Special thanks to Bob Coppenhaver, a Strategic Marketing & Product Management expert who shared this PowerPoint in January 2009 at the Greater Cleveland Society for Association Executives (GCSAE) meeting.

He developed a great presentation about how to use LinkedIn for networking, building your business and career development.

It may give you a birds eye view about how to better use LinkedIn for building relationships with business professionals.

How do you currently use LinkedIn?

• Do you have your profile on line?
• Have you answered a question in your field of expertise?
• Did you send invitations to link with former collegues?
• Have you forwarded an introduction from one business associate to another?
• Have you searched the company profiles for ones that match your target company profile?
• Do you know how to look inside companies to find someone who one of your contacts already knows and can introduce you to?

Making connections on LinkedIn is effective because you can do some research before sending that original email or picking up the phone for calling someone.