Small Business

33 Ways to Use LinkedIn More Effectively

By Rick Broida

Updated on: July 21, 2009 / 12:45 PM EDT / MoneyWatch

We've talked a lot about how you can use Facebook as business tool and Twitter as a business tool, but what about LinkedIn -- you know, the social-networking service that was actually built with business users in mind?

Over at Web Worker Daily, you'll find 33 tips for using LinkedIn to find jobs, sell products, score some free publicity, and more. Here's an excerpt:

Publish your LinkedIn URL on all your marketing collateral, including business cards, email signature, email newsletters, web sites and brochures, so prospects learn more about you.
Grow your network by joining industry and alumni groups related to your business.
Update your status examples of recent work.
Link your status updates with your other social media accounts.

I'll admit that my LinkedIn account's been sitting dormant for a while now, meaning I'm probably missing out on some potential leads, blog traffic, etc. It's probably worth spending 10-15 minutes following some of the author's tips.

What about you? Have you been leveraging LinkedIn to its fullest, or do you think it's not worth the Web page it's printed on? Share your thoughts in the comments.