| Doing good deeds are said to be a reward in itself but if your way of showing kindness is by providing valuable answers to questions in LinkedIn, such actions can also drive targeted traffic to your website. What is LinkedIn? LinkedIn is similar to a social networking site but with one marked difference and that?s its focus on building a professional network for its users. Simply put, LinkedIn encourage its users to create a network of trusted business contacts. Those that make up their network are referred to as Connections. You can add connections by invitation. Even non-members may be invited. There are several benefits to enjoy just by joining LinkedIn. Firstly, your connections can help you find mutual acquaintances and arrange for introductions to people you wish to know and who belong to the network of one of your connections. LinkedIn can also be used to find jobs or work opportunities, hire trusted and highly capable individuals, find potential joint venture partners, capitalists, and angel investors, and achieve other business goals. One key feature of LinkedIn is the LinkedIn Answers. Here, members get to ask and answer each other?s questions. They work similarly with Yahoo! and Google Answers but with just two notable differences. Firstly, most questions in LinkedIn are business-oriented. Secondly, people answering and asking questions can?t hide their identities since they have to be members before they can participate. Tip #1 Work around the ?gated access approach? by letting people know you through LinkedIn Answers. Because LinkedIn adheres to the EU Safe Harbor Privacy Framework, it does not allow members to contact each other if they don?t have either a pre-existing relationship or without the intervention of a mutual connection. Thus, you won?t be able to make a request to just any person in the website. While you can send them messages however, this approach is frowned upon by many and considered intrusive. To work around these problems, all you need to do is answer key questions in LinkedIn Answers then wait till your answers are viewed by the right people. Once people become familiar with you, they might even take the initiative and ask for a connection with you. Tip #2 Focus on providing quality answers rather than aiming for being able to produce the greatest quantity of answers each day. If you answer as many questions as you can in one day and this reflects badly on your responses, people might instead consider you as an irritating spammer rather than the expert you wish to portray yourself as. You need to build other people?s trust in you until they?re convinced of what you?re saying and become interested in visiting your website. Tip #3 Always check LinkedIn Answers for updates on questions you?ve answered and wish to answer. One day wasted without checking LinkedIn Answers is a valuable amount lost! Tip #4 When making recommendations, you should always include but never limit them to your website. Make it instead a part of one of the various websites included in your list of recommendations. Tip #5 Use actual experience to reinforce your answers. In most cases, drawing from personal experience at work will more than do in making you believable and trustworthy. People also tend to like stories better when they learn that it?s true and awe-inspiring. |