This is another one best practice to do on a regular basis. I had the misfortune of losing my original LinkedIn account and I lost over 180 recommendations. I had backed up my contacts and my summary but not my recommendations. The reason I hadn’t done that is because I wasn’t aware that you could do that. So one silver lining in my losing my original LinkedIn account is that I learned that you CAN back up your recommendations and I can now share that with you

Please watch this short video on how to back up your profile and your recommendations.

I received the following question today:
There is a group on LinkedIn that I would like to “take over” It is an Alumni group in San Diego. I am the current President and we want to use to promote alumni events. The person who set it up has not posted in over a year and they probably won’t care.
Is there a way I can find out who set it up or who is the admin and contact them?
Can they add me as an admin like you can on FB?
Or, can they just give me ownership of the group so I can post, grow it, etc?

The answer to all three questions is YES, YES & YES.
This video shows you how to do it.

One reason why LinkedIn is a place where many executives have a presence is because it is relatively more difficult for spammers to send their pitches. This is because you’re limited to sending messages to 50 people at one time. So if you have a large number of contacts, sending a message to all of them is very time intensive.

While the 50 people limitation is great for reducing spam, it is also a major hindrance when you have legitimate messages that you would like to send to your contacts. One way to make it easier for you to send RELEVANT messages to large numbers of contacts is to tag them and create groups of 50 people each.

For example, I currently have over 350 contacts in the San Diego area. I’m teaching a free LinkedIn seminar at a local venue later this month. Please watch the video below to see what a difference tagging makes.

Updating your status on LinkedIn can both help and hurt you on LinkedIn. Used properly, they can be a very powerful component of your LinkedIn strategy. On this post I’ll focus on how they can help you.

Your updates should be used to increase your and/or your network’s Visibility / Credibility. You can also use the updates to promote – as long as they are subtle! Remember that people on LinkedIn want primarily relevant information and connections. They don’t want to be sold!

I recently posted that I had booked a presentation while traveling abroad to the U.K. (I live in San Diego, CA.) My main purspose with this update was to increase my credibility as an International Speaker. However, I also got an unexpected bonus – see below:

I had recently connected with this person on LinkedIn and thanks to my post we started a conversation and we are now likely to meet face-to-face in a few weeks.

This is the magic of integrating online and offline networking

Sometimes you want to make changes to your LinkedIn profile and you don’t want these changes broadcasted to your network. There’s an easy solution for this. Please watch the short video below that shows you exactly what you need to do.

This is one of the questions I often get asked in my LinkedIn presentations. I believe I qualify to answer your question since I’m making a six figure income from using LinkedIn. The first thing that people need to understand is that LinkedIn is a relationship channel vs. a sales channel. One of the questions I get asked during my presentations is: How can I get my information to all my LinkedIn connections? These people still are seeing LinkedIn as a sales channel. They must have a new perspective if they will ever make money using LinkedIn.

To make money on LinkedIn you first must accumulate two currencies:
1- Trust/Credibility
2- Goodwill

It is similar to a checking account. You first must make deposits before you can write checks against those deposits.

Once you have accumulated sufficient quantities of those two currencies, you’ll be able to capitalize on the main benefit that LinkedIn offers: Access to the people you want to meet. This access is granted together with the credibility of the person(s) facilitating the introduction. This replaces the cold call and turns it into a personal introduction. If you get a personal introduction from a credible source to the right person, a sale will take place.

Of course accumulating credibility and goodwill takes time. And many people want instant gratification.

To use a metaphor for how to make LinkedIn work, think of of the Bamboo plant. It is the fastest growing plant in the world – growing up to 3 fee in one day! However that same plant takes 2-3 years before it comes out from underneath the soil. It takes 2-3 years of setting up and building a root system that will support such rapid growth when it finally happens.

So on LinkedIn you must build your infrastructure (roots) before you can capitalize on what it offers.

To do this you must have three elements in place:
1- An effective profile
2- A wide,deep and diverse network
3- Participate in the LinkedIn community – Groups, Q&A and status updates.

I received the following question today:

“Is there any way to do an advanced search while you are looking at a connection’s connections. I am trying to target my connection’s connections who are CEO’s, Partners, Owners, etc. A lot of my connections have 500+ connections, so I’m just trying to expedite the process and don’t know if that is even possible?”

From time to time you may want to find out who in your LinkedIn network has been promoted or changed jobs. Here’s an easy way to find out.

There are several reasons why you may want to withdraw a LinkedIn invitation. It may be that you sent one out by mistake. Or perhaps you changed your mind about connecting with someone. The following video shows you how to easily withdrawing an invitation that has yet to be accepted.

You can organize and group your LinkedIn connections for easy retrieval and to manage your communications. This video shows you how to do this.