A friend Shani Lee asked me directly today “How do you use LinkedIn? What do you see as the benefits?”

So here are 10 of them:

1. LinkedIn is considered a “business” network, that is to say, formal and corporate to some extent, the platform has kudos in that world, it is considered a “serious” medium for networking.
2. LinkedIn allows me to obtain recommendations for my work, which is then laid out professionally on my profile.
3. LinkedIn allows me to “clean-up” a mailing list (see below)
4. LinkedIn is low maintenance, I need very little time to devote to it.
5. LinkedIn allows me to export my contacts for use in other applications.
6. LinkedIn opens me up to a very large network (only work related), some of whom are seeking my services, or my recommendation of another person.
7. LinkedIn has no “social clutter” or annoying applications.
8. LinkedIn enables me to seek opinion in a business context quickly.
9. LinkedIn can be the first line in “breaking the ice” on a new contact
10. LinkedIn is a CV in a URL

One of my favourite aspects is number 3, where I can “clean-up” a mailing list. I’ve worked online in various capacities for about 10 years and one of the things I have always done (you should too) is to build up your mailing lists. I have built a mailing list for almost every project I have been involved with, this is essential as that’s the method for pulling them back to your content time and time again. I probably have around 100,000 email addresses in one form or another I’ve collected over the years.

LinkedIn then, allows me to import a list of contents and will find out if any of those email addresses are LinkedIn users. This is brilliant as I can friend a contact (stating how we contacted each other initially) and I can then export a clean fresh list for other purposes.

How do you use LinkedIn yourself, what have I missed here?

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Gmail Tip

You might not be aware of this (I wasn’t until recently).

You can use your gmail username with a + after it with absolutely anything and you’ll still get the email.

You what?

Yep, for example my username is “chambly”, so I could let’s say use chambly+disposable@gmail.com and I’d still get the email.

Or chambly+yahoosignup@gmail.com and I’d get the email still.

Why is this so cool?

Well you can use different combinations for different contacts you may meet, say +business, +friends, or say +spam if you want to sign up to a site but fear spam. You can then set up filters in gmail to filter your mail based on the +whatever, keeping you very organised and your precious username lean.

I love that tip, think it's handy yourself?

Technorati Tags: business contacts friends gmail google mail spam tip mail tip gmail google spam contacts business friends