Chapter 20
Ten LinkedIn Resources
In This Chapter
Useful forums and networking sites
Helpful wikis
RSS feeds, blogs, and podcasts
Aggregation and smartphone tools
As you continue building your LinkedIn presence, you might want to take advantage of additional Web sites that keep you up to date on new features and possibilities on LinkedIn. These sites explore common and uncommon uses for the Web site and make you think about how to take advantage and enjoy the benefits of LinkedIn and social networking in general. I've rounded up a list of ten Internet resources that can provide extra information or functionality regarding your LinkedIn activities. Whether you use one or use them all, I'm sure you can find the resources that best match the way you like to learn and grow online.
The Official LinkedIn Blog
Mario Sundar, previously a LinkedIn “evangelist” who promoted the company on his own blog, was hired by LinkedIn to run its official company blog. Every week, Mario and various LinkedIn employees put up fun, informative, and timely blog posts about new functions or changes to the site as well as success stories, case studies, and practical information to make your LinkedIn experience that much more rewarding.
In addition, the blog posts live on forever, and you can search them to find out valuable information or post your own comments to give feedback!
You can also follow the official LinkedIn Twitter feed (@LinkedIn) and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/linkedin.
LinkedIn Labs
As LinkedIn employees think up new functions and possibilities to add to the LinkedIn Web site, there is the need to test those ideas, see whether the community finds them as valuable or relevant as first conceived, and understand how the user community would implement these new functions. LinkedIn Labs is the special site that hosts these new ideas.
LinkedIn employees post a small number of new projects or features and share them with the user base to find beta test users and gain feedback on these projects. Some projects may be promoted to become an official LinkedIn feature, while others disappear after a short time. Don't expect to find a lot of technical support for these new functions; they are here for you to play with and possibly gain your support. Keep an eye on this site to see the future of LinkedIn first-hand.
One great example of a LinkedIn Labs project is the Resume Builder (resume.linkedinlabs.com). This tool interfaces with your existing LinkedIn profile and allows you to select a template and instantly build Microsoft Word or PDF-ready resumes that you can print and/or distribute to potential employers. Why reinvent the wheel when your LinkedIn profile already has what your resume would contain? Be aware that the LinkedIn profile content and presentation may look different than your typical resume so you could do some reorganizing and editing.
LinkedIn Learning Webinars
help.linkedin.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/530
LinkedIn launched a set of webinars designed to help you use your LinkedIn account more effectively and to introduce you to LinkedIn's newest features and functionalities. These webinars and training videos are available from the LinkedIn Help Center. You can register for new webinars, which are typically held weekly.
MyLinkWiki
http://linkedin.pbworks.com/MyLinkWiki
A wiki is an Internet technology that allows multiple people to collaborate on gathering and presenting information. On a wiki site, anybody can create, add, or edit information, and those changes are then reviewed by other users, and ultimately approved or rejected. The best known example of this technology is Wikipedia, one of the fastest growing repositories of information on the Internet. This online encyclopedia has rapidly become a broad source of information because of the collaborative knowledge gathering it has fostered.
One great LinkedIn wiki is MyLinkWiki, where users comment on and update the width and breadth of LinkedIn's functionality and usefulness. As you become more familiar with LinkedIn, you can contribute to this growing community as well.
RSS Feeds with Feedspot
The Web technology known as RSS (commonly referred to as Really Simple Syndication) works as follows: If you want to follow all the changes, additions, and updates of a Web site, blog, or profile page, the easiest way to do that is to read a list of just the changed or added information rather than combing the entire site over and over again. An RSS feed does precisely that by providing subscribers with this list of new information.
Many active LinkedIn users maintain an RSS feed for their profile so their friends and connections can get a list of the changes and updates. You can create an RSS feed of your network updates to keep track of your first-degree connections on LinkedIn. To get these updates, you need an RSS feed reader. I cover LinkedIn RSS feeds in more depth in Chapter 18.
Feedspot makes a great reader tool that you can use to handle all the RSS feeds you subscribe to, whether related to LinkedIn or not. You can install this free tool on practically any system. And a quick Google search for “RSS feed readers” can help you track down other feed readers to try.
Linked Intelligence Blog
When LinkedIn was growing in size and popularity during its earlier days, blogger Scott Allen put together the LinkedIntelligence site to cover LinkedIn and its many uses. Over the years, he built up a healthy amount of blog posts, links, and valuable information from himself and other bloggers regarding LinkedIn and how to use it.
One of his more ambitious projects, started in May 2007, is simply dubbed 100+ Smart Ways to Use LinkedIn. Allen had bloggers compete to provide valuable information and tips across all of LinkedIn's functions, and he created a table of contents of the best entries on his blog site. You can still find this handy resource at www.linkedintelligence.com/smart-ways-to-use-linkedin.
The large repository of links and information can be helpful to new, intermediate, or power users of the site. The blog posts are divided into dozens of helpful categories, from LinkedIn News to Training & Coaching.
Rock the World with LinkedIn — Podcast
http://www2.webmasterradio.fm/rock-the-world-with-linkedin/
The staggering popularity of the Apple iPod has given rise to a new way of broadcasting audio information to eager listeners — the podcast. Think of the podcast as a recorded audio broadcast that you can download to your iPod, smartphone, iPad, computer, MP3 player, or other device. You can subscribe to engaging and unique podcasts, regardless of where in the world they're recorded and played.
At Rock the World with LinkedIn, Mike O'Neil and Lori Ruff reveal their LinkedIn “secrets” and chat with all sorts of LinkedIn “rock stars” and experts and answer their listeners’ most difficult LinkedIn questions. They've also got a wealth of archived shows that are available for download, so you can listen to success stories and all sorts of tips. You can subscribe to this show and hear great interviews, tips, and stories of how other people and companies connect online.
Digsby Social Networking/IM/E-Mail Tool
As you monitor your LinkedIn activity, you're most likely using other tools and networks as part of your overall experience, such as Facebook and Twitter. Rather than go to each site individually, you can use an aggregator — a special software tool you use to group all the information generated in all your social networks, and then present them in one tool.
One such application is Digsby, which promises to integrate your e-mail, Instant Messaging, and social networking accounts in one clean interface. After you download and set up Digsby, you can view a live newsfeed of all your friends and connections based on their events or activities on sites like LinkedIn, as well as manage chat sessions and see e-mail notifications. In the era of information overload, a tool like Digsby can help you make sense of all the messages and updates zooming to your computer screen.
Turn Business Cards into LinkedIn Contacts with CardMunch
If you're like many people who collect business cards at a networking event or conference, and you never get around to cataloging or responding to these new contacts, then CardMunch is for you . . . if you have an iPhone. CardMunch is a free iPhone app (owned by LinkedIn) that allows you to use the camera to take a picture of a business card, which CardMunch then converts into a contact for you, including that person's LinkedIn profile information and any connections he shares with you on LinkedIn.
Make sure you have iTunes installed on your computer before downloading CardMunch, because CardMunch relies on the iTunes program to work with your iPhone.
One Update for Multiple Sites with HootSuite
If you're active on LinkedIn and other social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and others), you probably hop from site to site to provide up-to-the-minute information about what you're doing and what you want others to know. Well, instead of site hopping, you can use one function to update your status across all your social networking pages and microblogs: HootSuite.
It works like this: You log on to the site and enter your message into the dashboard. You then select the sites you want to update with your new status message, and HootSuite does the rest, reaching out to your various pages to add your new status message. It's a great centralized way to keep all your various profiles as up to date as possible, and it's designed to update your LinkedIn status by answering the question, “What are you working on?” As of this writing, HootSuite offers a free plan that allows you to manage up to five social media accounts.