depth at the LinkedIn profile and get ourselves to 100% profile completeness (or just about)!

You may be wondering why you need to bother with completing your profile – isn’t the bare minimum enough?

Well, according to LinkedIn, "Users with complete profiles are 40 times more likely to receive opportunities through LinkedIn."  Your profile becomes complete when you have:

  • Your current position
  • Two past positions
  • Your education
  • Your profile summary
  • A profile photo
  • Your specialties
  • At least three recommendations

Continue Reading LinkedIn Tutorials – How to Set up a Profile Part II