Leveraging LinkedIn for business (#mesh11)

I’m at Mesh 2011, “Canada’s Web Conference” at The Allstream Centre in Toronto on Wednesday and Thursday May 25 and 26. I’ll be posting updates periodically over the course of the conference.

In this session, Leona Hobbs from SMG talks best practices for using LinkedIn for business. Here are the key take-aways:

The basics:

• reputation is key — maintain a good one
• be part of the conversation, don’t just be passive, and add value by sharing what you know.
• what’s quality of your network, relative to your goals
• be trustworthy
• regular contact with network — are you investing enough time? — an hour a week is a good benchmark
• key tactics: 12x more likely to be contacted if more than one position listed on profile; 7x more likely to be viewed if you have a profile photo; should have at least 3 recommendations
• awesome resources: http://bit.ly/fZELVF

And more advanced stuff:

• Try giving a handful of your contacts a surprise recommendation: you’ll earn gratitude and you may also get reciprocal recommendations
• Try asking your contacts about their LinkedIn success stories. You’ll get great ideas and insights