Take a look at 5 LinkedIn tools you can use to make the most of your online professional networking:
1) SlideShare
What it is:
SlideShare is the largest professional presentation community online. It allows users to easily upload and share presentations, infographics, documents, videos, PDFs, and webinars. Acquired by LinkedIn in May of 2012, the site averages about 60 million unique visitors a month and 215 million page views, which places it among the top 120 most-visited websites in the world.
Why you should use it with LinkedIn:
With the world’s largest online professional network now integrating the world’s largest online presentation community, there are many benefits to using it. To name a couple, any professional looking to increase views to their portfolio, LinkedIn Profile, or website can immediately draw viewers from search engines (SEO, people!). Organic search accounts for 70% of SlideShare’s traffic. Also, by integrating the two, your activity in SlideShare can immediately be displayed in LinkedIn news feeds. By including this rich media in your LinkedIn posts and profile, you’ll generally receive a 98% higher engagement rate.
See FSC Interactive’s SlideShare
Newsle filters news based on any mentions of your LinkedIn contacts
2) Newsle
What it is:
In July of 2014, LinkedIn bought this San Francisco-based startup and brought its forward-thinking founders over with it. Newsle sends you updates whenever a friend or contact in your social network is mentioned in a news article.
Why you should use it with LinkedIn:
With Newsle keeping tabs on who’s mentioned in the news, you can instantly stay on top of the important things happening within your network. Any promotions, acquisitions, community involvement, or special announcements will be delivered to your inbox, giving you the ability to immediately share and help show a genuine interest in your contacts.
3) Rapportive / Microsoft Outlook LinkedIn App
What it is:
If you use Gmail or Microsoft Outlook for email, LinkedIn makes it easy to integrate your contacts, calendars, and more. Rapportive was acquired by LinkedIn in 2012 specifically to tie your Gmail and LinkedIn contact networks together. Both Rapportive and the Outlook LinkedIn app allow you to sync information such as photos, job titles, company, locations, shared connections, profile updates, and more directly with your inbox.
Why you should use it with LinkedIn:
You can get insights on everyone you email and meet with. If a new email comes in, you will automatically be notified if they have a LinkedIn Profile, giving you the ability to connect with them on a deeper level. You can learn about a contact’s background before entering a meeting, mention shared interests and connections to build rapport, and create more opportunities to stay involved.
4) Evernote
LinkedIn’s Note feature allows you to save important information directly to your contact’s profile page
Evernote allows you to save notes directly to LinkedIn
What it is:
Evernote is an online workspace that lives across your phone, tablet, and computer. It allows individuals and teams to do a variety of tasks including taking notes, project management, collaboration, information collection and organization, presentations and more. Evernote products reach more than 100 million users worldwide.
Why you should use it with LinkedIn:
If you take advantage of LinkedIn’s “Note” feature found on your connection’s profile page, you can add personal reminders and information only seen by you to help you remember important details about your contacts. If you link Evernote with LinkedIn, you can simply type the full name of your LinkedIn contact in the subject line of your Evernote note, and LinkedIn will automatically save this information to that person’s profile for later recall. With Evernote’s growing App Center, you can also integrate other tools such as the Business Card Reader to import physical business card info into your contacts, or use LinkedIn Connected to better organize and strengthen your Linkedin relationships.
5) LinkedIn Mobile
What it is:
Available for Android and iPhone users, the LinkedIn mobile app allows you to do just about everything you can do on the web version of LinkedIn.
Why you should use it with LinkedIn:
While I have my differences with the value of the actual phone app because of its slow speed and limitations (Android user), the integration with your phone book and calendar is a beautiful thing. If you need to call one of your contacts and don’t have their phone number, meet someone at an event and didn’t grab their business card, or are heading to a meeting and need to rehearse pronunciations or want to name-drop, the LinkedIn app can be a life-saver.