What is LinkedIn? LinkedIn is a tool used primarily by employers and employees, who utilize it as a way to connect with each other, with prospective employers/employees and for marketing purposes. However, the LinkedIn features change on a regular basis, so it’s a very good idea to update your profile regularly as well so that you can take full advantage of this business online tool.

There are some things to remember when you are fiddling with your LinkedIn account and bring it up to date.

  1. Formatting options can be hidden in weird places. Try looking in completely unrelated sections in your Edit Profile view widget or look in the Help section for guidance. If you are absolutely stuck, check out LinkedIn forums; chances are good that someone else was lost too.
  2. Add more keywords under “Interests”. More is better! You can do this by clicking “edit” in your websites list.
  3. Describe where you’ve been all your life! You can and should talk about your current and past positions and make sure to include keywords that are regularly searched for by others. Drag up some of your resumes or proposals for some good keywords. Good ones include: management, customer service, freelance, and/or assistant. But there are tons of them out there, so don’t shirk on your past.
  4. Don’t forget to add in any volunteer work. These not only make you look good, but they gave you valuable experience and skills which you can then bring to your job.
  5. You can’t use formatting options like bullets. So how do people do it? If you want neat formatting, you will have to copy and paste from elsewhere. Do up your resume or proposal in word doc to get good formatting (and save a back copy).
  6. Did you know that you can add a Publications section? Here, you can put in books, articles and blog posts you have written. Keep in mind though that you only get to put them in an order you like once, so do it carefully.
  7. Organizing an event? Link it! Others can then tell you they are attending with ease and you’ll reach a larger audience.
  8. You can use status messages to take followers of your LinkedIn to other things of yours which might be of interest
  9. Third party tools? Yes please! TweeterDeck, HootSuite… there are several tools you can use which lets you post your messages not only to LinkedIn, but also to other social media tools like Twitter and Facebook so that you can fully control where your messages will go.
  10. Picture this: a professional profile photo makes your listings look more complete, gives people someone to remind them of you and makes you look more dedicated to LinkedIn which translates to more dedication on the job. (If you don’t care about your profile, how can anyone expect you to care about your job?) It will also make it a lot easier for people to ‘link’ up with you.

If you follow each of these simple and effective tips, you will be able to make great connections that can help you get better work, better employees and overall have a better job experience. Link it up with LinkedIn.