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10 Ways Linked In Can Help Your Writing Career
By Mridu Khullar
Social networking has caught on in a big way not only for
your personal keeping-in-touch needs, but also in the
professional world. Linked In (
www.linkedin.com ), one of the
major players in professional social networking is one of the
websites where you can expect to find your boss, the manager
from your previous company, and your current freelancing
clients.
If you’re not on Linked In or haven’t yet gotten yourself
clued in to the nuances of online social networking websites,
you’re doing your business a huge disservice.
While there are several social networking websites such as
MySpace and Facebook, there are few that are exclusively
meant to build professional relationships. Once you’ve
signed up for a Linked In account, here’s how to maximize
your gain:
1. Keep in contact with current clients. It’s likely that
you’ll find your current clients or co-workers on this website.
Connect with them. Add them to your network so that they can
receive updates on your work. This is just one of the many
techniques professionals now use to keep their name “out
there.” You should, too.
2. Connect with old acquaintances. Go ahead, hunt down the
old manager, the editor of the local magazine you wrote five
articles for before moving on to better pastures, and the
successful freelancer who you’ve been corresponding with over
the past few weeks. Linked In makes it really easy to know
where your editor went after she quit her job with the
magazine, and more convenient for you to maintain contact
with her.
3. Get and give recommendations. This is where it gets really
interesting. Linked In, unlike others, has a space for your
resume, and under each job listed, people you’ve worked with
can give recommendations or write notes about how they felt
about your work and their experience working with you. As an
independent business person, this kind of feedback can be
very valuable. When you deem fit, also pass on the love.
4. Keep your up-to-date portfolio in front of your clients.
You may have been published in a national magazine recently.
Maybe you won an award. Maybe you got profiled in your local
newspaper. Such things, while adding value to you, are hardly
events you’ll be writing to your editors about. Keeping your
resume, professional details, and current projects on a single
page help your clients stay updated on your work if they so
choose.
5. Ask questions: Another great feature that you can make use
of is the ability to ask questions publicly and receive
answers from experts. Say you’re seeking information about
the current tax laws on property. Simply type in your question
and specify the kind of experts you’re interested in hearing
from, and your question as well as the answers to it will be
posted on your page.
6. Connect with other writers. This is also a great way to
connect with other professional writers, get and give
references, and network with like-minded professionals in a
water cooler like environment.
7. Discover potential ideas. By reading other people’s
questions and the answers to them, there is so much potential
for finding information that (1) you wouldn’t have thought of
otherwise, (2) people are interested in, and (3) clearly
generates interest. You’ll figure out soon enough which topics
bring the most responses, and that in turn, can guide you to
what readers, and in turn, editors want.
8. Expand your source list. This is one of the invaluable
benefits of Linked In. Let’s say you’re a technology writer
and would like to connect with professionals in that sphere
and create a network of sources that you can turn to whenever
something new comes up. Linked In helps you do that by creating
a virtual Rolodex for you. You can find university professors,
scientists, research students, and sometimes people with jobs
you’ve never even heard of.
9. Check out the background. One of the main benefits of
websites such as these is that it makes background checks
somewhat easier. Even though the content of a person’s page
is created by the person themselves, it can still give you
quite a bit of idea about whether or not you’ll want to work
with this person. This is information that can be precious to
an independent journalist because it saves a lot of time if
you’re immediately turned off or find that a person’s
experience/qualifications aren’t what you expected or they
don’t seem professional.
10. Find jobs. And finally, one of the most important reasons
to sign on to any professional networking website—the lure of
finding more work. Linked In is not widely known for its job
opportunities yet, but members have reported receiving offers
of work or assignments simply because an editor randomly came
across their profile and liked it. You can also actively search
for work using the website’s features.
Whether you decide to actively involve yourself with the website
or simply put up a resume and be done with it, an online presence
is becoming increasingly important in today’s publishing climate.
Linked In is just one of the tools towards achieving that presence
and keeping your name in front of the people who may hire you.
Bio:
Mridu Khullar, 26, is a freelance journalist currently based
in New Delhi, India. She writes for Time, Marie Claire, Elle,
Ms., Parade.com, Women's eNews, and Writer's Digest, among
others. She blogs at
http://www.mridukhullar.com/journal/
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