If you think LinkedIn is just for adding connections, youre missing the point

If you think LinkedIn is just for adding connections, youre missing the point Its kind of funnymost people who use LinkedIn for the first couple of times seem to miss the boat. Theyll get started, build a quick profile, add a few connections, and then nothing. Most executives that I work with have went through this routine, and they dont quite look far enough to realize that LI is such a hot tool for discussin job search, finding company insiders, joining other networking groups, etc. (and if this applies to YOU, please read Jason Albas book Im On LinkedIn, Now What???.) The best reason to maintain your LI profile REGULARLY is that it pushes older information down on your search results. This still seems to be a head-scratcher for some, so Ill elaborate. Suppose your digital dirt has caught up with you, and youre finding that your job search is at a standstill while the negative information associated with your name is floating around. Can you get rid of it? Not really. Can you defend yourself? Sort of. Can you focus attention on another aspect of your professional life? Certainly, and the best way to do this is to grab every profile you can, starting with LI. One of my recent clients had encountered a big problem with her online identity she had sued a former employerowned by a senator with an iffy reputationand who was up for re-election in this hot political year. We created numerous profiles using LinkedIn, Twitter, FaceBook, MySpace, etc. to help push this off the front page of Google? (and claimed her profiles in Zoominfo, Spoke, and the like) No, this method wasnt magic but it helped.