Social Media Systems Social Media Marketing and Website Design Company

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I know many professionals use LinkedIn to connect with colleagues, partners, suppliers and pretty much anyone they wish to partner or do business with. Considering there are over 9 million users, this is a pretty powerful online business network.

But what happens when you are short contacts and want a passive way to generate more? I have some answers for you. I will also offer some tips on how to add contacts and also how to search for people you know. According to LinkedIn, people with over 30 contacts show up 75% more than others. This means, the more contacts, the more exposure and leads you can generate. Here is a good passive way to get people to contact you.

First of all, if you have not signed up, do so here: https://www.linkedin.com/secure/register

If you are registering for the first time, take this bit of advice:

For the “first name” field enter your complete name, first AND last (Geoff Simon) for instance. In the “last name” field enter an email address specifically for linkedIn contact requests (you@hotmail.com, gmail.com, or whatever email you want). Then proceed to fill out as much of your profile as you can, the more the better. Also add a picture, this gives it a personal touch and increases the number of times your profile is viewed. Now that you are signed-up, go ahead and look at your profile, it should look something like mine which you can find here: My Profile.

You will notice that you see my full name on the first line and my email on the second line. The email address is important because this is how many people add contacts. This passive little trick is used by many savvy LinkedIn members to generate additional leads. Now go ahead and click on the link in the orange outline at the top under the “Get Introduced” and “Contact Directly” box that says, “know this person - Add Them As A Connection. This will take you to a screen where you need to enter the email address for this contact, in this case it’s me, so type in gsimon@socialmediasystems.com. If you did not know my email, you would not be able to add me as a contact. By placing your email in the “last name” field, users can instantly add you as a contact to build their connection base.

As for other strategies to promote your profile, you can place an email signature which links to your LinkedIn profile. LinkedIn is nice enough to create this for you with a variety of different template options. You can find these if you click on the “my profile” tab at the top and then below that, “email signatures”. This way anyone you send email to, can add you as a contact or sign-up and add you if they are not already “LinkedIn”.

You can also check out your College or University and search for classmates by clicking on “classmates” at the footer of every page. This will allow you to search all members who attended the same school you did during the same time period. Another way to find contacts is to click the “Expand Your Network” button at the top right of the page. From here you can add friends, business partners, etc. but you need to put in their email address and name. They will then be sent an email prompting them to sign up, or add you as a contact if they are already registered.

You can also add customized buttons to your blog or web site for even more exposure, here is an example:

In addition, LinkedIn offers an Outlook Toolbar that you can download for seamless export/import features from your Outlook contacts into LinkedIn and vice versa. You can also download the LinkedIn Browser Toolbar.

If anyone has any other suggestions, please leave a comment, even if it is just one sentence. I hope this helps anyone utilizing LinkedIn as a business networking tool.

Technorati Tags: linkedin, linkedin tips, linkedin contacts

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