LinkedIn - "Business Casual"

By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Susan_Lipton]Susan Lipton

Although the more popular Facebook is now attracting more business and professional users, advocates of LinkedIn claim it is easier to "find and be found" there due to the way LinkedIn organizes it's members Profile Pages.

LinkedIn: Why Should I Join?

If you've explored the world of Social Networking at all you know there can be a good deal of "clutter and noise" on social sites with all inclusive purposes. LinkedIn has a more targeted focus: the business and professional world. If you're looking for a job or a business or professional opportunity, LinkedIn contact networks can put you in touch with people you would rarely find with traditional job opportunity search approaches. If you are looking for a candidate, LinkedIn can expose you to a huge pool of pre-qualified individuals in an instant. But LinkedIn is much more than a recruiting and placement site. Any business or professional need you can think of can be addressed on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn: The Power of Connections

Have you heard this maxim before -- "It's not what you know, it's who you know."? When you boil it all down, that's where the power of LinkedIn lies: the connections. In essence, LinkedIn has "digitized" the old fashioned method of "word of mouth referral." Twenty years ago a business owner looking for investment capital might talk to his or her contacts to find potential sources. In essence this is tapping indirect connections -- contacts of contacts -- for help. You may know your professional neighbors, but do you know all the people they know? LinkedIn taps into these second and even third and fourth degree connections in a manner never before possible.

LinkedIn: Getting Started

You can spend a lot of time searching the net for articles on how to get started on LinkedIn, How to get the Most out of LinkedIn, and Advantages and Disadvantage of LinkedIn. Or perhaps you could take a cue from the old Nike advertising campaign and "Just Do It!" Go to LinkedIn.com, sign up, and get going. Simple. Like most Social Networking sites they have software to help you build your Profile Page and then start developing your contact network. The software will organize the information you enter into Profile Headlines, like Education, Company, and Summary. Many cite these more focused Profile Headings as the reason the process of "finding and being found" is more efficient on LinkedIn than on other Social Networking sites.

With LinkedIn your second degree connections are built by invitation only, so you end up with a network of contacts you can trust. All of them may have been referred by someone you know through someone they know. This is a major privacy advantage over other Social Networking sites. Of course, you have the option of accepting invitations from anyone if you choose. Check out LinkedIn Groups -- there are over 300,000 of them -- and join a few. Read through some Discussion and News Boards. Click on the "Answers" Button on your LinkedIn Homepage to get an idea of the breath and depth of issues for which LinkedIn users are seeking help. Think of LinkedIn not just as a recruiting site but as a business benefit site, offering help to businesses in more ways than you can imagine. Try it, you'll like it!!

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Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Susan_Lipton http://EzineArticles.com/?LinkedIn---Business-Casual&id=2933108

Thank you Susan for sharing your article on my blog. Ann Harwood