Use LinkedIn and Technorati to Make Great Contacts - CareerAlley

Use LinkedIn and Technorati to Make Great Contacts - CareerAlley We may receive compensation when you click on links to products from our partners. Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. Albert Einstein How to use LinkedIn.com as a free marketing tool LinkedIn is based on the six degrees of separation principle. This principle refers to the idea that, if a person is one step away from each person they know and two steps away from each person who is known by one of the people they know, then everyone is on average six steps away from each person on Earth. In essence, you are six steps away from the president of the United States. Once you create an account on LinkedIn, you will see the six degrees of separation in action. LinkedIn is less of a website for finding and discussing hobbies and personal interests (like Facebook and MySpace) and more of a site for finding business contacts and extending your professional network. The first and most important step when getting started on LinkedIn is to create a very thorough profile. There are three main activities you can explore on LinkedIn to increase your visibility: Use various keywords in the search bar at the top of the screen. You can search for certain people or companies and build your contacts in that manner. If a LinkedIn member is interested in you, they will view your profile before adding you into their network. Search for groups or even create your own group. I would recommend finding an existing group to join that is relevant to interests. Each of these existing groups contains members that are interested in the same subjects you are. Therefore, getting to know these members and adding them to your network can only increase your circle of friends. Go to the answers section and become an expert. LinkedIn users constantly ask questions and answer questions, its one of the most popular features on their site. In a job interview, it is good to mention that you are categorized as an expert on LinkedIn for your profession. The member asking the question may select your answer as the best. By providing the best answers to enough questions, you earn expertise status. Experts are featured on the Answers home page, and in each category of questions. How to use Technorati.com as a free marketing tool If you post quality blogs, you could grow a big audience with Technorati. When you first sign up for Technorati, you should claim your blog. This means you should fill out a paragraph describing what your blog is about, and then properly link your blog to your website. Once you claim your blog, you are going to want to make sure Technorati gets the latest blogs you post. This term is called a ping. A ping notifies a server that content has been updated. You can have your blog software ping automatically for you. This eliminates the need to log into Technorati each time you update content. To do this, just enter http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping into your blog tools configuration. Use the search button to search for high ranking blogs on your niche. To find a high ranking blog, note the authority rank on each blog post. Technorati authority is a system in which points are assigned to blogs based on the number of other blogs that link to it. When another blog links to yours you gain one authority point. You should be looking for authority points over 200. Technorati also allows members to post other online content like photos and videos. However, the main popularity and attraction to Technorati is with its blog content. Thus, you should focus on creating quality blog content and trying to attract as many devoted readers as possible. Michael Volkin is the author of the best -selling Ultimate Basic Training Guidebook which prepares military recruits for basic training. To learn more about his basic training books, click here. This is a Guest post. If you would like to submit a guest post to CareerAlley, please follow these guest post guidelines. Good luck in your search. Visit me on Facebook