Creating an Online Identity - Part II

I recently created an account on a Professional Networking site called LinkedIn.com (http://www.linkedin.com/). Membership is free and entirely voluntary on the part of subscribers. A couple of coworkers told me about LinkedIn and encouraged me to join. So I signed up on LinkedIn and started to add several connections and contacts. During that time, I began to understand the site's real value to any prospective or working professional. Unlike many typical social networking sites, LinkedIn is geared entirely toward working professionals. LinkedIn may be used for any of the following purposes:

• Business deals
• Career opportunities
• Consulting offers
• Expertise requests
• Job inquiries
• New ventures
• Personal reference requests
• Requests to reconnect

The way LinkedIn works is by creating an account and generating a profile. While establishing a profile, the account holder decides what information to share, and which information is available to the public. The next steps involve adding "Connections" to the profile by sending and/or receiving requests to join a network of professional contacts. The network request completion process requires approval by the person receiving the invitation to join the network. Until accepted, only the public profile is displayed, and both email addresses remain hidden. This helps prevent spammers from collecting email addresses on the LinkedIn site, which is a good method for protecting sensitive subscriber information.

After adding connections for a couple of weeks, I am surprised by how fast my professional network grew. LinkedIn allows subscribers the ability to keep their name out in educational, professional, and public circles. In addition, subscribers can ask and answer questions amongst other professionals, find new business and job opportunities, or get back in touch with old classmates and colleagues, coworkers, and friends. LinkedIn supports group areas for past and present members of educational institutions, geographical region associations, special interest groups, and workplace affiliations to connect and interact. If the desire or need to contact an individual or organization arises, having a direct or indirect contact, through network connections, to that person or organization is a huge competitive advantage for any purpose.

LinkedIn is a wonderful resource for all professionals, and offers a bevy of useful tools and unlimited possibilities. Creating a LinkedIn account is well worth the time investment. For the aforementioned reasons, I made LinkedIn my first step in establishing my online identity.