Jason Alba is the author of I’m On LinkedIn, Now What???, a popular primer on how to get the most out of LinkedIn, the powerful online networking site with over 32 million members that can help you cultivate business connections and opportunities.

Alba experienced the power of LinkedIn in his role of CEO of JibberJobber, an online job search tool. He used LinkedIn to proactively build his business and boost his reputation as a thought leader in his field.  Jason shares his experiences and provides tips and strategies to harness LinkedIn to develop professional relationships in your business life

Tell us how you became a LinkedIn evangelist.

It wasn’t anything that I ‘d planned. Before I wrote the book, I had a blog, which is jibberjobber.com. That is my company, and I was communicating to professionals and executives in transition. I would go find other bloggers and see what they were talking about, and a lot of career experts were saying they were on LinkedIn.

I started having Jibberjobber users come back and say, ‘Okay, now that I’m there, what do I do?’ And my answer was, ‘I have no idea! But I’ll find out for you.’

So I thought I could either write a series of, say, a hundred blogposts on what to do on LinkedIn, or fulfill one of my dreams. I decided to write a book, which ended up being one of the best decisions I made for my business and speaking career.

Summarize the role of LinkedIn as an online networking tool.

When I give presentations, webinars and such on LinkedIn, I simply say that LinkedIn is a place to ‘find’ and a place to be ‘found’.

The idea is to be found by people who can influence your career or purchase your products and services. Initially, these people don’t have to know I exist. They’re not searching for me by name. They search for me by expertise or industry or company.

So that’s the “be found” part. LinkedIn can connect you with people you don’t know who are seeking out someone with your particular expertise, products or services.

The find part centers around LinkedIn’s potential to help you find people you want to reach around your particular business objectives. In my case, I search for and connect with people who can advance my objectives at JibberJobber.

So, very simply, LinkedIn is about finding and being found. Moreover, it’s a great way to make a name for yourself. LinkedIn is a great tool for branding yourself and/or your company, which is one of the top things that you should be doing with LinkedIn.

You mentioned in your book that LinkedIn is not a replacement for personal networking, but an enhancement or compliment.

Yeah, definitely a compliment. LinkedIn is only a tool, not a replacement for one-to-one contact. I emphasize that in my book because I see fanatical people talking about, you know, if you’re not in my LinkedIn network, you’re not a part of my network at all.

When I hear this, I say “Are you crazy?” LinkedIn is just a tool like customer relationship management, business cards and email. It’s a terrific tool, but let’s keep it in perspective. Direct human contact still matters.

How should people approach creating their personal profiles?

Share your brand. I want your LinkedIn profile to scream, “I’m the right person and here’s all the evidence you need.”

The biggest mistake that I see in LinkedIn summaries is that they are so short; there’s hardly any information. I encourage you to use up the entire space in your LinkedIn summary and paint a vivid picture of yourself and your business. Tell a story. Convince me why you’re the right person I want to work with and do it in an engaging way.

For example, in my job search business, I come across a lot of professionals who list nothing in their summary and nothing in their job descriptions. It’s basically a very boring resume. All get is a little bit of work history. I want the summary to really talk to me.

Tell me why you’re the right person. Tell me stories. Don’t just copy and paste your resume; that’s boring. Think PAR: problem, action, result. Create scenarios that show when you were with a particular client or customer, here was the problem, here was the action you took, and here were the results.

How can you use LinkedIn to position yourself as a thought leader in your field?

LinkedIn is a great platform for showing the world you’re a subject matter expert. Your professional profile should showcase your accomplishments and link to websites that showcase your thought leadership efforts, such as professional associations you lead, or online communities or places you publish your thoughts and ideas.

I always say that LinkedIn is one part of comprehensive social marketing strategy, but a blog is the anchor of your strategy.

You need to have a blog linked to your LinkedIn profile to show people, ‘Hey, I’m not just here on LinkedIn with a few paragraphs of flashy information. You can get other valuable information I produce and join the conversation on my blog over here at this other link.’

Many people create their LinkedIn profile and only connect with people they already know. What approach do you recommend for building an expanded LinkedIn network?

When people start accepting connections in LinkedIn, they usually have no idea what they’re doing. What does it mean that we’re “connected”? Are we best friends? Do I have to communicate? Do I have to pass leads to you?

I suggest first approaching people who are in your space, such as your geography, profession or your industry. If you sell to car dealers, connect with people in the automotive space, which can lead to more new connections beyond your first-degree contacts with the other people in the automotive space, which can lead to direct business opportunities.

I mentioned, for example, that my own B-to-B offering is something I sell to HR managers and business owners. So if you’re an executive or a manager in HR, I absolutely want to be connected with you because it’s central to my business model.

So that’s the first concept. Find people in your space to connect with because your network will be more relevant.

The second concept is knowing what you’ll do with these people once you’re connected. This is where a lot of people fall down.

You need to reach out and communicate with your networks. I’m not advocating that you spam your contacts, but consistently and professionally putting your brand in front of your network. The best way to do that is through the LinkedIn ‘Answers’ feature.

Using a personal example, I use Answers to reach out to my network and say, “I’m working on an alternative to traditional out-placement. Do you have any ideas about problems with traditional out-placement so that I can address them in my solution?’

Connecting with my network in this way helps me stay top of mind with relevant messages that brand my company in a positive light. It also starts a conversation with highly relevant contacts that can lead to new opportunities.

Tell us how to use LinkedIn to go beyond your core contacts and connect with valuable new people.

The true potential of LinkedIn for growing a business lies in tapping other people’s networks. For example, if you and I are connected and have something in common, and you have a hundred people in your network, it’s likely that a fair portion of your network will be relevant contacts for me also.

I use the ‘Introductions’ feature. Let’s say I search on LinkedIn and find somebody I want to talk to, and they’re connected to you, I create an introduction and ask you to introduce me to John. In this way, John doesn’t get a cold email from me, he gets a message from you, a trusted connection-- a warm introduction-- that is really powerful.

You mentioned the Answers function and the Groups function. Can you say more about those?

Answers is the most powerful tool I’ve found for nurturing relationships.

When you submit a question on Answers, LinkedIn asks if you’d like to send your question to anybody via email? And my answer is absolutely, yes every time. I send it to as many people as I can within my network.

This email distribution function gives me the ability to consistently put my name in front of key contacts. If you don’t do it in a spammy way, or go overboard, Answers helps your network better understand who you are while nurturing relationships within your network.

The power of Groups is for identifying and approaching new contacts. If you’re in a group, you can communicate with any group member as if you were a first-degree contact.

Groups has the potential to facilitate collaborative environments, but many groups have become spammy and overtly self-promotional. So, it pays to choose Groups carefully.

What advice can you leave us with to auto-pilot your LinkedIn action plan?

First, enhance your profile. This is the most fundamental rule for succeeding on LinkedIn. On my DVD, I spent twenty minutes critiquing five different professional profiles and offering enhancements.

The other part is accepting connections as they come in, as well as spending some time proactively growing your network by regularly asking questions through the Answers function. So, approximately once a month, ask a question that helps your network understand your brand.

That’s basic, bare bones, but proactive LinkedIn strategy. Beyond that, there is a ton of power in searching for contacts, whether they’re in groups or through searching, and communicating with them.