LinkedIn is a marvelous social network for business people who hope to make new contacts, stay in touch with colleagues (past and present), keep their “career options” open, and pick up some free tips, advice, and information. As with all social media, however, it is important to understand that a LinkedIn account will not govern itself. A professional must do more than simply set up an a profile and every once in a while respond to an email prompted connection or recommendation request with an absent minded “approve”. It is important to log in on a regular basis to actually maintain the account. Even if that person is not currently looking for a better job, an answer to a conundrum, or is curious if guy who used to sit three cubicles over is failing miserably at his start-up dream.
There are several reasons why one must not give in to the ease of putting their LinkedIn Profile on auto pilot, all of them fairly obvious so I will not take the risk of insulting anyone’s intelligence by making this into a “Top 10 Reasons to Log into LinkedIn Today” post, despite the fact that it’s catchy title and holds the potential of drawing in more traffic than I have seen all week. Instead, all I will say is this; everyone who joins LinkedIn does so with a goal so just keep that goal in mind. Make the time to log in once per day.
…Still not convinced, huh. Okay then I will also post this ridiculous LinkedIn recommendation that I found on Magnus Nilsson’s blog. I am pretty sure that it is meant as a (hilarious in an evil sort of way) joke but it gets the point across.
You will find my LinkedIn Profile here and my website, iMark Communications here.
[polldaddy poll=2222922]