Raising Your Visibility with LinkedIn - Getting Social on a Business Network
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Your raw profile is just one part of your LinkedIn account. You have a home page that keeps you up-to-date, a contacts page that keeps you informed of your colleague’s activities, an inbox, and groups. Something very interesting that you can find on your home page is modules, which I covered not too long ago. There are still three default modules: People you might know, Jobs, and the one that delivers questions you might answer.
The Jobs module found me 60 jobs that are exclusively available through LinkedIn and are within 50 miles of my home zip code. I can refine the search module to look for particular keywords, a specific job title, any of seven experience levels, and so on. I can tell it to limit itself to jobs posted during certain time periods, in specific industries, that feature particular job functions. You can also control the location in which it searches, of course. Anyone who has used an online job hunting search engine will be completely at home with this module.
The module that tells me people I may know is not terribly helpful to me in this case; it lists one person I’ve never heard of. The module that lists questions you can answer looks a lot more interesting though. Here’s what I get when I click on More:
You can see above a list of open questions from the particular technology area that LinkedIn thinks I fit well. I can choose to answer one, or I can look for more questions in this category. I can also click other categories to find open questions to answer. By answering questions, I can get my name seen, and show that I have a certain level of expertise. In this way I can build my reputation.
Below the place where I cropped this screen shot is a list of experts in this particular area. If you answer enough questions well enough, you can get listed here. Again, it’s a way to get yourself seen, and build your reputation as an expert. There is a voting system; those who ask questions can designate a “best answer,” which earns points for the person who gave that answer.
I’m constantly learning new things about LinkedIn. If you take a close look at the screen shot above, you’ll see little blue circles next to the names of people who have asked questions. I noticed that within the circles were designations like “2nd” or “3rd.” When I hovered over one of these icons, it explained that the person was a second-degree contact – a contact of someone I’m connected to, in other words. Presumably, using other tools in LinkedIn, I can figure out who in my network knows this person and request an introduction.
Next: LinkedIn and Company Profiles >>
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