Linkedin for Dummies

Make LinkedIn your number one professional branding tool

LinkedIn is the premiere social network for professionals looking to discover new opportunities, enhance personal branding, connect with other professionals, and make career advancements. With LinkedIn For Dummies, you’ll have step-by-step instructions on how to take advantage of the latest tools and features to do all of this and more. 

This book will teach you how to create an attractive profile that employers will notice, as well as ways to expand your network by making connections around the globe. You'll also learn how to best navigate the new user interface, write recommendations, take a course with LinkedIn Learning, and conduct your job search. 

• Create an appealing, detailed profile
• Establish your credibility and personal brand
• Connect with employers and find jobs
• Request and write recommendations 

Whether you’re one of LinkedIn’s 500 million global members or brand new to the site, this authoritative resource helps you get the most out of the world’s largest professional network.

Joel Elad is a social networking, Internet, and eBay guru with a software development background and a yearning for entrepreneurship. He has authored or co-authored several books, including Facebook Advertising For Dummies and Starting an Online Business All-in-One For Dummies.

Introduction 1

About This Book 2

Foolish Assumptions 2

Icons Used in This Book 2

Beyond the Book 3

Where to Go from Here 3

Part 1: Understanding Linkedin Basics 5

Chapter 1: Looking into LinkedIn 7

Understanding Your New Contact Management and Networking Toolkit 8

Keeping track of your contacts 9

Understanding the different degrees of network connections 10

Discovering What You Can Do with LinkedIn 13

Building your brand and profile 13

Looking for a job now or later 14

Finding out all kinds of valuable information 16

Expanding your network 16

Understanding LinkedIn Costs and Benefits 17

Weighing free versus paid accounts 17

Comparing the paid accounts 18

Upgrading to a premium account 20

Navigating LinkedIn 23

Touring the top navigation bar 24

Looking at the Settings & Privacy page 25

Chapter 2: Signing Up and Creating Your Account 27

Joining LinkedIn 27

Joining with an invitation 28

Joining without an invitation 29

Completing the sign-up process 30

Starting to Build Your Network 38

Chapter 3: Completing Your Profile 41

Adding a Summary and Basic Information 41

Writing your summary first 43

Updating the Summary and basic information sections 45

Completing Contact and Personal Info 50

Adding a Position 55

Reporting Your Education 58

Setting Your Profile URL and Public View 61

Part 2: Finding Others and Getting Connected 65

Chapter 4: Discovering and Building Your Network 67

Searching Your First-Degree Connections 67

Searching the LinkedIn Network 70

Starting with basic search options 71

Advanced searching with filters 73

Performing advanced searches 76

Saving searches for future use 77

Chapter 5: Growing Your Network 79

Building a Meaningful Network 80

Importing Contacts into LinkedIn 83

Importing a contacts list from your email system 83

Checking for members 87

Finding classmates 87

Using the People You May Know feature 89

Browsing your connections’ networks 90

Sending Connection Requests 93

Sending requests to existing members 94

Understanding why you shouldn’t use canned invitations 95

Sending requests to nonmembers 96

Communicating the value of joining LinkedIn 97

Removing people from your network 99

Accepting (or Gracefully Declining) Invitations 101

Chapter 6: Managing Messages and InMail 103

Using InMail versus Using LinkedIn Messages 104

Understanding LinkedIn messages 105

Understanding your inbox 106

Getting to know InMail 109

Sending InMail 109

Managing Invitations 111

Tracking sent invitations 111

Tracking received invitations 113

Setting Up an Introduction 114

Planning your approach to each person 115

Sending an introduction request message 116

Managing Introduction Requests 118

Accepting requests and forwarding the introduction 119

Gracefully declining requests 121

Chapter 7: Interacting with and Endorsing Your Network 123

Interacting with Your Network 124

Creating a status update to stay connected 125

Interacting with status updates 128

Giving and Receiving Endorsements on LinkedIn 132

Endorsing someone on LinkedIn 133

Accepting endorsements on LinkedIn 135

Managing your skills and endorsements 136

Part 3: Growing and Managing Your Network 141

Chapter 8: Understanding Your News Feed 143

Understanding the News Feed 144

Configuring Your News Feed 147

Setting Up Digest Notifications 149

Writing an Article on LinkedIn 151

Managing Post Interactions 154

Chapter 9: Exploring the Power of Recommendations 155

Understanding Recommendations 156

Writing Recommendations 158

Choose wisely, grasshopper: Deciding whom to recommend 158

Look right here: Making your recommendation stand out 159

Creating a recommendation 160

Requesting Recommendations 162

Choosing whom to ask 162

Creating a polite recommendation request 163

Gracefully Declining a Recommendation (or a Request for One) 165

Managing Recommendations 166

Editing or removing recommendations you’ve made 166

Handling new recommendations you’ve received 167

Removing or requesting to revise a recommendation 169

Chapter 10: Accessing LinkedIn with a Mobile Device 171

Surveying the Different LinkedIn Apps 172

Installing a LinkedIn Mobile App 174

Breaking Down the Sections of the LinkedIn Mobile App 178

Connecting Your App Usage with Website Usage 181

Chapter 11: Configuring Settings Like a Pro 183

Using the Settings & Privacy Page as a Command Console 183

Starting with Basic Account Changes 185

Controlling Privacy Settings 191

Finalizing Your LinkedIn Communications Settings 197

Chapter 12: Using LinkedIn with Your Internet Activities 203

Exporting LinkedIn Contacts to Your Email Application 203

Creating your contacts export file in LinkedIn 204

Exporting contacts to Outlook 206

Exporting contacts to Outlook Express 207

Exporting contacts to Yahoo! Mail 207

Exporting connections to Mac OS X Contacts book 209

Exporting Your Profile and Badge 209

Exporting your profile to a PDF file 210

Creating a public profile badge for other websites 212

Part 4: Finding Employees, Jobs, and Companies 215

Chapter 13: Finding Employees 217

Managing Your Job Listings 218

Posting a job listing 219

Advertising your job listing to your network 222

Reviewing applicants 225

Screening Candidates with LinkedIn 228

Using Strategies to Find Active or Passive Job Seekers 230

Chapter 14: Finding a Job 231

Searching for an Open Position 232

Tuning Up Your Profile and Network to Make a Good Impression 235

Preparing Your Profile and Account Settings for Job Searches 237

Checking your profile’s visibility 237

Optimizing your profile 238

Involving LinkedIn in Job Search Strategies 240

Leveraging connections 240

Finding people with the same or similar job 241

Taking advantage of your alma mater 242

Finding target company referrals 243

Chapter 15: Following Companies 245

Searching for Companies 246

Putting Your Company on LinkedIn 249

Requirements for a Company page 250

Adding a Company page to LinkedIn 250

Part 5: Using Linkedin for Everyday Business 255

Chapter 16: Getting Connected with Groups 257

Reaping the Benefits of Groups 257

Understanding the Two Types of Groups 259

Joining a Group 260

Starting and participating in group discussions 263

Viewing a group’s membership list 267

Creating a Group 267

Setting Up the Group and Inviting Members 270

Building and managing your member list 270

Crafting your invitation email 272

Approving members to your group 273

Chapter 17: Implementing Sales and Marketing Techniques 277

Marketing Yourself through LinkedIn 277

Optimizing your profile 278

Marketing yourself to your network 280

Marketing Your Business through LinkedIn 282

Using online marketing tactics with LinkedIn 283

Mining for Clients 284

Generating leads with the Advanced People search 285

Finding the decision-maker 287

Closing the Deal 289

Preparing for the client meeting 289

Reporting a positive sale 291

Chapter 18: Using LinkedIn Ads 293

Understanding LinkedIn Ads 293

Finding Out about Filtering Options 295

Creating an Ad Campaign 297

Managing Your Ad Campaign 303

Chapter 19: Discovering Creative Uses of LinkedIn 307

Mashing LinkedIn with Other Services 308

LinkedIn and Google Alerts 308

LinkedIn Archives and Data Syncing 309

LinkedIn and Evernote work together 311

Building Your Focus Group 313

Using Location-Based LinkedIn Ideas 315

Building your network before moving to a new city 316

Arranging face-to-face meetings when traveling 318

Networking with LinkedIn in person! 319

Part 6: The Part of Tens 321

Chapter 20: Ten LinkedIn Do’s and Don’ts 323

Do Keep Your Profile Complete and Current 323

Don’t Use Canned Invitations 324

Don’t Expect Everyone to Network as You Do 325

Do Your Homework 326

Do Give LinkedIn Messages Equal Importance 327

Don’t Spam 329

Do Make New Connections 330

Do Cross-Promote 331

Do Add Value to the Process 331

Don’t Confuse Quantity with Quality 332

Chapter 21: Ten LinkedIn Resources 333

The Official LinkedIn Blog 333

LinkedIn Instagram 334

LinkedIn Marketing Solutions 334

LinkedIn YouTube Channel 335

Linked Intelligence 335

LinkedIn Speaker Series Podcast 336

LinkedIn Plugins 336

Social Media Examiner 337

Evernote 337

Buffer 337

Index 339

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