LinkedIn could be described as ‘Facebook for business people’ but it’s much more than that. LinkedIn is a way of networking online and connecting with people you know in a business capacity and also connecting to people that you may want to do business with in the future.

Here is how it works:

First you set your profile up, listing where you went to school and university, and all or some of your places of work. Write a profile about what you do and what your areas of expertise are, and then start connecting with people.

You can search for people to connect with by:

• Education (people who went to the same university at the same time as you)
• Employment (existing and former colleagues)
• Name (people you might know from the business community)

Once you have started populating your profile with connections the platform will start suggesting people you might know who are already registered, but this changes weekly so check on a regular basis to make sure you don’t miss someone who you would like to connect with.

By building your connections up you can begin to see who your own connections are themselves connected to, and you can then invite their connections to link with you in turn. 

If you see someone that you don’t know who is connected to a connection of yours, you can ask for an introduction from your connection.

One of the benefits of LinkedIn is that it’s a great way to get a short professional history on a person you are about to meet, or have just met. Also if you meet someone and have a brief conversation, sometimes their profile on LinkedIn might influence you to encourage further contact in the future.

You can follow Companies on LinkedIn as they can set up their own profiles and LinkedIn will tell you whether any of your connections have links within the company which can be very useful. Many companies use LinkedIn to advertise jobs, and recruitment consultants frequently use LinkedIn to headhunt for positions.

You can advertise your own services through LinkedIn by updating your status, or you can have your Twitter updates coming through your LinkedIn page.

You can also join or start discussion groups on LinkedIn and invite people to join. This gives you the ability to look for partners to work with, or join a discussion group that might benefit from your services. It’s also a great way of finding out about events, learning new information and keeping up with what is happening.

The service is free to a certain level and you can pay for additional services, but the majority of people only subscribe to the free service and this is more than satisfactory for most individuals.

LinkedIn lends itself to business professionals and also consultants but is not exclusively geared to their needs, as if you owned a business that offered corporate hospitality or other appropriate services then LinkedIn may be appropriate to you too.

For more information on starting and growing a business contact NBSL on 01670 813322 and visit the website at www.nbsl.org.uk