I have been exploring LinkedIn a lot these past couple of weeks and I would like to leave you on Friday with a couple of recently added LinkedIn features that are very useful and a bit fun: LinkedIn Skills and LinkedIn InMaps.

Skills

Everyone has skills. Those jobs and techniques that we have mastered that make us valuable to employees and clients. In the new LinkedIn Skills section you can find the definition of a skill, find top LinkedIn users with that skill, find related skills, and find groups, companies and jobs related to that skill. In addition you can add the skill to your profile. This tool will help you define what you have to offer and find those opportunities and communities where you can make a difference. Skills is still in beta but you can find it under the “More” tab at the top of your LinkedIn Screen. This video has some more information about the new Skills feature.

LinkedIn InMaps

Once you’ve started to build a network it is sometimes hard to visualize how everyone you know is connected. LinkedIn InMaps builds a visual representation of your network. When you first look at the map it looks like a swirl of colors but as you hover your cursor over each colored dot and see your connection’s information you start to discern the patterns and see that green represents your connections from school and red your connections from your first job while blue is every connection from your current job. Besides the colors and patterns this tool is very helpful in showing you the relationships between different groups and individuals. For example you can quickly see who the social connectors are, those people who seem to know people in multiple groups, and you can see social patterns you were not aware of before. This video from LinkedIn gives you a quick overview of LinkedIn InMaps.

Let me know in the comments below what you think about LinkedIn InMaps and Skills. Are they helpful to you? If you like you can download a copy of a video and slides of a workshop I did a couple of weeks ago about managing your online professional profile that has a lot of information about LinkedIn. If you have any questions or would like a free evaluation of your online marketing efforts please contact us.