LinkedIn with a purpose

It's rare right now to read a business-related article without hearing some mention of social networks. (Here's an interesting one from Fast Company about Audi.)  Businesses are struggling to use these networks effectively. Individual people are still experimenting with them for their own professional advancement.
At first I was skeptical of LinkedIn.  "What the heck are we going to use this for?" But as my network has grown and as my valuation of my business contacts has increased, I've found a lot of use in this third social network.  Here are tips on how I am benefiting from LinkedIn.

Keep your network meaningful
On Facebook, I'll only add someone as a friend if I would feel comfortable talking with them about what my kids are going to be doing this weekend.  On LinkedIn, I'll only add someone
as a contact if I'd be willing to do a favor for that person for a few hours on a weeknight.  It also has to be someone from whom I would feel comfortable asking a favor.

These networks are only useful if you ACTUALLY KNOW the people in them.  Contacting someone in my LinkedIn network should not feel like a cold call.

Set networking goals
Keith Ferrazzi's excellent book Never Eat Alone outlines a process that he calls a Networking Action Plan. LinkedIn can be an accelerator to these kinds of plans.

In its most basic form, a Networking Action Plan is a collection of goals made up of specific outcomes, due dates, milestones, and a list of people that could help you achieve those goals.  Just as we should have purpose in our careers, setting goals in our networking will guide us in how we spend our efforts.  As I mentioned before, there is a right way and a wrong way to network.  We shouldn't be singling people out just to serve as social augmentation.  Seek to meet people with similar objectives  who can also benefit from knowing you.

Make yourself presentable

I find waaay too many people on LinkedIn that have put no effort whatever into their profile.  Here are some simple things that you can do to appear more friendly digitally:

1. Put up a profile picture.  A good pic is better than a bad pic, but a bad pic is much better than no pic at all.  Pictureless profiles feel so cold.  It's like you don't really want to connect.  Also, think about how your picture represents you.  What are you saying to your professional network if your picture is a close crop of your overly-bright face with an overly-dark background and someone else's arm around your shoulder? (If you're in Albuquerque, and your profile pic is cropped from a buddy-picture-at-a-bar, send me a note.  I do profile pictures for free.  Yeah, I do that kind of thing.)
2. Add something more than just your work experience so that people can feel connected to you.  I post a link to my most recent blog right under my profile picture.  I feel like people can get to know me (and all my long-windedness) better from reading what I've written than by reading a list of my former job titles.  Right after that, I have my Amazon reading list with short reviews on books that I have read.  My primary goal when someone visits my profile is to connect personally.  
3. Keep your experience summary brief and relevant.  You may feel awesome if your experience is eight screens long, but the rest of us are rolling our eyes as we scroll through it. Provide some details in the areas most relevant to your future goals, and scrub the rest out.

Write reviews
If you've got a number of contacts, then you ought to have a number of people that you can vouch for.  So vouch for them.  Everyone appreciates having some kind words written about them.  It's a simple investment of time that the recipient may never forget.


Publicize your profile
This is an idea I took from my friend Mark Morris, co-founder of Closed/Won. Put a link to your LinkedIn profile in your email signature right along with your phone number.  It's a friendly invitation for people inside and outside of your company to learn about you and to connect with you. 

Use your network
Especially before I travel out of town, I scan through my contacts that live near my destination and also look through their contacts.  Is anyone working on projects I'm interested in?  Send them a note.  Get introduced.  Expand your network.

Have you done anything else to make use of LinkedIn?  Any advice on what I can be doing better with my online networking?  Join the discussion in the comments!