Linkedin.com is a professional networking site. Think of it as where you go after Facebook. Or if you’ve never heard of Facebook, think of it as an online, ongoing networking event. Most of the people I know who have joined LinkedIn, including me, have then sat there staring at the screen saying, “now what?” Part of that had to do with early adopters being presented with few options other than job hunting. Now that’s all changing, and LinkedIn has a variety of new tools for ongoing business networking.

One of the issues with LinkedIn, is that it does require you to understand the basic value of networking. As bizarre as it may seem, I’m actually quite bad at it — except online. So LinkedIn has presented me with a challenge up until they started having the new “Answers” area. Now I get it. Now I can see what questions other people have and engage them in conversation. That, I’m good at. The new Firefox and Outlook plugins that now let you see how you are connected to the people who email you, is adding a whole new interesting social networking element.

I also find that just seeing how other people choose to present themselves professionally on a site like this is helpful. How do they describe their jobs? What interests, both personal and professional, do they post? Who else do they know? How many contacts do they have? Can they possibly know all of those people or are they just big LinkedIn whores? I also like seeing who’s hiring and what the jobs are. It’s not that I’m looking, but that I like to see what’s happening and what kind of jobs are developing. As someone who spends a lot of time looking at information and analyzing trends — you’d be amazed (or not) at how much you can learn about a company or industry by who and what they are hiring.

So dive in and get started on LinkedIn.com. Give yourself time to get over the “now what” phase, and see what you can do. If nothing else, it’s a great way to establish a professional presence online.

[tags]linkedin, networking, professional, b2b, business, social media[/tags]