LinkedIn: 8 areas where you need to pay closer attention

In May, LinkedIn became the first social media company to offer an initial public offering (IPO), launching a wave of similar companies that are taking their business public to raise money. At last check, LinkedIn’s market cap is about $7 billion.

The recent investor acceptance of LinkedIn has once again focused my attention on the usefulness of this social network. Here are a few areas of LinkedIn to which you ought to pay close attention:

1. Complete your personal profile. Perhaps it goes without saying, but completing your own personal profile until it’s 100 percent complete is the first step. In this way you maximize your exposure and the possibility of being connected to colleagues from throughout your career. Plus, LinkedIn is really good at prodding you along, encouraging you to take the next steps to complete your profile.

In the websites area of your profile, make sure you type in the names of the websites you’re linking to so it doesn’t display the generic “company website,” “blog,” etc.

2. Add applications. After you’ve completed all your résumé fields on LinkedIn, add plugins that will pull content from your other publishing platforms. For example, you can: