HOW TO USE LINKEDIN
This tutorial from YouTube will teach you how to take your business to the next level with a LinkedIn profile.
Social Networking is rapidly becoming a huge part of our everyday lives; use it to your advantage by creating a LinkedIn profile for potential clients and employers. LinkedIn is free to start and easy to learn.
A really important way in which LinkedIn can help you is your profile. Your profile is your personal website and whether it's an employer or it's another person who would like to do business with you, this will tell them a lot about the sort of person you are and how you can add value to them. Now, just starting off at the top of your profile, it's extremely important that you have a really good photograph and I would recommend that you get a photograph professionally taken.
It needs to be a business-like photograph; a photograph of you covered in face paint or a photograph of you partying is not appropriate for LinkedIn. Make sure you have a close-up photograph of yourself, a headshot, because the photo is not very big so if you are too distant, people will not be able to see you properly. Make sure you've got a punch description that sells you, rather than the actual job title, actually talk about what you do and how you can add value to your potential clients or your employer.
You have the ability to post a status update on your LinkedIn account, make sure you include information on where you're working and where you've worked in the past. Make sure you get recommendations, if you have worked for some really good people who really liked what you do, make sure they endorse you. Do you have any websites? Do you have a blog? Are you on Twitter? If you do any of these things, make sure you list those on your profile so people can actually go to your website and find out more about you.
As you go down your profile, you can talk about your summary of your current job, you can talk about your previous work experience, you can talk about your education, and you can put additional information about yourself such as your interests. In addition to your standard LinkedIn profile, there are also some additional sections you can add, which I would recommend. So, for example, if your work is widely published, you can actually link to your publications, if you've done any presentations, you can put these presentations on your profile.
You can even include videos. If you've done any videos, you can include those. So, go through the LinkedIn add sections and if you see any sections that are relevant to you, make sure you add them.
There may even be patterns that you have for your professional work, you can add those. Now, as we get to the bottom of your LinkedIn profile, you can include all sorts of groups that you are a member of. Now, these are LinkedIn groups, these take all sorts of shapes and forms.
For example, you may be a carpenter, and you may be part of a professional carpentry group. Put that in. Or you are a member of a local chamber of commerce, put that in.
All we have to do is select a group, type in, find the organization and join the group. The advantage of joining these groups is, again, it tells people about the sort of people that you are associated with, the sort of industry that you are in, all of these things will make a big difference and help sell you.
WHAT IS LINKEDIN?
LinkedIn /ˌlɪŋkt.ˈɪn/ is a business-oriented social networking service. Founded in December 2002 and launched on May 5, 2003, it is mainly used for professional networking. In 2006, LinkedIn increased to 20 million members. As of June 2013, LinkedIn reports more than 259 million acquired users in more than 200 countries and territories.
The site is available in 20 languages, including English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Romanian, Russian, Turkish, Japanese, Czech, Polish, Korean, Indonesian, Malay, and Tagalog. As of 2 July 2013, Quantcast reports LinkedIn has 65.6 million monthly unique U.S. visitors and 178.4 million globally, a number that as of 29 October 2013 has increased to 184 million. In June 2011, LinkedIn had 33.9 million unique visitors, up 63 percent from a year earlier and surpassing MySpace. LinkedIn filed for an initial public offering in January 2011 and traded its first shares on May 19, 2011, under the NYSE symbol "LNKD".
HISTORY
LinkedIn's CEO is Jeff Weiner, previously a Yahoo! Inc. executive. The company was founded by Reid Hoffman and founding team members from PayPal and Socialnet.com (Allen Blue, Eric Ly, Jean-Luc Vaillant, Lee Hower, Konstantin Guericke, Stephen Beitzel, David Eves, Ian McNish, Yan Pujante, and Chris Saccheri).
Founder Reid Hoffman, previously CEO of LinkedIn, is now Chairman of the Board. LinkedIn is headquartered in Mountain View, California, with offices in Omaha, Chicago, New York, London, and Dublin. It is funded by Sequoia Capital, Greylock, Bain Capital Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners and the European Founders Fund. LinkedIn reached profitability in March 2006. Through January 2011, the company had received a total of $103 million of investment.
In late 2003, Sequoia Capital led the Series A investment in the company. In June 2008, Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners, and other venture capital firms purchased a 5% stake in the company for $53 million, giving the company a post-money valuation of approximately $1 billion.
In 2010, LinkedIn opened an International Headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, received a $20 million investment from Tiger Global Management LLC at a valuation of approximately $2 billion, and announced its first acquisition, Mspoke, and improved its 1% premium subscription ratio. In October of that year Silicon Valley Insider ranked the company No. 10 on its Top 100 List of most valuable start ups. By December, the company was valued at $1.575 billion in private markets.
2011: IPO
LinkedIn filed for an initial public offering in January 2011 and traded its first shares on May 19, 2011, under the NYSE symbol "LNKD", price of IPO was $45 per share. Shares of LinkedIn, which rose as much as 171 percent in their first day of trade on the New York Stock Exchange, closed at $94.25, more than 109 percent above IPO price. Shortly after the IPO, the site's underlying infrastructure was revised to allow accelerated revision-release cycles.
In 2011, LinkedIn earned $154.6 million in advertising revenue alone, surpassing Twitter, which earned $139.5 million. LinkedIn’s fourth-quarter 2011 earnings soared due to the company's increase in success in the social media world.
In the spring 2012, LinkedIn leased 57,120 square feet on three floors of the One Montgomery Tower building in the Financial District of San Francisco, expanded to 135,000 square feet by 2014. In May 2012, LinkedIn announced its 2012 Q1 revenues were up 101% to $188.5 million compared to $93.9 million in Q1 2011, with net income increasing 140% over Q1 2011 to $5 million. Revenue for Q2 was estimated to be between $210 to $215 million.
In November 2012, LinkedIn released their third quarter earnings, reporting earnings-per-share of $0.22 on revenue of $252 million. As a result of these numbers, LinkedIn's stock increased in value, trading at roughly $112 a share.
In April 2014 it was announced that LinkedIn had leased 222 Second Street, a 26-story building under construction in San Francisco's SoMa district, to accommodate up to 2,500 of its employees.
MEMBERSHIP
As of 2013, LinkedIn has more than 300 million members in over 200 countries and territories. It is significantly ahead of its competitors Viadeo (50 million) and XING (10 million). The membership grows by approximately two new members every second. With 20 million users, India has the fastest-growing network of users as of 2013.
In January 2014, the countries with the most LinkedIn users were:
- United States: 93 million (Users); 29.90% (Penetration).
- India: 24 million (Users); 2.02% (Penetration).
- Brazil: 16 million (Users); 7.69% (Penetration).
- United Kingdom: 14 million (Users); 22.41% (Penetration).
- Canada: 9 million (Users); 25.82% (Penetration).
- France: 7 million (Users); 9.91% (Penetration).
- Spain: 6 million (Users); 11.54% (Penetration).
- Italy: 6 million (Users); 9.88% (Penetration).
- Mexico: 6 million (Users); 4.72% (Penetration).
- Australia: 6 million (Users); 23.88% (Penetration).
FEATURES
- User profile network: The basic functionality of LinkedIn allows users (workers and employers) to create profiles and "connections" to each other in an online social network which may represent real-world professional relationships. Users can invite anyone (whether a site user or not) to become a connection. However, if the invitee selects "I don't know" or "Spam", this counts against the inviter. If the inviter gets too many of such responses, the account may be restricted or closed.
This list of connections can then be used in a number of ways:
. Obtaining introductions to the connections of connections (termed second-degree connections) and connections of second-degree connections (termed third-degree connections)
. Users can find jobs, people and business opportunities recommended by someone in one's contact network.
. Employers can list jobs and search for potential candidates.
. Job seekers can review the profile of hiring managers and discover which of their existing contacts can introduce them.
. Users can post their own photos and view photos of others to aid in identification.
. Users can follow different companies and can receive notifications about the new joining and offers available.
. Users can save (i.e. bookmark) jobs that they would like to apply for.
. Users can "like" and "congratulate" each other's updates and new employments.
. Users can see who has visited their profile page.
The "gated-access approach" (where contact with any professional requires either an existing relationship, or the intervention of a contact of theirs) is intended to build trust among the service's users. LinkedIn participates in the EU's International Safe Harbor Privacy Principles.
- Security and technology: In June 2012 cryptographic hashes of approximately 6.4 million LinkedIn user passwords were stolen by hackers who then published the stolen hashes online. This action is known as the 2012 LinkedIn hack. In response to the incident, LinkedIn asked its users to change their passwords. Security experts criticized LinkedIn for not salting their password file, and instead using a single iteration of SHA-1.
On May 31, 2013 LinkedIn added two-factor authentication, an important security enhancement for preventing hackers from gaining access to accounts.
To handle the large volume of emails sent to its users every day with notifications for messages, profile views, important happenings in their network, and other things, LinkedIn uses the Momentum email platform from Message Systems.
- Applications: In October 2008, LinkedIn enabled an "applications platform" that allows other online services to be embedded within a member's profile page. Among the initial applications were an Amazon Reading List that allows LinkedIn members to display books they are reading, a connection to Tripit, and a Six Apart, WordPress and TypePad application that allows members to display their latest blog postings within their LinkedIn profile.
In November 2010, LinkedIn allowed businesses to list products and services on company profile pages; it also permitted LinkedIn members to "recommend" products and services and write reviews.
- Mobile: A mobile version of the site was launched in February 2008, which gives access to a reduced feature set over a mobile phone. The mobile service is available in six languages: Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese and Spanish.
In January 2011, LinkedIn acquired CardMunch, a mobile app maker that scans business cards and converts into contacts. In June 2013, CardMunch was noted as an available LinkedIn app. In August 2011, LinkedIn revamped its mobile applications on the iPhone, Android and HTML5. Mobile page views of the application have increased roughly 400% year over year according to CEO Jeff Weiner.
In October 2013, LinkedIn announced a service for iPhone users called "Intro", which inserts a thumbnail of a person's LinkedIn profile in correspondence with that person when reading mail messages in the native iOS Mail program. This is accomplished by re-routing all emails from and to the iPhone through LinkedIn servers, which security firm Bishop Fox asserts has serious privacy implications, violates many organizations' security policies, and resembles a man-in-the-middle attack.
- Groups: LinkedIn also supports the formation of interest groups, and as of March 29, 2012 there are 1,248,019 such groups whose membership varies from 1 to 744,662. The majority of the largest groups are employment related, although a very wide range of topics are covered mainly around professional and career issues, and there are currently 128,000 groups for both academic and corporate alumni.
Groups support a limited form of discussion area, moderated by the group owners and managers. Since groups offer the ability to reach a wide audience without so easily falling foul of anti-spam solutions, there is a constant stream of spam postings, and there now exist a range of firms who offer a spamming service for this very purpose. LinkedIn has devised a few mechanisms to reduce the volume of spam, but recently took the decision to remove the ability of group owners to inspect the email address of new members in order to determine if they were spammers. Groups also keep their members informed through emails with updates to the group, including most talked about discussions within your professional circles.
Groups may be private, accessible to members only or may be open to Internet users in general to read, though they must join in order to post messages.
In December 2011, LinkedIn announced that they are rolling out polls to groups.
In November 2013, LinkedIn announced the addition of Showcase Pages to the platform. In 2014, LinkedIn announced they were going to be removing Product and Services Pages paving the way for a greater focus on Showcase Pages.
- Job listings: LinkedIn allows users to research companies with which they may be interested in working. When typing the name of a given company in the search box, statistics about the company are provided. These may include the ratio of female to male employees, the percentage of the most common titles/positions held within the company, the location of the company's headquarters and offices, or a list of present and former employees.
In July 2011, LinkedIn launched a new feature allowing companies to include an "Apply with LinkedIn" button on job listing pages. The new plugin will allow potential employees to apply for positions using their LinkedIn profiles as resumes. All applications will also be saved under a "Saved Jobs" tab.
- Skills: From September 2012, LinkedIn allows users to endorse each other's skills. This feature also allows users to efficiently provide commentary on other users profiles – network building is reinforced. However there is no way of flagging anything other than positive content.
LinkedIn solicits endorsements based on algorithms that generate skills members might have. Members cannot opt out of such solicitations, with the result that it sometimes appears that a member is soliciting an endorsement for a non-existent skill.
- Influencers: The LinkedIn Influencers program launched in October 2012 and brings together 300+ of the world's top thought leaders to share their professional insights with LinkedIn's 259 million members. Influencer is an invite-only program that features notable leaders from a vast range of industries including Richard Branson, Arianna Huffington, Greg McKeown, Rahm Emanuel, Jamie Dimon, Martha Stewart, Deepak Chopra, Jack Welch, and Bill Gates.
- Advertising and for-pay research: In mid-2008, LinkedIn launched LinkedIn DirectAds as a form of sponsored advertising.
In October 2008, LinkedIn revealed plans to open its social network of 30 million professionals globally as a potential sample for business-to-business research. It is testing a potential social network revenue model - research that to some appears more promising than advertising.
On July 23, 2013 LinkedIn announced their Sponsored Updates ad service. Individuals and companies can now pay a fee to have LinkedIn sponsor their content and spread it to their user base. This is a common way for social media sites such as LinkedIn to generate revenue.