work smarter with linkedin

by Alexandra Samuel

If you think LinkedIn is just for job hunting, you’re missing out on the many ways you can take advantage of this social network to build the professional relationships you need to advance in your career. LinkedIn can help you initiate, strengthen, and use the very real human connections that make you effective on the job—and help you get ahead. This short, practical book shows you how.

In Work Smarter with LinkedIn , social media expert Alexandra Samuel demonstrates the most effective ways to actively build and use your network, sharing tips and tricks

• Deciding which connection invitations to accept
• Searching for potential connections when you need to establish a new contact
• Using business travel to make the most of face time with colleagues and contacts
• Capturing all the connections you’ve made at a conference
• When not to use LinkedIn

The book also includes a 30-minute quick guide to starting—or perfecting—your LinkedIn profile.

Interested in learning more about how social media can help you get ahead of your daily work—and get ahead in your career? Look for more in this series of short, digital books from Harvard Business Review Press and social media expert Alexandra Samuel. Other installments provide the best tips and tricks for using tools like Evernote, Twitter, HootSuite, and Gmail to get organized and improve your performance on the job.

Unknown Binding

First published June 25, 2013

About the author

ALEXANDRA SAMUEL is a tech speaker and data journalist who has worked remotely for most of her 25-year career. The co-founder of pioneering social media agency Social Signal, Samuel creates digital content and workshops for companies like Discovery and Sprinklr. Her writing on digital productivity appears frequently in the Wall Street Journal and Harvard Business Review, and she is the tech columnist for JSTOR Daily. She holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University, and lives in Vancouver, Canada. She is the author of Remote, Inc.: How to Thrive At Work...Wherever You Are (Harper Business) and Work Smarter with Social Media (Harvard Business Review Press).

Reviews

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

LinkedIn is not another social media tool and if you treat it like it is, then the result will be just another overloaded inbox with messages of limited value. Like all other sites, there will be people that want to connect to you just to increment their tally of connections with no major purpose behind it. However, if you are selective in the people and groups that you connect to, it can be a valuable to get your professional messages out. In this book, Samuel show you how to get started using LinkedIn to your advantage.
It all starts with the belief that your presence on LinkedIn is your online resume and so you must keep it updated and accurate. By adding material to it on a regular basis you not only show your skills but your followers can also see that you are engaged in doing new things.
However, the real key in maximizing the value you get from LinkedIn is in the quality of your connections. Simply adding a connection because you can is detrimental rather than beneficial. Similarly with endorsements, if someone endorses you for a skill that it doesn’t appear that you have then it looks like a tit for tat endorsement agreement. One or two high quality connections that can legitimately vouch for you can be all the value you ever need to get from being on the site.
While there is a lot of information in this book, it should be considered a primer as the novice can understand it and the starting point is the very beginning of a LinkedIn presence. The last section is called The Quick Thirty-Minute LinkedIn Setup and will get you going on the right foot.

This book was made available for free for review purposes and this review appears on Amazon.

[Ari · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great resource

Great practical ideas on how to effectively use LinkedIn in simple and easy to follow language. A short read that provides excellent guidance on mastering LinkedIn and setting up a profile.