What is Linkedin and how to use it

What is Linkedin:

Linkedin

Linkedin is a social networking site like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and a dozen others. But unlike other sites, it is a professional networking site which is designed for business people to connect with each other, share business aspects and prospects, share experiences, market scenarios, resumes and help to find jobs as well. It is focused on career development and  professional talk mostly and now it is the world’s largest professional networking platform on the internet. The owner of Linkedin is the big tech company:Microsoft.

It is a free platform with many user friendly features and also has a paid version named Linkedin Premium which has more advanced features like courses, special inmail facility etc.

This can be accessed through  from a desktop, LinkedIn mobile app, mobile web experience, or the LinkedIn Lite Android mobile app.

Why use Linkedin:

It is a very strong platform to showcase your professional skills and to get connected with a number of organizations and other like minded people. It is basically up to you how you want to use this platform. some may want to get and share new business ideas, many people use it for job search or internship,  it is also a great platform to learn new courses, connect with a group of people and many more. you can apply jobs in linkedin also.

A strong and complete linkedin profile helps you to showcase your unique professional story through experience, skills, and education by which you can connect with new opportunities.

Linkedin can also be used to create a group where you want to have like minded professional people, you can organize events, write articles and share with the community, you can post relevant photos and videos and share your thoughts and many more.

How to use Linkedin:

As we already discussed, linkedin is a social networking platform, it can be used easily like facebook, instagram etc. All you need to follow the below steps to start.

1. Profile Creation:

As every online platform, you need to create a profile in order to access the features of this site. A complete linkedin profile shows your professional experience, past and current employers, your skills, education, articles, videos, photos, recommendations, your connections, followers and many more. 

First you need to search - www.linkedin.com and then go to the signup link.

Login

Then click on the “Join Now”. you will be redirected to a page like below. You can fill up all the details or directly join with Google.

Login and signup page

After you do the sign-up process, you can see your profile as below.

2. Networking:

Now you are ready to move ahead with Linkedin. Search your connections, search for companies, your favorite personalities, pages you want to follow and many more. Go to the search tab in the top left bar and write down the name of the person or organization you want to find.

Networking

If you search for a company, you will find the below screen. Here you can see the details of the company like the tagline of the company, how many followers the company has, what type of business they are into, how many employees are there. You also can go to the website directly from this page. Generally most of the organizations keep their details here like about the company, their life and social values, Corporate social responsibilities, their posts, Events, People who are working there, even the job postings are also available in their linkedin page and you can apply from here. You can follow the company here so that any update they share will give you a notification.

Profile view

3. Job Search:

There is a search tab at the top left corner where you can type the job name/company name/job type and beside that, put the preferred location. It will show you the best result. The result shows the company name, location, whether it is matching with your profile or not, is there any connection of yours working there. 

Job Application

There are TWO options for applying for the job.

1. Easy Apply:- this will directly allow you to apply for the position, no need to fill many details

2. Apply:- This takes some time as this process needs many forms to be filled along with your personal information like address, family background, education etc.

 

4. Post Article/Photos/Videos:-

There are a million people sharing their thoughts in linkedin. You can also share your ideas in the form of picture, video, article and this increases the strength of your profile. It is very easy to share Photos/Videos/Articles in Linkedin. It is just like facebook and the below picture is surely able to make you understand the steps.

How to share posts

5. Participate in Conversations:

This step is also very easy in Linkedin. Same as facebook, you can also participate in the discussions and thoughts people are sharing by commenting or liking their posts.You can also use a set of lightweight expressions called LinkedIn reactions, to easily communicate with your network.

Linkedin Reactions

Conclusion:

In this whole discussion , you are now hopefully able to understand that how easy it is to create a profile in Linkedin. And when this platform can give you ocean of opportunities to boost your career, business, learning opportunity, in my opinion, it is now must for every professional to have a Linkedin profile. Happy networking.