After completing your personal or business LinkedIn profiles, make sure you don’t stop there. It can be worth your and your small business’ while to tap into LinkedIn’s many integrated features.

How LinkedIn’s Features Can Benefit You

• Customize your LinkedIn URLs Personalize and brand your URLs by claiming a profile URL in your name and showcasing your website listing with your small business or blog name instead of the default “Company Website” label.
• Ask for Recommendations LinkedIn provides a way to reach out to your professional connections and ask for recommendations of your work performance. Any recommendations received by you need to be approved by you before publishing. Think of LinkedIn Recommendations as the virtual equivalent of a phone or written reference used in the hiring process.
• Use the Answers tool to Showcase your Expertise Plus, helping others find an answer to their problems may turn into a career or sales opportunity for you.
• Join (or Create) a Group There are several professional, industry-specific and alumni groups you can join in order to grow your connections and increase your career or business networking opportunities.
• Follow Relevant Companies Small business owners often look up to the major players in their industry for inspiration. By following those companies on LinkedIn, you can stay in tune with their latest product/service and company news.
• Built-in Industry News LinkedIn Today offers industry-specific news articles much like a daily newspaper. You also have the option to “follow” a certain industry’s news updates to see only the articles most important to you.
• Add “Skills” to your Personal Profile Skills is a new feature added by LinkedIn. It is available for personal profiles and allows you to add searchable keywords to your profile. For example, you may have skills in WordPress, editing and graphic design. Add those Skills to your profile and increase the chance of being found by companies searching for those abilities.
• Post Updates to your Profile You can post an update to your personal profile by visiting your profile or the LinkedIn home page. To enable company status updates, you need to first “edit” your profile under Admin Tools (on the right side of the page) and determine which page admins are allowed to post on behalf of the company.
• Add Product or Service Listings Under Services –> Admin Tools on your company profile, you have the option to “Add a Product or Service“. Any product or service added has the potential to be found during searches. Plus, you as an admin for your company’s page can request recommendations of all product and service listings(which are then visible to others after approval).

Have you taken advantage of all that LinkedIn has to offer?