I get asked a lot about LinkedIn for students use-case scenarios, and although this post is originally based on how I would have responded sometime ago, my college-age niece recently asking me this question reminded me that I should have an answer revised for the times. You can find more details in my podcast, which…
5 Things to Keep in Mind to Use LinkedIn as a Blogging Platform
Blogging is one of the best ways to showcase your expertise and spread the word about your business. It is a great way to connect with your target audience and engage them in what you do, creating strong relationships with them and effectively converting them into loyal customers. If you already run a blog, then…
5 Ways Your Business Should Be Maximizing Your LinkedIn
If you’re overlooking LinkedIn, your business is ignoring the second-largest social network. That’s right, some data suggests that LinkedIn actually has more dedicated users than Twitter. Whether you are seeking introductions to decision makers or more clients for your business, LinkedIn can help you get there, but only if you use it right. Overhaul your LinkedIn…
Why It’s Time to Prune Your LinkedIn Connections – Podcast Ep. 114
When I first started speaking and blogging about social media, I focused on LinkedIn. But the platform has changed so much since the beginning, and of course our interactions and recommended use of it have evolved too. Today, I’m talking about pruning your LinkedIn connections. Not only is it important to comb through your current connections…
How to Use Slideshare for Personal Branding
Of all the underrated tools on the web, Slideshare is one of the biggest examples. For many who are hoping to promote, it is last on the list of helpful social dashboards. Yet, it offers a unique and effective way to increase the power of your social brand. The lack of oversaturation means your chances…
5 Tips to Create an Effective Slideshare Call-to-Action
Everything you put online should have some kind of brand-specific purpose. Even if it didn’t when you created it, it damn well better have it by the time you publish. At first glance, that might sound like cynical advice. It may also appear to fly in the face on conventional wisdom, that all content should…
A Detailed Guide to Using Slideshare Analytics
Slideshare has become a staple of content creation in recent years. The ability to impart information quickly, in a visual way that appeals to how humans think and recall that information, is fantastic. Where slideshow presentations used to be a tool with a limited user base, it can now be used by anyone, for anything….
7 Reasons Why LinkedIn Should Become Your New CRM – Podcast Ep. 99
Many companies invest in using a customer relationship management tool, or CRM, such as Salesforce. But there’s a free tool at your fingertips that you need to take advantage of: LinkedIn. LinkedIn has plenty of functions like searching and tagging that allow you to keep track of and maintain your professional relationships, sometimes better than…
How To Use SlideShare For Content Repackaging
Content repackaging is the number one content strategy that not enough people are using. I know this, because I have too many fellow bloggers, marketers and website owners who have never even tried it. Instead, they constantly beat their heads against the wall as they try to come up with fresh content constantly. But our…
The Anatomy Of A Great SlideShare Deck
Creating the perfect SlideShare slide is more than a skill, it is an art. Your goal is to make sure every slide is crafted just the right way because the whole of the presentation depends on the strength of its parts. Breaking down SlideShare slides, you can start to find a winning formula that will help…
LinkedIn Publishing Platform Tips: Should I Republish My Blog Content on LinkedIn? – Podcast Ep. 90
Now that you see the value in publishing on LinkedIn, should you simply republish your blog’s content on LinkedIn? Or …? It’s time to take into consideration your target audience, the potential traffic to your website, conversions, and how search engines will process duplicate content. Once people are on your website, you all need to…
7 Ways to Promote Your Slideshare Presentation
Slideshare is the largest Powerpoint sharing community on the web, but it is so much more than that. It is also a social network, and a platform for marketing visual content in many different forms – which means Slideshare an essential part of a solid social media strategy. Presentations can be both hosted and noticed there,…
3 Free Tools to Create an Awesome SlideShare Presentation
Last month I was sharing some Slideshare content ideas including re-packaging screenshots, collecting quotes, curating content and re-using your presentations from events you are visiting. This time let’s share some tools that will make a presentation creation a breeze! First of all, a few words about PowerPoint which I am not including into the list…
5 Tips for Awesome Slideshare Content Inspiration
Slideshare is a great (content) marketing platform but since it’s mostly about sharing presentations, many people shy away from marketing there. I am starting Slideshare series here, at Maximize Social Business, giving you lots of tips on how to quite easily add Slideshare to your content marketing plan and even become a superstar there. Yes,…
It’s time to Ctrl-Alt-Delete How You View LinkedIn – Podcast Ep. 75
Before I blogged at Maximize Social Business, I had a blog called Windmill Networking, and before that blog, I had a WordPress blog called Expert Answers to your Linkedin Questions which was launched through Linkedin. A lot of people know me as the Linkedin guy, but I don’t want to be a one trick pony,…
How to Use the LinkedIn Publishing Platform
Today I was finally given access to the new LinkedIn publishing platform, and as a result published my first post on the new platform in the same day entitled “How Will YOU Use the LinkedIn Publishing Platform?” To all those who have asked me how they can apply to be an Influencer on LinkedIn, the…
The Ultimate LinkedIn Profile Summary Tips [Infographic]
![The Ultimate LinkedIn Profile Summary Tips [Infographic]](https://nealschaffer.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/The-Ultimate-LinkedIn-Profile-Tips-Summary-Infographic-8-Stats-1200x630-V2.jpg "The Ultimate LinkedIn Profile Summary Tips [Infographic]")
It’s been a few months since I wrote my popular Professional LinkedIn Profile Tips: A Checklist of 17 Must-Have Items post, and since we have all seen the growing importance of visual social media, I wanted to offer my readers an easy way to compare their own profile with what I call the perfect LinkedIn profile…
Professional LinkedIn Profile Tips: A Checklist of 17 Must-Have Items
LinkedIn continues to evolve at a fast pace – but is your profile still stuck in pre-2013 times? I’ve blogged about LinkedIn profile mistakes as well as LinkedIn profile inbound marketing tips. It’s time to provide you all an update aligned with all of LinkedIn’s changes to help you create the perfect professional LinkedIn profile. Consider…
How to Use LinkedIn to Boost Your Real Estate Business
With more than 187 million members across 200 countries, LinkedIn has changed the way real estate professionals do business. Initially viewed as an online resume, LinkedIn is now thought to be the online social site for business professionals to connect, network and engage. Ready to get started, but don’t know how? Check out my top five…
8 Ways to Make LinkedIn Endorsements Work for You and Your Network
LinkedIn Endorsements. Nothing in the history of LinkedIn has created so much “buzz” in the online community as this newest feature. For those who know me, you’ll appreciate my perspective: 1) I don’t tend to waste time voicing a positive or negative opinion of the changes – they are what they are, and this is LinkedIn…
Using LinkedIn as a Social Recruiting Tool
LinkedIn is the largest network of business professionals in the Western world. Its impact on the recruiting landscape has been pronounced, but to what extent can it contribute to your social recruiting strategy? That’s the question we look to address in this, the fourth of our series on social recruiting. Regular readers will recall that…
8 Creative LinkedIn Profile Tips to Help You Maximize Your LinkedIn Presence
Considering that LinkedIn profiles are the most viewed pages on LinkedIn, and your profile page really is every professional’s starting place to claim and create their own professional brand, you should be regularly reviewing your LinkedIn profile to see how you can optimize it with every user interface change. With that in mind, here are…
LinkedIn Group Moderation Rules: 5 Steps to Managing a Successful Community!
I always say that LinkedIn Groups are the biggest public forums for professionals on the Internet, because they are! Where else can you find more than one million groups, with the largest one “Job Openings, Job Leads, and Job Connections!” having more than 900,000 members! The potential for professional networking – and developing business –…
5 Strategic Tips for Creating a Killer LinkedIn Company Page
Due to the professional demographic of LinkedIn, it’s only a matter of time before more businesses leverage the professional opportunities available by searching for products and services through LinkedIn Company Pages. It is in every business owner’s best interest to ensure that his or her company be found prominently in the Company search results when…
Understanding the Difference between LinkedIn Company Pages and Facebook Fan Pages
LinkedIn Company Pages are actually a combination of a number of different modules that are rarely maximized by businesses. In order to better understand how your sales and marketing team can best maximize this multi-functional part of LinkedIn, it’s important to understand exactly what the Companies functionality offers. A good way to start is to compare…
5 Steps To Connect With People Outside Your Network On LinkedIn
Once you move beyond the generic “add connections” option that LinkedIn has, you might want to specifically search for and increase your connections with people aligned with whatever connection policy you might have. The challenge is that restrictions exist within LinkedIn that may prevent you from inviting others you don’t personally know. You are entitled…
10 Incredibly Simple Ways to Maximize Your LinkedIn Profile for Inbound Marketing
Your LinkedIn profile is the public-facing summary of who you are, what you represent, what your professional history is, and your area of expertise. In essence, your profile is a snapshot of the brand you are sharing with the entire world. It’s only natural, then, that increasing the Inbound Marketing potential of our profile can…
4 Reasons Why LinkedIn (and not Facebook) Might be the Better Choice for Your Company
Successful social media marketing is about knowing where your customers are and establishing a presence there. It is clear that professionals from all demographics are spending a great deal of time with social media, and that Facebook is the main networking site where we spend (or rather, waste) our time. However, simply because many people…
How I Developed Business on LinkedIn – a LinkedIn Case Study
In consulting with businesses on their social media strategy, I often use success stories from LinkedIn’s own blog to illustrate how business can be developed on LinkedIn. I also talk about my own success story, which is included in full detail in my new LinkedIn marketing book, and summarized as follows: As my job involves staying abreast…
Why I am No Longer a LinkedIn LION
Want to buy Facebook fans? Why not buy some Twitter followers to boot? There are companies that you can actually pay money to to achieve this. Nw there are companies not only selling LinkedIn connections, but also saying if you use them to create a LinkedIn Group, they will make sure it gets filled with…
LinkedIn Photo Advice : The Why, What and What Happened?
LinkedIn, like any other social media channel, is a social networking platform. This means that people are networking with each other while revealing who they are and what they do. LinkedIn reminds you to do this when you log in by making sure your profile is 100% complete. Part of getting to 100% completion is…
LinkedIn Account Restricted? Here’s Why. Hint: You May Have Been Too Active on LinkedIn!
Is your LinkedIn account restricted? You’re not alone – a look through the comments of this post will give you an idea as to the issues that others like you are facing. Feel free to read through this article, then pay close attention to the comments to see if there is someone similar to you…
LinkedIn Referral Requests: 3 Bits of Advice for Handling a LinkedIn Introduction Request from Someone You Don’t Know Well
As you get more comfortable with using LinkedIn, the day may come when you start connecting with other professionals that you may not know very well. I am not referring to becoming a LinkedIn LION or open networker, but connecting with people that you may have had a chance to meet at a networking event…
How Many LinkedIn Connections Should You Have? My Advice May Surprise You!
![How Many LinkedIn Connections Should You Have? My Advice May Surprise You! [VIDEO]](https://nealschaffer.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/How-Many-LinkedIn-Connections-Should-You-Have-My-Advice-May-Surprise-You-1200x630-V1.jpg "How Many LinkedIn Connections Should You Have? My Advice May Surprise You!")
LinkedIn is a very interesting social networking site. Many users say they only want to connect with people in their closed network, but unless that network is big enough, the benefits of using LinkedIn to find and be found become minimal. On the other hand, I find many users who don’t care about acquiring LinkedIn…
10 Things You Must Do for LinkedIn Profile Completeness
If you looked at 10 different LinkedIn profiles, you might see 10 different ways in which people have entered their details. For a social networking platform that is trying to standardize the way people depict themselves with their “xxx% profile completeness” status that appears when you edit your profile, the results have been surprisingly across…
12 Reasons Why Your Small Business Isn’t Getting Leads from LinkedIn
I am amazed by how many small businesses do not utilize social media to the maximum. Think about it: social media, like the internet two decades ago, allows any business to compete with larger, more established entities. Come on, what are you waiting for? What further amazes me is how few small businesses maximize their…
How Can I Merge Two LinkedIn Accounts into One?
LinkedIn has been around for many years now, and maybe some of you created an account in the early days of 2004 like I did and just forgot about it, including the password. Then, later on you created a second account. Or maybe you used your business email as your primary email address and no…
How Should I Deal with a LinkedIn Recommendation Request I Don’t Want to Give?
If it hasn’t happened to you yet, it will soon: the dreaded request for a LinkedIn Recommendation from a former co-worker or employee that you may not want to give one to. Why? Well, every time you make a recommendation, it appears on your profile and becomes part of your LinkedIn Brand. Perhaps you don’t…
6 Tips on LinkedIn for Recruiting: My Advice for Recruiters & Headhunters
I will start out this post by letting you know that I am not in any way nor have ever been a recruiter or a headhunter. While I have been a hiring manager for previous companies, my experience in being able to write this post comes from helping out many recruiters looking for candidates on…
What is LinkedIn and Why Should You Join?
I attended a great local networking event last night in my local Orange County, California. There were many people who I had communicated with on Twitter and finally had the chance to meet…the feeling was almost like seeing long lost friends! I will save Tweetups for another blog post, because what interested me last night were…
LinkedIn Profile Tips: The 10 Mistakes You Want to Avoid and Why
LinkedIn Profile Tips. A lot of people tell you what you should be doing, but what about what you shouldn’t be doing? LinkedIn is the place to not only find others but also to be found. And that is why you need a profile that not only helps you get found but also will entice…
LinkedIn Recommendations: Will You Write Me One?
Come on, I don’t really want you to write me one, but there has been unprecedented chatter about LinkedIn recommendations in blogging circles these days. And I want to put everything in perspective to confirm whether or not LinkedIn recommendations really have value. It was Jeremiah Owyang who started the debate. Jeremiah is a renowned web…
20 LinkedIn LIONs & Super Connectors You MUST Connect With!
There are many resources on the web for finding people to follow on Twitter. Just do a search for any particular type of person you want to follow (student entrepreneurs? job seeker advice? etc.) and chances are you will find a list. But why none for LinkedIn? Well, just as I have been the first…
LinkedIn Networking: 3 Ways to Find Great People to Connect With & Meet on LinkedIn
After networking with several great people over the last several days, which have in essence been conversations that seem more like a veritable cross-breeding of ideas, I believe that more and more people are starting to see the potential value of meeting new people on LinkedIn. Now, just because you are open to doing this…
LinkedIn Introductions: How Do I Ask for One?
LinkedIn Introductions are an integral part of the social networking platform. After all, LinkedIn has given us the ability to search for someone and see how we are connected to them, and it is with this information that we can request an Introduction from our connection just as we request a referral from a friend…
LinkedIn Business Tips: How Should I Sell to My Connections?
As more businesses realize the potential for finding new business on LinkedIn, I am amazed as to how companies are starting to look at social media as if it gives them the right to cold call and send what I would consider spam to anyone and everyone in LinkedIn. I wanted to go through some…
LinkedIn Branding Tips: Should I Indicate on My LinkedIn Profile Status Update That I am Unemployed?
Before I event start answering this question, I will tell you that I am going out on a limb on this one. I am going against what a lot of people are actually doing. You may think that I am crazy or just wrong, but my intention is only to help those that are unemployed…
How Much Would You Pay for 10,000 LinkedIn Connections?
I hope the title of this blog post did not shock you. No, I am not trying to sell you anything. But this is the question I have been asked twice now in the last month from a gentleman who is apparently living in Bulgaria who was not interested in selling his LinkedIn account, but…
More Thoughts on "Does My Employer Own My LinkedIn Profile?"
Since I posted about the topic of who owns what in social media from the perspective of an employee’s LinkedIn profile, I have been humbled by both the number of people visiting my blog as well as others that have re-tweeted about my blog on Twitter and elsewhere. Based on the comments I have received…
LinkedIn Group Etiquette: What are the Rules?
I have seen a growing interest in LinkedIn Groups from my networking contacts recently, and in addition to the common questions of What LinkedIn Groups Should I Join? and How to Use LinkedIn Groups Effectively?, there is a growing interest as to what the proper etiquette and best practices should be after joining a group….
My LinkedIn Profile: Does My Employer Own It?
The following story of LinkedIn Profile ownership is a true one, and as with my other blog posts, I am hoping to get your feedback as to what the “right” answer to this question should be. Imagine that you began a job as a recruiter. Part of your job is, obviously, building out a network….
How Can You Spot a Fake LinkedIn Profile?
This is actually a follow-up to a post I did recently on Are There Fake Profiles on LinkedIn? At that time I found proof of a few users with fake profiles that I shared with everyone. And I mentioned that those with fake profiles would create new ways of making us believe that they are…
LinkedIn Profile Name: Should I Use My Personal or Company Name?
LinkedIn, as you already know, is a social networking platform for professionals. It is no secret, then, that there is business to be found on LinkedIn for companies of many sizes and industries. If you are a small business owner, you may be confused as to whether you should use your company name or personal…
LinkedIn for Lawyers 101
I have had the opportunity to engage with many lawyers recently, both in person as well as online through LinkedIn, and the sudden interest in social media that they seem to have has been surprising to me. I had always envisioned the legal profession as more of an old-school, conservative group of people that would…
How Do I Set Up a Company Profile on LinkedIn?
I recently did a Twitter Chat for #smbiz on tips for utilizing LinkedIn for small business. You can find out more about what we discussed here, but since then I have been contacted by small businesses looking for advice on how to utilize LinkedIn. I decided to answer this particular question on my blog because…
Are LinkedIn Recommendations for Real?
I just got asked this from an old friend from elementary school (!), who I have been able to keep in better touch with thanks to Social Media, Facebook in particular. He, like many others, wonders what the real value in LinkedIn Recommendations are when there are a lot of “if your rub my back,…
LinkedIn for Politicians?
I had dinner last night with a publicly elected official from a large American city. I was impressed with his understanding of Social Media, and he had already created and implemented a strategy to utilize Facebook for political purposes. But what about LinkedIn? LinkedIn is still seen as being a boring, static medium when compared,…
LinkedIn Privacy Settings: How Do I Make a Private LinkedIn Profile?
I was a little confused when I received this question about LinkedIn privacy settings recently from a former colleague. I mean, LinkedIn is really about getting plugged-in to a huge database of professionals. Why would you want to be part of this huge network but not want anyone to see your profile? I suppose that…
Two Easy Ways to Disconnect and Delete a LinkedIn Connection
On Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks, it is very easy to “unfriend” someone. For some reason it is very difficult to figure out how to delete connections on LinkedIn. If you think about it, LinkedIn was originally intended to be a social network for professionals who only connected with people they know and trust….
How Do I Send a Complaint to LinkedIn?
Social media changes a lot. Some functionality is here today gone tomorrow. Your LinkedIn account might face restrictions today but I might never. Below is an incident detailing one of those incidents that happened to me several years ago but serves as an example of the never-ending changes that occur in social. The problem is…
Can You Sell Your LinkedIn Account?
The timing of my blog posts concerning monetizing your LinkedIn connections has to be coincidental, but yesterday, for the first time, I received an email (which was probably sent out to all of this person’s LinkedIn connections) which was an offering, in essence, to sell his LinkedIn account. He explained how he was getting out…
Does LinkedIn Limit the Number of Connections You Can Have?
I started out on LinkedIn not knowing anything about it, gradually starting my network by connecting with past colleagues and classmates and then expanding my connections to include those with similar interests and open networking ideas. When I first hit the 3,000 invitation limit, I was shocked that there was a definitive number put on…
LinkedIn Question: How to Contact 2nd and 3rd Degree Connections All at Once?
Just got this question from a new member of my LinkedIn network today, so I thought I would share my answer with everyone. If you have something you want to tell everyone, or something that you want to sell, it makes sense that you want to go beyond your first level network to the millions…
7 Reasons Why Every Professional Should Be on LinkedIn
If you are reading this you hopefully already have a presence on LinkedIn, but maybe you are not as active as you should be. Confused as to why you need to join and use LinkedIn? Well, if you are a professional, there are many reasons why you at least need to join LinkedIn and should…
Which LinkedIn Groups Should I Join?
As I mentioned in previous posts, LinkedIn Groups allow you to be virtually connected to a number of people that share the same interest. The largest groups have membership in the millions. If you join a group, you will be able to directly send an E-Mail as well as invite, without knowing the E-Mail address of,…
How Many LinkedIn Groups Can I Join?
Back in August 4, 2009, LinkedIn for the first time placed a restriction on the number of LinkedIn Groups once can join. The official E-Mail that I received at the time looked like this: “We are in the process of adding new functionality to enhance the experience of Groups, including the recent release of a searchable…
Was My LinkedIn Invitation Received? Did My LinkedIn Invitation Bounce? How Can I Find Out?
I recently got asked about how to manage LinkedIn invitations which bounced. Yes, sometimes those precious invites that you send out do not get to their intended recepient because either 1) they changed companies/email addresses and never bothered to update their LinkedIn profile, 2) the e-mail address that they have in their profile is misspelled…
HOW TO: Connect with Barack Obama on LinkedIn
I recently got asked this question about how to connect with Barack Obama on LinkedIn, and because I had a little trouble doing so myself, I thought I would let anyone know who wants to get connected with him on LinkedIn how I did so. Whether you agree with Barack Obama’s policies or not, according…
Why Do So Many People Keep their LinkedIn Connections Private?
When you open an account at LinkedIn, the default setting is that your connections can be viewed by anyone. I used to have my connections open, until one day when I was doing some searching in a particular industry for companies to work, I noticed that all of the salespeople had decided to hide their…
Restricted by LinkedIn Because of Too Many I Don’t Know Invitation Responses? What Should You Do?
As I mentioned in my “What is a LinkedIn IDK – I Don’t Know This Person?” post, once you reach the LinkedIn IDK threshold of 5 IDKs, your account will be restricted in that you will need to enter an E-Mail address each time you try adding new people to your network. If you are…
What is a LinkedIn "IDK/I Don’t Know"? And Why Should I Care?
When you invite someone to connect with you on LinkedIn or receive an invite from someone, the recipient has a choice of accepting the invite or simply archiving the invite without performing any action. If the invite is accepted, the two of you become immediately connected. If the invite is archived, you can always accept…
What is a LinkedIn LION?
What is a LinkedIn LION? LION, in the LinkedIn world, stands for Linked In Open Networker. LIONs are basically open to networking with people that they have never met before, and they are important in the fact that they bridge networks of closed people. If we all follow the standard rule of LinkedIn and say…
15 Ways to Grow Your LinkedIn Network
‘ Everytime someone invites me to connect with them, I always send out a reply thanking them and also asking them to contact me should they ever need any help with LinkedIn. I have had so many people, either directly or indirectly, help me that I thought I should give something back to the community. …