Have You Looked at LinkedIn?
By Michele Payn-Knoper, Certified Speaking Professional

Do you believe that professionals such as dietitians influence consumer opinions? Would you really like to connect with other agribusiness professionals who share your interests? The Internet website known as LinkedIn is lesser-known than Facebook, Twitter or YouTube – but an important tool for you and others involved in agriculture to expand our “digital footprint” with 65 million users across 200 countries.

Launched in May 2003, professionals use LinkedIn mainly for networking. The site is available in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish – in case you happen to be multilingual. I compare it to an online Rolodex, with access to others’ Rolodexes. I’ve also seen unexpected business opportunities arise through LinkedIn, such as connecting people involved in the soybean industry with an extended network of food industry professionals.

Similar to Facebook, LinkedIn is a permission-based system. The site allows registered users to maintain a list of contact information and details of people they know and trust in business. The people in the list are known on the site as “Connections.” Personally, the real power in LinkedIn is not my connections but connections of my connections. For example, I’m connected to more than 560 people, but “friends of friends” extend my network to nearly 4.5 million people.

I recommend the LinkedIn New User Starter Guide at to help you best understand the tool.

1. Be sure your profile truly represents you.

• List your current and past positions and education along with your tenure there. This helps the right people and opportunities find you.
• Add a profile photo. People never forget a face!
• Add a summary paragraph. Think of it as your professional opportunity to explain what you do to others in a way that will be interesting to them. For example, will “farmer” or “food provider” or “soybean farmer” be more interesting to your network?

2. Ensure your connections represent your “real-world” network.

• Search in the upper-right corner for “soybean” to find some of the professionals and farmers who are already on LinkedIn.
• Use webmail import to see, in seconds, all the people you know who are already on LinkedIn. You can then select who you wish to invite to join your trusted network.
• Upload a contacts file from Outlook, Palm, ACT! or Mac Address.
• View LinkedIn’s list of your colleagues and current or former classmates that already use the tool. Remember, this is a database and will search for people with similar backgrounds, groups, companies, etc.

3. Leverage the power of your LinkedIn network!

•  Join a group. The searchable LinkedIn Groups feature allows users to establish new business relationships by joining alumni, industry or professional and other relevant groups. LinkedIn groups can be created in any subjects and by any member of LinkedIn. I suggest you join the groups “Agriculture” and “AgChat” for starters.
• Post a question on “Answers” and tap into the experts you’re connected to and the entire LinkedIn network. With a professional community of 65+ million, this could be the perfect place for those tough questions on issues such as food safety, biotechnology and nutrition. It’s most likely not the place for you to gain expertise, say, on the latest no-till methods, but feel free to try.
• Look up someone’s profile before you meet with him or her. Learn their background and see whom you know in common to get off to a fast start. Reminder – this is true of those who do not support modern agriculture, as well.
• Search for Service Providers and select based on trusted recommendations from people in your network. Anonymous Web searches to find providers are a thing of the past.

The amount of detail to set up your LinkedIn profile requires a bit more time than when you set up other profiles, but the site typically takes less maintenance than Facebook or Twitter. It’s important to keep in mind to use titles and terms that are commonly used and understand those you’d like to connect with. For example, I opt to use professional agricultural speaker on my profile instead of Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) since CSP is not widely understood in agriculture.

If you’d like more details, see http://www.centernetworks.com/linkedin for a guide to the ins and outs of the tool. LinkedIn offers value because it allows you to reach professionals with the agriculture message, gain insight from food professionals and connect with a different circle. While my networks do overlap, I’m often connected with different people on LinkedIn than on the other social media platforms

posted by Expert 7:53 am