LinkedIn Guide For Beginners

LinkedIn Account Signup & Profile

LinkedIn is a great place to connect with like-minded people, from past classmates to potential JV partners, the connections are unlimited. The first step to making the connections is to set up your account and profile so others can find you.

Let’s start by visiting, http://www.linkedin.com to join.

 

Step 1: Account Setup

When you visit the LinkedIn home page, you’ll see this image. Simply fill in the requested information and click the Join Now button. Or sign up with your Facebook account.

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Step 2: Create your professional profile

Add in your country, zip code and if you’re currently employed, seeking a job or a student. Then add your job title and your Company name (if employed), otherwise you will get other options, as add in your college or your last job.

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Step 3: Search via Email Contacts

This step allows LinkedIn to connect with your email account to see which of your email contacts already have LinkedIn accounts. Those that do, you will be able to instantly connect with and those who don’t, you can choose to send an invitation to join.

To do this step, simply enter your email address and click the continue button or click “Skip this step” to go to the next step without connecting with your email account.

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You will be asked to confirm your email address by clicking the link in an email sent to you when you registered.

 

Step 4: Proceed to Profile

From here, you will be presented with a few screens asking you to connect with others. We are skipping these steps so that we can set up our profile first. After all, we don’t want to invite people to view our blank profile.

So when we see this page, we click “Skip This Step”

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Then we get a Congratulations box, with options to Share on Facebook and/or Twitter. Let’s skip this step.

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Step 5: Profile Setup

Once you reach your dashboard, mouse over Profile in the upper navigation and select Edit Profile.

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Here, you’ll see a summary of your profile information and be able to edit each section.

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You can either click the + sign next to each section above to edit the information or scroll down the page and add the information there as shown below. Each section has an explanation for what you should include in it.

Once you finish filling out your information, you can view your profile by clicking Done Editing.

 

Step 6: Contact Settings

The final step before making connections is to set your contact settings. It’s important to do this step or your inbox may be flooded with emails from LinkedIn.

In the top, right-hand corner of your dashboard, mouse over your name and select Settings.

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Step 7: Email Preferences

Now, down on the left side of the screen, click Email Preferences and a box will open to the right with more options as shown below.

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Clicking the options to the right will bring up a new screen for each one allowing you to adjust the settings. Below is the frequency of emails screen.

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Following the same instructions outlined in Step 7, you can also adjust your groups, companies and application settings as well as make more advanced account settings.

Find Connections & Accept Connection Request on LinkedIn

In order to make LinkedIn work for your business, you need to regularly make new connections. This is simple to do and only takes a little bit of time each week.

 

Step 1: Add Connections

From your dashboard, mouse over Contacts and select Add Connections.

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Step 2: Options for Adding Connections

There are two ways to connect to people you already know. The first is to allow LinkedIn to scan your email address book to see which contacts are existing members of LinkedIn.

To do this, simply fill in your email address and password and click Continue.

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It will scan and give you a list of everyone who has a LinkedIn account. Simply select the ones you want to connect with and click the “send invitations’ button.

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You’ll be redirected to your dashboard where you’ll have a new success message.

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If you aren’t comfortable with that or simply prefer to manually enter each person, you can enter the email address of each person you wish to connect with – each address should be separated by a comma. Click the Send Invitations button when you’re ready.

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Once you send the invitations, a new success message will appear at the top of the page.

You can also choose to upload a contacts’ file. You can upload a .csv, .txt or a .vcf.

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Step 3: Accept Connection Requests

When someone wants to connect with you, they will send an invitation to you. When you log into your LinkedIn account, you’ll also have these notices in your inbox. Just click the Accept button for each person you want to connect with and you will have the option to connect immediately or ignore that connection.

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Posting & Viewing Updates in LinkedIn

Now that you’ve made connections, you can post updates to keep people informed of what’s going on in your business. You can also view updates of those you are connected to and post comments to their updates. Here’s how…

 

Step 1: Post Updates

When you visit the LinkedIn home page, you’ll see this image. Simply fill the box with your update and click the Share button. You can choose to send to LinkedIn, LinkedIn and Twitter or your Connections.

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Step 2: View Updates of Connections

Your account will show the most recent updates of those you are connected to. When you log into your account, directly below where you post your own update, you’ll see a list of updates from others.

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Step 3: Like, Comment & Share on Updates

If one of your connections posts an update that you like, you can “like” the update. You can also comment on their by clicking the “comment” link. You can share an update you like with your connections simply by clicking the “share” link.

When commenting, a box will open where you enter your comment. Then you simply click the “comment” button.

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Step 4: Send Messages

Move your mouse to the envelope icon in your dashboard, and click Compose message.

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Enter the email address of the person you want to send the message to or click the icon to select from your contacts.

Your address will automatically populate in the “from” field.

Add a subject, your message and click “send message” as shown below.

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Sending Updates/Tweets to and from Twitter and LinkedIn

When submitting updates to LinkedIn, you can also send these updates. In addition, you can send your tweets to your LinkedIn account as updates. Please note, that in order for this to work, your Twitter account must be set to “public”.

 

Step 1: Add Your Twitter Account

Go to your settings.

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Then, on Profile, click on Manage your Twitter settings.

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Then click on Add your Twitter account.

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A pop-up will open asking you to allow LinkedIn to access your Twitter account. Enter your Twitter information and click Authorize app.

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Step 2: Updating your Twitter status from Linkedin

Now that both accounts are connected, you can update Twitter directly from Linkedin by selecting the LinkedIn + Twitter option when posting a new update in LinkedIn.

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Step 3: Updating your LinkedIn status from Twitter

When you post a new tweet in Twitter, add the #in hashtag to the end of your message. This will ensure your tweet is also added as a LinkedIn update.

A word of caution: Be selective in which messages you send to LinkedIn. Typically speaking, professional business associates don’t want to know what you are had for breakfast.

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