Social media is not just something that is planning on sticking around for a little bit with the plans of eventually moving on. Sites like LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter have completely changed the landscape of digital communication — forever. With LinkedIn going public recently it is even a stronger indicator of just how important it is to use this networking giant to grow as an individual and even a business. Sure, things will take time like anything else but if you don’t want to make the time you might just be shooting yourself in the foot.

Here are some ways you can really increase your online influence in LinkedIn and have it start working for you in a positive light:

Fill in your profile 100%

Don’t just add your name without anything else because that is useless and a waste of time. Remember that this thing will rank very well for your name in the search engines so you want that profile robust and full of information that can help you grow as a person or a business. If someone searches your name and they bump into a LinkedIn profile that is completely empty that is not going to strengthen their case to want to work with you.

Use a quality image

Using a good quality image is extremely important for many obvious reasons. Unfortunately people do judge a book by its cover so it is important to use a quality image that allows you to market yourself. Nobody cares to see a photo of you doing a keg-stand or snuggling with your cats. Save those for your friends on Facebook if you absolutely must showcase them.

Send thank you messages to new connections

For quite some time now I have been sending short quick thank you messages to anyone who wants to make a connection with me. I can’t begin to tell you how many great conversations this tiny little effort has sprung up. It is a great way to break the ice and introduce yourself to someone who wants to have a professional connection with you on LinkedIn.

Join some targeted groups

There is an immense amount of targeted groups anyone can join on LinkedIn. Some of these groups have over 100,000 members and most groups allow you to place a link into their news feed that has the potential to be seen by thousands of qualified eyeballs. A great strategy is to take a blog post your business has written and distribute it through some of the groups on a consistent basis.

Get on people’s radars

Being social is all about trying to communicate along with being a team player when it comes to social media. This means leaving comments on a competitors posts, liking others submissions and generally doing things that leave behind some sort of connection between you and the community. This lets the original owner of the post know that you enjoyed what they have to say and it gets you on their radar screen.