You may be wondering why social media is becoming important and whether or not it is worth the time and effort to create and maintain these various profiles. In today’s increasingly online society, it is becoming more and more important to start marketing yourself with social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Particularly, for business professionals, LinkedIn is an important resource that can be used for professional networking and increasing your online presence which can in turn increase your company’s online presence. LinkedIn is described as a business social network that enables individuals and companies to present a professional profile to other professionals and companies that they may wish to connect with.

Due to the high volume of users, and the importance of online marketing in today’s society, I would highly recommend that you use this tool to connect with individuals in your community, colleagues in the workplace, and potential clients and/or business partners.

If you do not have a profile you can sign up by clicking here and you can follow the steps that are provided on the website in order to fully complete your profile. This is one of the most important aspects involved with this social networking site, as it is very important to have a completed profile that is detailed and contains specific information related to your work experiences and expertise. I have done some research to provide you with 10 tips on how to get the most out of your LinkedIn profile. They are as follows:

1. Ensure your profile is complete: LinkedIn will advise you on how complete your profile is by providing you with steps and suggestions as well as a specific percentage. Ensure that you have filled out 100% of the content.

2. Make sure your profile is set to ‘public’: this is important because if you limit who can view your profile, you may be limiting the amount of connections and potential business relationships that you can establish. The more people that view your profile, the more likely it is that you will be contacted. You can make your profile public by going into your settings and changing the various privacy settings to enable everyone to have access.

3. Include your company website link, other social media links, and all contact information: any links that you have to other sites associated with yourself or your company should be inserted in your “contact information” section so people can access all of the outlets you have available to the public. Also be sure to include all of your personal contact information such as phone numbers, email addresses and fax numbers so that people can easily obtain this information.

4. Include key words throughout: in all descriptions that you provide be sure to include key words that relate directly to your field of work and which will be of interest to your potential connections and those individuals looking for professionals in your field. Also try to maintain the same tense – i.e. first vs. third person – in order to have consistency throughout your profile.

5. Include your current work position, and at least two others: your profile will not be considered “complete” until at least two previous positions are included. This also helps to show connections the various work-related experiences that you have had which can help improve your professional appearance. Also, be sure to describe these roles using key words relevant to your business/ field (note: use a variety of key words, do not be too repetitive).

6. Maximize your connections: be sure to aggressively work to expand your network. Go to “Add Connections” under “Contacts” and go through all connection channels available to see who you may know. Do this at least once a month. Note once you hit 500 connections, your public profile will simply show 500+ connections rather than an exact number.

7. Maximize the amount of groups you are involved with: this will help to improve your ‘search engine optimization’ (SEO) which is also associated with including key words in your profile. When people conduct internet searches the better your SEO, the more likely you will appear on the first couple of pages in the search.

8. Ask for and provide endorsements: it is important to not only ask people to endorse the various skills that you possess, but to also endorse your own connections (this will also provide them with an incentive to reciprocate and provide you with endorsements as well).

9. Ask for recommendations from past/present colleagues or clients: this can provide those individuals viewing your profile with first-hand accounts of the various skills and expertise that you possess and would like others to be aware of.

10. Stay active: be sure to provide updates to your connections. It is important to be sure that these updates provide your connections with useful information that they will consider relevant. One of the big things that realtors can share is information related to the various listings that they have.

Also, a big thank you to everyone as my LinkedIn page was one of the top 5% most viewed profiles of 2012! Top 5%

Good luck!

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. The information does not constitute legal advice and a solicitor and client relationship is not created.