Some of you may have been directed from Getting the most out of LinkedIn, if so, thanks for sticking with me.

For those who have just joined us, this section is a quick guide on how to use LinkedIn effectively once you’ve got you’re profile and everything else set up. Even if you have it may be worth having a quick glance just to see if you’ve already done everything. Don’t worry, it’s pretty much all in bullet-points.

LinkedIn. Now what?

There’s quite a bit going on in LinkedIn, more than it immediately appears as some of the really useful features are tucked away.

I’ll go through the majority of things for you but as is my style, I’ll only go into them briefly so the points I’m trying to make aren’t lost. Now see the menu bar at the top? We’re heading there. I’ll point out the navigation to certain areas from there. Onwards…

LinkedIn Answers

MORE > ANSWERS

This is probably my favourite part of LinkedIn. Be warned, it’s very easy to get addicted to it and spend far too much time here. You shouldn’t have any trouble finding your way around here. What you should be starting with is the ‘Ask a Question’ box, and the advanced answers search.

Asking Questions

1. Put a short question here, and then hit next
2. Clarify your question. make sure other people can make sense of it
3. Add relevant categories. It can be removed if it isn’t
4. Make sure it’s not recruiting, promoting or job seeking. Sometimes a grey area if you’re asking for advice about one of those things.
5. Ask your question
6. If you like, send it to your contacts. I prefer to just open it to everyone.

That’s it. With any luck you’ll start to receive useful responses and maybe a tiny bit of spam.

Your question will then be open for 7 days (you can extend this) at which point it is closed. You then have the option to choose a best answer, several good answers or just be done with it. Good etiquette to award people with good/best answers if you feel they’ve earned it.

Answering Questions

Right, haul yourself over to ‘Advanced Answers Search’, it’s to the right of ‘Answers Home’. Here you can perform searches for certain questions by keyword or category. If you’re a true Renaissance man you can just hit search and it will return everything. If you’re gunning for those expertise points try ticking the ‘Show only unanswered questions’.

Alternatively, subscribe to individual category RSS feeds and let them come to you. You can do this by going to the Answers home page and selecting a category on the right-hand side and you’ll spot it, again on the right-hand side.

Expertise Points?

Glad you asked. You can earn expertise by answering questions with helpful, considered answers. You’ll notice this when you start taking part yourself.

My Q&A

Here you can see which questions you’ve asked, and those you’ve answered. If stats are your thing there’s a mini display on the right-hand side.

Some answers to Q&A FAQs

– You can ask 10 questions per month
– Answer 50 questions per day
– Yes, the system is open to abuse but your professional reputation is at stake
– You can clarify a question you posted but not directly edit one
– You can’t delete it either, but you can close it.
– You can delete your answers and you can clarify them

Skills

MORE > SKILLS

Still in beta, this tool is to enable you to list all your skills. Admit it, we all have things we occasionally forget about and this is quite good at jogging your memory. As you search for skills it suggests new ones, lists related companies, jobs, groups and people. Neat.

Applications

MORE > GET MORE APPLICATIONS…

This feels as though it hasn’t really taken off all that well. There’s only a handful to choose from, but there again that is maybe a good thing. The Behance.net Creative Portfolio Display is quite good.

Companies

Here you can search for various companies and see a list of any you’re affiliated with. Find companies that interest you and follow them if you so wish.

Groups

Another great feature is the groups. Some have privacy settings enabled so you may have to submit a request to join. Useful to keep the riff-raff out.

Check for alumni groups and other professional groups, sign-up and get involved. it’s not simply enough just to have the badge on your profile, you should be really taking part. It’s quite fun. Share an interesting piece of news or ask for some feedback on a project.

You’ve Forgotten Something

Well I really just skipped a few things. There’s enough to keep you going for quite some time. I can suggest that you check out the jobs section, though currently the number of geographic areas where the jobs are based seem to be focussed around major and capital cities. I’m sure this will change in future.

Have a poke around and see what you can find.

With all the multiple different Social Media networks out there you may decide to skip some of them, particularly if you’re not sure about how they can help you. Well LinkedIn can help you. People have different thoughts about it, and many creatives and designers avoid it because they don’t see it as creative enough for them.

It’s all down to how you use it. I’m a designer and marketer myself and I’m addicted to it. It’s not stuffy and there’s plenty of ways it can help you at various stages of your career.

Getting Started

Right the, first things first you need an account:

1. Sign-up, use your real full name
2. You can add more than one email address to an account so why not add them all
3. Complete your profile (something which puts people off) as fully as possible with relevant entries
4. Add a professional picture. Creatives may be allowed some artistic license but it has to be representative of you
5. Add a summary to really sell yourself
6. Add your skills
7. Import your contacts with whom you want to connect
8. Search for other people you know
9. Join the immediately relevant groups (e.g. Alumni, organisations etc. that you’re a member of in real life)

Self-employed? Freelancer? Company owner?

“I’m a freelancer, what should I put as ‘company’ in my LinkedIn profile?”
I hear you. At the time of writing LinkedIn doesn’t include a sensible way for you say that you’re either self-employed or a Freelancer. As a result you’ll see profiles with things like ‘SOMEONE working as a freelancer at self-employed.’

Not ideal. If you have a assumed name you work under you may want to include that. I just use my URL so I’m a ‘Designer & Marketer at www.jeffreydriver.co.uk’ A nice simple work-around and it gives a little extra promotion.

Also if you’re doing your own thing you have a little more work to do…

LinkedIn company pages

1. Company pages, search for your company (you have to do it this way) when it doesn’t show up you have the option of creating a company page. Do it
2. Complete all your fields. There’s a lot to do here I’m afraid, but it’s worth doing
3. Add your product highlights. This is great and you’re allowed three of these. Add images with links to the rotating banner display
4. Connect twitter account if you use one

Ok, I’m done. Now what?

At this point I’d suggest going through everything you’ve added and start editing and tweaking. Make sure that it all represents you in the best way possible, go through all your settings and make sure everything is how you want it. thought of someone you forgot about? Add them.

Now, before you read about how to get the most out of LinkedIn, go and put the kettle on, you’ve probably earned it. When you’ve finished your biscuit, go here…

As a freelancer myself I know how much you can miss having other creative minds around you to bounce ideas off when designing. This is where Social Media can help you out. It can be a pain to keep track of many Social Media channels, but there are some that are specifically geared towards professionals and creatives, and so it’s worth having a presence on the ones that are relevant to you.

DeviantArt

http://www.deviantart.com/

A very active site for creatives. All creative fields are accepted so pretty much anything goes, which is one of its downsides. Worth having a look, particularly for someone whose works covers lots of different fields.

PROS
– Large, friendly community
– People actively ‘like’ and comment of work
– All types of work are submitted
– You can sell you work

CONS
– There’s a lot of unprofessional work on there
– It feels as though the average age is quite a bit younger than your ideal audience
– There is also quite a lot of work which isn’t SFW (safe for work), and I’m not talking about artistic / tasteful nudes, but rather just pure exhibitionism. As a result I don’t use it anymore, and don’t recommend it for any serious creative.

iStock Photo

http://www.istockphoto.com

Despite the name they actually accept quite a few types of work, photography, illustration(vector), video, audio and Flash. This isn’t really a showcase for your work, it’s so you can make some money. You don’t make much per sale, a few cents, but they can add up.

PROS
– High quality work is only allowed, everything is vetted first
– They will accept submissions for different types of work
– They have affiliate programmes with other sites to promote your work further.

CONS
– Payments aren’t huge, especially after you convert it to sterling
– Submissions process is a bit longer than it should be
– Be prepared to have some good work rejected, great for quality control but annoying if you’ve spent ages submitting work.

Behance

http://www.behance.net

Another professional site, although this doesn’t seem to have such a big audience. In fact I only found it through LinkedIn as they have a useful app that allows me to show my design work on my profile.

PROS
– Lots of high-quality work which is great for inspiration
– All types of work is allowed
– Highly customisable

CONS
– Doesn’t seem to have a huge user base
– The upload system is quite a long process

LinkedIn

Ok, this isn’t one you would normally associate with design or other creative field, but it’s very useful none-the-less. At first it can be a little daunting, wondering what to do once you’re signed-up. Once you get really involved I can assure you it’s addictive.

This is meant for professionals, and it’s all about networking. Not really customisable in any meaningful way, you should get involved in the Answers and Groups sections.

PROS
– This is really a good way to promote yourself
– Just aimed at professionals
– Spam etc. is really at a minimum

CONS
– There’s a lot going on, this could be a full-time job in itself
– Some of the paid features are, in my opinion, slightly over-priced.

So what else is there?

Of course there’s other sites available, including some of the more common ones (Flickr, Tumblr, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter) but for now I’m going to assume that you’re familiar with those, and I’ll write about each of them in detail some other time.

And what about Google+? Well I thought about adding it but to be honest I’m not sure if it’s going to take off, but I’ll keep an eye on it.