How do you use LinkedIn at work?

If you work in a job you love, but want to use LinkedIn at work, how do you use it?

A comment on my Facebook page:

I see a lot of “value added” benefits for employees in their current positions offered on LinkedIn. This can include groups of professionals with experience to things happening in their industry.

Benefits from using LinkedIn at work

Do you see value-added benefits from having a way to find people with common interests through LinkedIn? Would you rather do all your networking in person?

The search engine in LinkedIn is very powerful. You can search by company, location, people’s names, job titles, or keywords and expertise.

Depending on your role with an organization, you reap different benefits from using LinkedIn in your job. As a salesperson, you can learn who might be likely buyers of your product. You can understand more about a potential buyer reading their profile prior to any meeting.

If you are in management, you can use LinkedIn to connect  with like-minded individuals who understand the challenges of your industry. These new connections may be resources to solve problems you face.

Using LinkedIn as a Research tool

From a research standpoint alone, LinkedIn is a rich resource with extensive information about individuals and companies. Exploring a company LinkedIn page garners you information about current and former employees. You grasp how they promote internally and how they view multiple aspects in their field.

Using the skills and expertise area, you find out what skills matter. It would make sense to understand what they value before speaking. In addition, if they are endorsed, you will easily get a feel for how others view their talents. If someone is massively endorsed for a particular skill, it is probably likely that they are good at it.

The obvious opportunity to use LinkedIn to get introduced to someone. You can see who knows who to open unlimited new doors. However, this can be an opportunity for abuse of your friends and connections if you push to get to know someone to push marketing. Being respectful of everyone on LinkedIn will go so much further than just seeing it as opportunity to grab from someone’s network for your own gain.

How tech-savvy are they?

When a new client engages with me, I will often check their LinkedIn profile (as well as conducting a general Google search for their name.) LinkedIn will give me an idea of their employment history and their educational background.

For me, it may also give a clue to how tech-savvy they are. If they have a well-written profile and they connect with others, I know it will be easy to teach them about online job search. If not, and this is common, I know I need to encourage them to get ready to use job search tools.

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