The LinkedIn network is a valuable business resource that enables its members to draw from the wisdom, knowledge, experience, resources, and inspiration of their professional networks. By using their network on LinkedIn effectively, professionals are able to increase their work productivity by vetting demands for their time, prospecting for new business leads, recruiting, checking references, gathering competitive intelligence, finding professional service providers, drawing on the collective wisdom and expertise of one’s extended peer group, and more.

1. Get a premium membership.
Anyone can create a standard account but there are some additional premium features worth exploring. Chief among those is the ability to send InMail – a private LinkedIn message – that on average receives a response 70% of the time. Add to that the ability to become an OpenLink member, allowing prospects to contact you via InMail at no cost to them, and it becomes obvious why many recruiters have chosen to pay for their own premium account (you also have the ability to see up to 200 anonymous profiles outside of your network amongst other features).

2. Enhance your search engine results.
In addition to your name, you can also promote your blog or website to search engines like Google and Yahoo! Your LinkedIn profile allows you to publicize websites. There are a few pre-selected categories like “My Website,” “My Company,” etc. If you select “Other” you can modify the name of the link. To make this work, be sure your public profile setting is set to “Full View.”

3. Find high-quality job candidates.
LinkedIn helps you find inside connections to job candidates via their trusted contacts. Using LinkedIn as your online rolodex, you can quickly and easily discover the perfect candidate, whether or not he/she is actively looking for a new position. When time is of the essence and your client needs a qualified candidate quickly, this valuable tool can save you weeks of phone calls and emails in finding potential leads for your critical searches.

4. Boost your business.
Got a small business but want to generate more customers? Perhaps you’re not connecting with the right people. LinkedIn can increase your chances of hitting that big deal that puts your business exactly where you want to be. Again, this can take some time, but it doesn’t hurt to give it a try.

5. Find new business opportunities.
InMail, a new service available exclusively through LinkedIn, allows you to receive business opportunities from other LinkedIn users directly onto your homepage without sacrificing privacy. You decide whether to receive InMail; you get to rate every InMail you receive to help ensure quality; and you choose when to share your contact information. As always, our goal is to help you get connected to the right professionals and the right new business opportunities

6. Get publicity.
It can be hard to contact media or top bloggers. But many of them have a LinkedIn profile, and you can contact them through the profile. I highly advise you not to spam them — but a polite email letting them know would be interested in developing a professional relationship, for example, might be appreciated or at least noticed. It shouldn’t be your whole marketing strategy, but it could help.

7. Market research.
Planning to launch a new product? Do a little research into what companies are offering similar things, about what kind of potential customers are out there, and what they’re like, and what their needs are, and what kind of demand there is for your type of product. You can also post a question on LinkedIn Answers or talk to employees or former employees of similar businesses, or of potential customers to get the answers you’re looking for.

8. Keep up to date with the news.
LinkedIn News makes it easy for every professional to read the articles they need to read, by leveraging the power of their business connections. LinkedIn News starts by delivering news about key daily topics: a user’s company, products, industry, and competitors, drawn from more than 10,000 publishers and blogs. Then, LinkedIn News uses the wisdom of each user’s “crowd” of colleagues to determine the handful of articles that are the most important to their business — the articles they need to read that day.

9. Scope out the competition, customers, partners, etc.
Use LinkedIn to scope out the competition’s team as well as the team of customers and partners. You can use LinkedIn to view the profiles of executives at competitive companies, see what kind of experience they offer and the types of connections and clients they are working with.

10. Get involved with LinkedIn’s API.
LinkedIn partners will be able to build LinkedIn features into their applications, enabling LinkedIn users to access to their professional networks wherever and whenever they need it to accomplish professional tasks. Using a set of LinkedIn APIs and widgets, partner sites using the Intelligent Application Platform will be augmented with business networking features allowing the 17 million LinkedIn users to be more productive on those sites.