This is a email I recently sent to my LI contacts list on some hints on using LinkedIn.

Over the last few weeks I have met a number of my LinkedIn friends when making speeches and presentations to recruiters about the Big Biller Audio book. In the last three months alone I've visited and met with LinkedIn users in New York, Toronto, Nashville, Dallas and New Orleans. I keep hearing of the many ways LinkedIn has benefited its users and countless success stories . I was also asked a few questions and I've put together some answers to those - a few hints, if you will, that can help you enhance your Linkedin experience  and get the fullest  possible benefit from your membership and participation.

Information on receiving a complimentary copy of The War For Talent - Timeless Lessons from The Masters is at the bottome of this email.

1 - It 's often more important to be found than to find.  It's also very important that, when you are found on LinkedIn, your LinkedIn Profile page is up to date. So take the time to make sure your profile is complete, regularly updated and reflects who you are and what you  are currently doing. And don't forget to sprinkle your profile with the keywords that somebody looking for you might use when searching for you.

2 - Remember You are your brand. Google your own name, strive for consistency in your online image and try to have the same message whether somebody finds you on LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, or any of the other networking sites. By the way, if you don't find yourself on Google, or your name is not as prominent (i.e. front page of Google) as you would like, it could be time to think about promoting yourself better online.

3 - Gain visibility and branding by participating in the new LinkedIn Answers. You can ask questions of your own network, or the entire LinkedIn network, as well as offering answers where your special knowledge and information will help others - and in the process add to your visibility. It's not only good karma to help but gives you the stamp of expertise and special knowledge. It's essential to be genuine in framing the question. If you try and game the system by framing a blatant self-promotion as if it were a genuine question you won't have to wait long for someone in the network to flag your "question" as spam. But genuine, interesting questions are bringing people great, positive exposure.

4 - Connect with power networkers or 'hubs' in your industry, company or job function. You can be confident the ones near the top of any search when sorted by connections are in the thousands, and their 2nd degree is hundreds of thousands, which now becomes part of your 3rd degree network.

5 - Install the Outlook toolbar and consider joining Plaxo. http://www.plaxo.com . The new Plaxo 3.0 not only works with PC's and Mac's but offers automatic synchronization with your address book of choice, various web mail systems and now LinkedIn.

My co-author Des Walsh and I are working on some exciting new projects but we wanted to extend an offer to you to download a short white paper titled The War For Talent - Timeless Lessons from The Masters. If you're a recruiter, HR professional, job hunter or an executive with hiring needs, it's a fresh view at recruiting, with timely lessons from great warriors and masters of strategy about winning the war. We had fun researching and writing it and would like to share it - we believe it could help give you that edge we all need.

To receive your copy of The War for Talent - Timeless Lessons from The Masters simply send an email to talent@bigbiller.org and we will automatically send you a copy.

Bill

Bill Vick

Bill@BigBiller.org
http://www.BigBiller.org
972-612-8425 - 800-364-8425