Your Linkedin profile is not like a CV or resume – I’m going to use CV as its fewer letters and I’m lazy. A CV should be more specific, when I looked for a job I would have different CVs for different industries, if I was looking at banking roles I had finance things highlighted and with more detail, if I was looking for consulting gigs I had consulting type roles and accomplishments highlighted. My internet company CV was specifically peppered with my technical and product capabilities.

A Linkedin profile should be updated constantly, should have your recent wins and metrics. The focus should be on getting people who’ve worked with you to recommend you – thanks to everyone who’s recommended me on my profile btw! The reason is that you never know who or why someone’s looking at your profile. It could be a recruiter but it could also be a potential partner, customer, or some other relationship that will grow out of Linkedin. You should have some recommendations from colleagues, managers, suppliers and customers if possible. This covers you regardless of who’s looking at your Linkedin profile. Before I had the landing page for AdAvengers.com ready I had “stealth mode” as the company I worked for, when it was ready I changed it. I’ve already got a recommendation on the latest role and it’s for my contracting work not for the work that I’m hoping Ad Avengers will end up doing. Doesn’t matter, what matters is that people see your doing something – anything – of value for someone – anyone!

If you’re lucky you’ll spend most of your time employed rather than looking for a new gig. Your Linkedin profile is like a Google search for you or like your twitter account, i.e. organic and alive. It should reflect the person you are and not focus on a specific role. Think of it as a funnel, your profile is a tool to get people to find out more about you, to ask someone they know about you, or to ask you if you’re interested in a role or opportunity and that’s when you focus on the specifics about the role and your fit for it (in your CV), not when you’re doing your Linkedin profile.

So here are some of my basic’s for a successful Linkedin profile:

• reflect your character, think of three words you want someone to think of when they read your profile and then write your copy
• ask for specific recommendations from people you’ve done work for, and who worked with you on work you’re proud of
• recommend people, people you really like and would want to work with / for/ or have working for you again
• use metrics when you can – from budgets to impact
• Highlight brands that you worked for – if you worked for a big brand, lucky you, if you worked for brands that aren’t so big outline what they did and if they had big brands as clients
• join groups and participate wherever you can – you never know when a connection might be made
• If you’re on twitter then connect your Linkedin profile – at least highlight it in your profile and send the occasional post to both Linkedin and twitter (Tweetdeck is great for this)
• Be careful of highlighting your credentials in your profile title, I get pretty annoyed with people who have Firstname, Lastname, MBA in their profile,  imagine how someone who thinks MBA’s are useless would feel about that (and believe it or not there are people who feel this way)
• Make a significant amount of content available to all, so anyone looking at your profile can get a decent understanding of you without clicking the “View full profile” link
• update frequently – don’t wait till you’re actually looking for a job, you might miss a customer / supplier / partner

Funny enough, Seth Godin has a great blog post today about what kind of story you tell about yourself, your Linkedin page should tell a story about you.

Small interactions can mean a significant amount to people. I’ve connected with a couple of people recently who made a little time for me and it meant a lot. I’m not sure if these people will remember me in the next couple of weeks but I sure as hell hope so. At first I was a bit taken back when I received Linkedin invites from a couple of people who’ve accomplished a lot but then I realized that this should work both ways. If there’s anyone I made time for who wants to stay in touch I should be open to them.

I also came across this piece on Mashable about Linkedin, a lot of it is pretty basic, but the one thing that stuck out to me was:

There are some on LinkedIn who believe you should only connect with a small percentage of professionals you know and trust. Others say (including myself) you should connect with everyone, even if you vaguely know them.

When looking for a job, you never know who will be able to recommend you, or who is looking for someone to fill a position where you would be a perfect fit.

That really hit a cord with me. Who knows who might be able to help me find a job or find the right person to fit a role in the coming months/years so I should be open to them I guess.

The one thing I won’t change is my stance on recommendations and introductions. I only recommend people that I truly would want to work with again. My connections are precious so introducing someone when I’m not totally sure about their value won’t really happen. So am I way off on my Linkedin philosophy?

Personally, I think the best way to tell if someone gets the internet is to see their web footprint. Which is why I’m always surprised if someone in the space doesn’t have a solid blog, delicious, facebook or Linkedin profile, even worse is when I search for someone who claims to know the internet industry and I find little or no results.   I call this a web footprint and someone who get’s the web should have a sizeable web footprint. If not do they really know what they speak of?

If we consider social networking an industry, then we would assume that it goes through the normal industry life-cycle, with introduction followed by growth, maturity and then decline. We’ve seen social networking sites (companies) rise and fall, grow and now innovate and follow on.

The way I look at web industries is by comparing it to my family and seeing who’s using it. So when my younger cousins are onto something but I’m not, I consider it in it’s introductory phase. When I’m on it but my wife isn’t, it’s in its growth phase. When both the wife and I are users then it’s mature. When everyone, including my mom is on it, it’s probably about to tip from mature to decline.

So by that rationale, social networking is still growing. My wife has resisted the temptation of joining facebook – and for that matter any social networking application/site/tool – to this date, but temptation’s growing and she’s coming close… I think.

Growth is an interesting time in industries; we’re seeing some real innovation and some real problems being worked on. Personally, I’m finding it difficult to see beyond the application and widget noise and see some real value in applications built on facebook. Feels like someone new every day is using a new application – telling me what their mood is or what books their reading or what their toilet habits are like, okay actually that last one is an app I’m developing. The point is I’m not sure which applications add value and which ones are just clutter on my profile. Is this rapid application development on facebook sustainable? Will it filter onto other social networking sites? Will LinkedIn be able to create a similar buzz around its api and applications built by the community?

My gut instinctive reaction to all of these questions is no. But I’m definitely enjoying the ride. It will be really interesting to see where social networking is at this time next year or even in three years time. Maybe by then the wife will have joined.