Effective Use of LinkedIn

For years I ignored the LinkedIn emails asking me if I wanted to “connect”
with someone. Yet there are 300
million people on LinkedIn and it is an effective tool—if you use it
properly.




I changed my resistance to active use of LinkedIn. While my public
profile says that I have 500+ connections, it is really over 4,000
connections. It is one of three or four social networks that I use
constantly. For example, I regularly post updates and publishing information on
LinkedIn. I use Hootsuite
(an effective free tool) for these posts and they appear throughout each day
with articles that I'm reading and other comments related to publishing.



Here's an example of a profile that I did not accept their invitation--in fact I marked it as spam so they will not be able to invite me again:







To make effective use of LinkedIn, your first priority is to fill out your
profile. I see some people who don't have their photo or location or background
with their profile. Unless I recognize your name, I'm probably not going to
connect with your LinkedIn profile. It does take a bit of effort but is well
worth it.




The second step is to connect with people that you know—and
people who know you. We live in a mobile society where individuals change
positions. The publishing world is fluid and it's common for people to change
positions several times during their career. Here's one of the key details for
LinkedIn: many professionals and business people use this network. If they
change positions or move, they take their LinkedIn information with them.
They change their emails, phone number and address information in the contact
section of LinkedIn. 




If you are trying to pitch a particular editor or literary agent and you are
connected to them through LinkedIn, you can quickly check to see if they are in
the same location by checking their profile—before you fire off your proposal or query and
learn they are no longer with the company or have changed positions.




LinkedIn has tools to help you expand your connections. Because of my large
number of connections, I receive several invitations a day to connect with
individuals. I do not want to be connected to spammers or individuals who I
don't immediately recognize. Each time I check their profile and:




—If blank or only starting their connections, often I do not connect with
them.




—If they are outside of the U.S. and I see no immediate relationship, then I
do not connect with them. Sometimes I mark the person as spam and if so,
LinkedIn will not allow them to send me another invitation.




—If I see they have connections with other publishing people that I know,
like and trust, then I will often connect with those individuals.




Notice several things about how I used LinkedIn:




1. I do not spend much time on the site.




2. My profile is completely filled out—and LinkedIn lists me as an
“all-star” with my information which has a great deal of detail.




3. I'm cautious and thoughtful about the people that I do connect with on the
site.




There are many other ways to use LinkedIn. There are groups and other tools
on the site. I have not chosen to get involved in these aspects because my time
is focused mostly on being an acquisitions
editor at Morgan James Publishing and helping other authors get their
books into print.




If I receive an invitation to connect with someone I do not recognize, some
times I will reply to that invitation. The email goes directly to their in box.
In my short email, I ask them to remind me of our connection or relationship. 



Sometimes I hear that the person and I met at a
conference or has a connection with me. In those cases, I will accept their
Facebook and Twitter. In those
cases, it is often unlikely that I will connect with them for that reason. I
have thousands of friends on Facebook and Twitter. You need to give me a stronger connection for
LinkedIn.




There are probably many more effective ways to use LinkedIn. I suspect many
of those ways I'm not using involve large volumes of time (something I do not
have to spend on LinkedIn at the moment). As an additional resource, I encourage
you to grab this 35 page report on LinkedIn from my friend John
Kremer. Through this post, I hope I've given you some new ideas how you can
connect with others in your profession and increase your use of this site.