by Brandy Nagel

Technical job seekers often have the most complete and most impressive LinkedIn profiles. While other job seekers struggle to identify measurable results, most technical job seekers express their accomplishments and capabilities with ease. How else can you use LinkedIn to advance your job search? By showing off your expertise.

LinkedIn Answers is an ingenious system where you can ask and answer questions submitted by the LinkedIn community. This is an opportunity to show off your smarts in your area of specialty. Answering questions on LinkedIn is a savvy way to be positioned as the obvious expert without being pushy or annoying.

Access the LinkedIn Answers forum by:

1. Clicking the “More” menu from the navigation toolbar.
2. Select “Answers” from the drop-down menu.

Questions are kept open for seven days. Many LinkedIn members may respond with an Answer to the Question. The creator of the question picks who he/she thinks shared the best response. If your response is chosen as the “Best,” a green box with a star is posted on your profile page, and attached to your name in the Answer area, indicating you’re a proven expert.

All Answers are Valuable

The brilliant aspect of the process is that all answers are saved within the LinkedIn® database. So if at a later point in time a member decides he would rather search through previous answers instead of submitting a new question, those responses are available.

With this capability, there’s no need to worry if your answer is not picked as the “Best” all the time. All answers are logged and have the potential to generate interest and drive traffic to your profile.

How to Answer LinkedIn Questions

To answer a question:

1. Click the question.
2. Select the “Answer” button on the next page.
3. Input all details necessary into the entry form to thoroughly respond to the question.

Question:

Answer:

Take advantage of this opportunity to chime in on the relevant questions of the day and position yourself as an expert.

Brandy Nagel, author of Digitally Famous: Visibility Campaigns for Job Seekers, is a social media coach and LinkedIn trainer. She has trained hundreds of professionals on the technical and practical aspects of social media, as well as providing protocol and productivity advice. She volunteers with MicroMentor, helping entrepreneurs develop social media marketing plans to grow their business. A frequent speaker, Brandy regularly presents on social media and personal branding. She received her B.A. in business from Brenau University and earned her MBA at Mercer University. To read more, check out her blog at www.DigitallyFamousTheBook.com.