Recently we put together 15 reasons why using LinkedIn is an effective tool for small business marketing.  Today we will post the first seven.

How to get most out of LinkedIn:

1. Increase your LinkedIn visibility:

By adding connections, you increase the likelihood that people will see your profile first when they’re searching for someone to hire or do business with. In addition to appearing at the top of search results (which is a major plus if you’re one of the 52,000 product managers on LinkedIn), people would much rather work with people who their friends know and trust.

2. Improve your connectability:

Most new users put only their current company in their profile. You should fill out your profile like it’s an executive bio, so include past companies, education, affiliations, and activities. You can also include a link to your profile as part of an email signature. All these would help you increase your connectivity.

3. Improve your Linkedin profile Search Engine ranking:

LinkedIn allows you to make your profile information available for search engines to index. To increase your Search Engine ranking do this, create a public profile and select “Full View.” Also, instead of using the default URL, customize your public profile’s URL to be your actual name. To strengthen the visibility of this page in search engines, use this link in various places on the web.

4. Increase the relevancy of your job search:

Use LinkedIn’s advanced search to find people with educational and work experience like yours to see where they work. For example, a programmer would use search keywords such as “Ruby on Rails,” “C++,” “Python,” “Java,” and “evangelist” to find out where other programmers with these skills work.

5. Gauge the health of a company:

Perform an advanced search for company name and uncheck the “Current Companies Only” box. This will enable you to scrutinize the rate of turnover and whether key people are abandoning ship. Former employees usually give more candid opinions about a company’s prospects than someone who’s still on board.

6. Track startups companies using LinkedIn:

You can see people in your network who are initiating new start-ups by doing an advanced search for a range of keywords such as “stealth” or “new startup.” Apply the “Sort By” filter to “Degrees away from you” in order to see the people closest to you first.

7. Integrate into a new job:

When people start a new job, ordinarily their roots aren’t that deep in the new company. However, with Linkedin, new employees can study fellow employees’ profiles and therefore help them get to know more people faster in a new company.