Your LinkedIn Professional Headline is critical to your LinkedIn success and is often the only thing besides your name and location that people see.  LinkedIn describes it well when they say…

Your headline gives you a way to sum up your professional “identity” in a short phrase.

When you created your account, LinkedIn provided you with a headline based on what you entered, but you can do much better.  Here are four things you should consider when writing your LinkedIn Professional Headline:

1. Take advantage of the space you have (35 characters)
2. Sell yourself, not the company you work for
3. Be sure it represents you well — in your target market’s eyes
4. Include the keywords you expect your target market will type in when searching for someone like you.

Hope this is helpful and if you like this, you’ll likely enjoy other posts on this blog about LinkedIn and perhaps enjoy taking one of my upcoming lunchinars on LinkedIn.

By the fourth quarter of 2010, the average internet user (worldwide) spent 23.1 hours per month online, according to a report released by comScore. However, the heaviest internet-using country used almost twice that.

That country: Canada.

The neighbors to the North average a staggering 43.5 hours per month, beating the next highest using country by over 8 hours. The U.S. was on the list, as well as the U.K. and South Korea.

The Top 11 Countries That Spend The Most Time Online

On February 15th, 2011 LinkedIn announced the launch of  a simplified LinkedIn Account and Settings dashboard which just appeared for me yesterday.

Although LinkedIn claims member settings/defaults have not been changed, if you haven’t updated your LinkedIn account settings recently, I urge you to take a few minutes now because most people I offer fast track LinkedIn Training to tell me they didn’t even notice the options were there!

To see the Settings link, click on the small arrow to the right of your name (top right of your LinkedIn home page) and click on ‘Settings’.  So long as you’re logged in, https://www.linkedin.com/settings/ should also work too.

On February 3, 2011 LinkedIn launched beta of LinkedIn Skills which they bill as a whole new way to understand the landscape of skills & expertise, explore similar skills and compare their growth relative to each other.  What’s the best way for you to share your expertise on LinkedIn?  Start by adding skills to your profile, joining group discussions, and following related companies for each skill. For more information…  Check out LinkedIn Skills

If you haven’t joined LinkedIn yet, it’s about time you did. This social media platform hosts the biggest business network in the world — an astounding 85 million members in 200 countries. It shows phenomenal growth, adding one new member every second.

Read my column in: Durham Business Times –

January 24th, 2011 — LinkedIn introduced InMaps, an interactive visual representation of your professional universe that allows you to understand the relationships between you and your entire set of LinkedIn connections and therefor better leverage your professional network to help pass along job opportunities, seek professional advice, gather insights, and more. To access your InMap, you must have 50 connections and 75 percent of your profile completed, and go to http://inmaps.linkedinlabs.com. Read more about LinkedIn InMaps via…
The LinkedIn Blog » Visualize your LinkedIn network with InMaps «.

Just read a really interesting guide to LinkedIn’s new Resume Builder…
http://blog.linkedin.com/2011/01/12/linkedin-resumes-hackdays/
which launched in early December and suggests that all you need to do to be ready for the next time a great opportunity comes along is keep your LinkedIn profile up to date. LinkedIn’s new Resume Builder takes the contents of your LinkedIn profile and automatically produces a beautiful resume. It’s as easy as selecting a template, setting privacy/share settings and dragging and dropping your information in.  You can even export to PDF for printing, and since it is online, you always know where to find it! Try out LinkedIn’s Resume Builder now!

On December 22nd, 2010 YouTube video posts shared through LinkedIn are playable directly from within the homepage and member feeds. Read more via The LinkedIn Blog » The Power of Hackday: Video Sharing on LinkedIn «.

On December 20, 2010, LinkedIn launched Open Groups to facilitate a forum for open professional conversations with the wider web. These new powerful, flexible moderation tools allow group managers to maintain quality conversations (by controlling who and how people contribute), and share it with non-members. Think about the potential! Find out more about LinkedIn’s new Open Groups via…
Open Groups makes it easier to find and share professional conversations

December 18, 2011 LinkedIn announced a major refresh of LinkedIn Polls which launched two years ago and has been used by over one million professionals to survey professional audiences and analyze the results.   Read all about it via Naughty or Nice? The New LinkedIn Polls Will Tell You..