Linkedin.com is a website for individuals wanting to do a variety of different things. You can search for businesses or search for individuals and you can interact with them too through different features of the website. You can also find what jobs are available in the area of your choice along with the job description, experience needed, and contact information. Linkedin is also a globally used website where any and all businesses can put their information on the site available for anyone to see.

They also made it available to search for “old classmates” or any and all possibilities for this category.

Another option is posting questions on the site where professionals have the ability to reply answers to them. This helps businesses have a relationship to their consumers or employers to their employees.

This site seems like an interesting site to work with in the professional field.

Culture, particularly in America, is increasingly dictated by online activity and interactions. I get so tired of hearing people talk about their Facebook wall activity or what Charlie Sheen just tweeted. While there is a lot of merit to social networking, it has spawned many problems. That’s another blog post though…what I want to discuss is LinkedIn. I personally enjoy LinkedIn and appreciate its vision and potential, but it’s hard for me to reconcile the arguable unprofessionalism of the familiar Myspace, Facebook and Twitter with the pushed professional “atmosphere” of LinkedIn. Can we really network professionally, get jobs and internships, meet business peers and even create leads based on one website? Traditionally, professional interaction is based on handshakes, golf outings and what kind of shoes you wear, not your Facebook profile.

I strongly believe that while this may cause many skeptical eyebrows to be raised today, it will make a lot of sense in the very near future. LinkedIn has been acclaimed for its success and I personally know people who have been hired based on initial contact through LinkedIn. Monster is great for job searching, but LinkedIn takes their model a step further by being great for people searching…which sounds a lot like networking! Looking toward the future is how great organizations are born. Founded in just 2002, the site has over 90 million members and was recently rated #24 in FastCompany.com’s list of the Fifty Most Innovative Companies, ahead of Amazon and right behind eBay. Wow.

Internet Entrepreneurship is all about finding the next big thing, and I strongly believe that LinkedIn is just that for the young and soon-to-be professionals of the world.

Reid Hoffman

Google “Reid Hoffman” and you might be surprised to discover that not only is he the CEO and founder of LinkedIn, but he is on the Board of Directors for Kiva.org.

Not surprisingly, Hoffman was named as one of the “Top 50 People Who Matter” by CNN Money.  It’s not his undergraduate degree from Stanford, his graduate degree from Oxford, or his Board level position at Mozilla, Facebook, Technorati, and Six Apart that matters the most however.(though a resume like that is sure to weather even the worst economic downturn!) To exactly 449 people across the world, Reid Hoffman is an answer to prayer – empowering them with a small loan to lift themselves and their family out of poverty.

Fazil Khuseinov

One of Hoffman’s first loans was to a man named Fazil Khuseinov from Baku, Azerbaijan.  Fazil is a Displaced Person from the occupied Agdam district of Azerbaijan. He fled to Baku in 1993. He is married, and has two children. He started his business in 2001.  On April 26, 2007, Hoffman loaned Fazil $1,200 (through Kiva) to expand his textile business.  The 12-month loan has been repaid in full, and since then, Hoffman’s generosity has been recycled time and time again.

Reid Hoffman loans because, ” We should approach the future with hope and optimism. Entrepreneurship helps build our future. Help good people; it improves the world.”

Why do you loan? check out www.kiva.org

Currently, there are a limitted number of LinkedIn applications, some of which include a reading list by Amazon, blog linking applications, file/document collaborating applications, slideshow applications, as well as a couple others.  There may be a benefit to using these applications, but how would you use them to make your LinkedIn profile more appealing.

There are many reasons that LinkedIn applications have not made a buzz in the online world.  First of all, LinkedIn was one of the last popular social media website to adobt an application development program.  Second, the applications have to be approved by LinkedIn and have too demonstrate a “clearly compelling value.”  Some people may have a great idea for an application that niche markets may be able to use.  Judging from the list of available applications, LinkedIn will not approve applications that fill a niche market…it will only approve those capable to add value to all users.

MoreLinkedIn applications may bring in more users with different needs, but how can we use the current applications to improve our profiles?  Jason Alba suggests a brilliant idea of using a slideshow application.  He suggests that we create a slideshow focused just on you.  Make the slideshow to compliment your profile and attract viewers to your page.

I gathered some tips and ways to take your LinkedIn profile up a level. Here are a few of them…

1.  Change the standard URL from linkedin.com/in/13?3a&3d  to a “vanity URL” so instead change it to this style: linkedin.com/in/blakeimeson This will allow you to rank for your name in the SERPs.

2. Use keywords you want to show up in LinkedIn search results for. Use these keywords naturally in your “summary” and list them in your “specialties”.

3. Great tips from Chris Brogan: For your summary…

• Lead with what I do most.
• Lead with the type of business I want to do.
• Move into the reasons why you’d do business with me.
• Move from there into all the nuances of what I do.

4. Put your LinkedIn URL in your email and forum signatures…

Cross-posted > Finish reading at blakeimeson.com -21 LinkedIn Hacks, Tricks and Ways to Make Your Profile Better

In today’s age, there seems to be such a large desire to be able to communicate with anyone at the drop of a hat. With facebook taking over the younger generations, this leaves older folk wanting something for themselves. Of course why would they want something that merely serves as a form of communication though, when they can use so many facets of the internet to help them out.

This is where LinkedIn comes into play. This website is like other job search websites in that it is an easy way for employers to find employees, but it offers so much more. You are able to connect with others that you may know, and the more people you know, the more job opportunities are available to you. At the same time though, you are able to communicate in many of the same ways as are offered by facebook.

This is a much more practical social networking website for older generations, and I predict it will become much more commonly used in the near future.