I went to the IoD Annual Convention on the 29th April. Reid Hoffman, Founder LinkedIn was one of the speakers. He had some really interesting points which I would like to share with you are they were inspiring for me and have made me think about how I use Linked In.

• Every individual is a small business, as a typical job lasts 2 – 4 years. Using LinkedIn is one way of promoting your brand and building your personal network which will support you as a small business.

• My learning from this is that you need to keep your skills and positions current. Use your offline network to connect online and only connect to those people you know will assist you as a small business. These are your advisers, suppliers, collaborators, customers – people in your sphere of influence who you feel confident to recommend to other people.

• Before you start promoting yourself make sure your profile is complete – and your current business profile is complete. I certainly have had instances where people have met me at a networking event, lost the card and then searched for me in Google and my profile has come up. Making sure that the data is correct vs your elevator pitch is essential.

• Embracing and using new technologies will create the competitive advantage for you as a small business (in the above scenario). Therefore using LinkedIn, Twitter, blogging etc can help promote you as a brand and small business – which will give you skills over other people and businesses. Being an early adopter of technology will help boost your competitive edge in a high pace world.

I already used LinkedIn and have done quite a bit of business over the past few months through Linked In. Ensuring that I am an early adopter of technology is certainly that I can work harder at to create that competitive edge over other online marketing consultants.