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Really Getting More out of LinkedIn
By Ed Han, Guest Blogger
When I was invited to do a guest post, I wasn’t quite sure what to write about at first. I thought to myself, “Gee, I’ve said quite a bit already about LinkedIn, so surely people are tired of reading about the world’s biggest professional networking site, right?” Then I realized that made no sense. And why should it? • LinkedIn broke 100 million users back in late March. • The IPO was the biggest of any Internet company since Google’s IPO in 2004. • In last year’s JobVite Social Recruiting Survey, 92% of respondents said they would recruit via social networks, and 86% of them would source through LinkedIn. And JobVite just started circulating this year’s surveys. So it’s a subject that has no small amount of resonance…but what to discuss? LinkedIn Questions & Answers And I realized that the answer stares me in the face every single morning: LinkedIn Questions & Answers. The LinkedIn Questions & Answers, or LI Q&A for short, is a site-wide forum whereby any of the 100+ million users can ask a question, and any of the 100+ million users can answer a question. It’s highly visible, and thanks to LinkedIn’s SEO wizardry, Q&A often appears high in search engine results. Questions are categorized by a broad area or industry. In some cases, sub, or even sub-sub-categories of questions may exist. A question may be posed with up to 2 different (sub)categories. The person asking the question, the querant, may apply whatever one or two seem appropriate. After seven days, LinkedIn will automatically close the question, or the querant may voluntarily close the question prior to that point. Irrespective of how the question is closed, the querant may identify those answers which are good, and from those, which was the best. When a respondent is awarded a Best Answer, this appears on his or her profile. And this matters because if you receive Best Answers for a topic on which you are seeking to be recognized as a subject matter expert, this certainly would help substantiate that statement. About a year or 2 ago, it became difficult to find Q&A, but I’ve taken a screen capture that illustrates where to find it exactly. In years passed, Answers was its own entry on the horizontal menu that begins Home, Profile, Contacts, etc. It doesn’t share that status anymore, but it’s still around.  There are several options on the next page that each merit consideration: Answers Home This section displays several sections. There is the New Questions from Your Network section, in which the questions from people who are 1st, 2nd or 3rd degree connections to you will appear here, and This Week’s Top Experts List, which displays the 5 LinkedIn users that have answered the most questions in the past 7 days. Both of these may be of interest, for different reasons. The New Questions from Your Network section gives you an opportunity to help someone you know, or that someone else you know does. Helping someone with a question can be a very powerful way to connect. This Week’s Top Expert List shows the five most responsive LinkedIn users of the past 7 days. For most folks, investing the time to appear on the list doesn’t provide much ROI, but for them, it does. Advanced Answers Search If you’ve got a question, odds are good someone else has already had it & asked it on Q&A. And if it’s been asked on Q&A, it’s almost certainly been answered, and well. Just identify your keywords and the category or categories that you wish to search on. This information resource is a shockingly well-kept secret. Just be mindful of how long ago the questions and answers were posted, as you might be seeing dated information/advice. My Q&A This provides a list of the questions you’ve asked as well as the answers you’ve provided. It is also the only way you will find out if an answer you provided is a Good Answer. If you are awarded a Best Answer, you will usually get a message from that querant. I find it useful sometimes to compare early answers I gave to the answers I provided more recently: there is often an evolution evident in the answers. Ask a Question You’ve heard about crowdsourcing, right? Well, this is how LinkedIn does it. If you have already used the Advanced Answers Search and come up empty, this is a great way to crowdsource. It’s also a great way to network, because Q&A participation draws a self-selecting group of people who want to help. There are LinkedIn users who consistently take the time to answer questions and provide good insight, and among them are subject matter experts with deep experience who address matters related to their areas of expertise, so you’ll often find actual attorneys discussing matters of law, or recruiters discussing Answer Questions I make no excuses for the fact that this is easily my favorite part of Q&A. There are a couple of reasons for this, but chiefly it’s because I love helping people. A nice bonus however is that if your response is deemed the best answer by the querant, he or she may award you Best Answer, which appears on your profile. And because Best Answers are grouped by category, this means that you can demonstrate and highlight subject matter expertise. The Value of Q&A Sure, you can connect with others in groups and participate in group discussions—this is absolutely true and in no way am I saying groups are not valuable. But I think that Q&A is superior for several reasons, all of which come down to one word: visibility:
There are tons of guides about how to get more out of LinkedIn, the vast majority of which focus on profile optimization. And the truth is, they probably know more than me on the subject. But your profile isn’t the be-all, end-all of your LinkedIn presence. It’s just the starting point. About the Author  Ed Han is a wordsmith with a passion for networking and helping job seekers optimally leverage opportunities. The holder of a B.A. in English literature from Albright College, Ed is a collaborative client champion with particular expertise in online communities, relationship management and influencing skills. As a veteran of several industries, including publishing, financial services and fashion, Ed has honed these skills and traits in many environments, from a major Wall Street firm to a small financial services start-up to a sales office for an overseas fashion brand.Active in the community, Ed is serving as one of several facilitators for a confidential job search group in Princeton and as the PR committee Chair for the Professional Service Group (PSG) of Mercer County. Ed currently is a LinkedIn trainer with Paul Buijs, The LinkedIn Guy. Lastly, Ed is active in major social media such as Twitter and LinkedIn, and writes a monthly column for the PSG of Mercer County newsletter geared towards job seekers, Staying Focused. You can follow Ed on Twitter, see what he is doing on LinkedIn or check out the weekly updates to his blog. Is this helpful? Please let us know in the comments your thoughts on this as well as other ways we can help you with your career and training. blog comments powered by Disqus |