Editor’s Note: my controversial compassionate conservative of a co-editor, Kurt Heinrich, is not sold on opening a LinkedIn account to manage his professional connections, nor is he eager to use Twitter to build a professionally-minded “micro-brand” (©Copyright John Horn 2009) that will help promote, among other things, this blog. The following 830 words showcase my modest proposal for Kurt, and the rest of you, to embrace these mediums to raise your professional profile as well as grow your community of friends, colleagues, partners, and customers. Enjoy!

The case for LinkedIn communicated through amazing bullet points:

• Well over 10 million professional folks are currently using this medium to grow their business, advertise, meet new professionals in their industry, track start-ups, and learn more about market trends; this is, perhaps, the best medium out there for connecting with colleagues as well as potential clients!
• Listen to Guy Kawasaki about his 10 Ways to use LinkedIn: his most important points, in my opinion, relate to increasing your visibility (ie. by adding connections you increase the likelihood that people will see your profile first when they’re searching for someone to hire or do business with) and raising your Google PageRank (LinkedIn profiles receive one of the highest Google PageRanks – so, would you rather have Facebook or LinkedIn pop up when a potential employer is Googling you?)
• Become a recognized subject-matter expert: by participating in discussion forums, sharing cutting-edge presentations or syncing your WordPress-based blog with LinkedIn, you can showcase all the research, ideas and conversational currency that will help you add value to organizations everywhere.
• Perform reverse-company or reference checks: a former student of mine took me out for a beer a month ago and told a great story about how using LinkedIn (which he learned in my class, by the by) helped him prepare expertly for a job interview; he knew about the successes and challenges of the company, the organization’s newest project and that the CEO liked to golf in the Okanagan! Needless to say, he got the job.
• Grow your network: it’s a no brainer; odds are if you connect with over 200 people on LinkedIn it opens the door to over 10,000 contacts that you can be introduced to in the future.
• This post is merely a micro-example of opportunity, and it opens the door to literally hundreds of tips about how you can use LinkedIn for your professional development as well as to grow your business.

Three things to remember when building your LinkedIn profile:

• According to a recent NACE Journal article by Lindsay Pollak, here are three ways to build a strong LinkedIn profile:
  • Include keywords in your summary statement: this might include “community-building blogger” or “powerful public speaker” or “career services professional” or “communications specialist” or “political organizer” or any other key word that will help you jump up the Google PageRank the next time Barack Obama is looking for staffers (Kurt likes political communications).
  • Write for the screen: the internet is no place for prose; it’s a place for concise and efficient sentences of short block text and bullet points!
  • Collect diverse recommendations: third party endorsements build credibility and make you look even more fantastic; the most well put together profiles have recommendations from each stop on a career journey.

The case for Twitter as an extension of your Personal Brand:

• Remember, Twitter isn’t really a social networking tool like LinkedIn or Facebook; it’s more of a marketing/research medium, through which you can promote your organization – or yourself – and learn more about people in whom you’re interested.
• This medium presents an opportunity for any story, idea or comment you disseminate to go viral and get viewed and shared by thousands of people; if Ashton Kutcher can do it, so can you. Seriously.
• Following interesting people or the CEOs of your favourite companies and NGOs can keep you up to speed on the most important trends in your industry.
• If you can deliver a solid value proposition in 140 characters on Twitter then you can deliver a value proposition anywhere.

Three things to remember when using Twitter:

• Microblogging is about providing teasers to supercool resources and ideas out there on the interweb; nobody cares what you ate for breakfast, why Bon Jovi is awesome or how intuitive your cat is, so make your “tweets” about something and try to link ’em to relevant and interesting information about something.
• Create a custom background and use a real, nice picture of yourself (or a superawesome avatar like Rob Cottingham of Social Signal).
• Get on lists: my Managing the Blogosphere instructor, Travis Smith of Hop Studios, outlined how being on Twitter’s “list” category means that people are taking the time to group you and your ideas into a specific category; this is a good thing.

So there it is. Kurt, how did I do? Do you feel more or less compelled to join LinkedIn and/or Twitter? And other readers. Have I made a strong case or are you still looking for more information? Needless to say, I’d be more than happy to answer any more questions through a discussion thread. For now, have fun with it!