One of the most common questions I get now that I work at LinkedIn is how to best use the site. There is a post on Guy Kawasaki’s blog from earlier this year that highlights his top 10 ways to use LinkedIn, and it’s definitely worth reading:

Guy Kawasaki: Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn

Unfortunately, Guy leads off the post with this little dig at Harvard MBAs:

The average number of LinkedIn connections for people who work at Google is forty-seven.

The average number for Harvard Business School grads is fifty-eight, so you could skip the MBA, work at Google, and probably get most of the connections you need. Later, you can hire Harvard MBAs to prepare your income taxes.

*sigh*. It’s not always easy being a Harvard MBA in Silicon Valley.

Guy also provides the following useful tidbits:

• People with more than twenty connections are thirty-four times more likely to be approached with a job opportunity than people with less than five.
• All 500 of the Fortune 500 are represented in LinkedIn. In fact, 499 of them are represented by director-level and above employees.

I highly recommend reading the entire article. But, for those of you who like spoilers, here is the bullet list of the ten ways to use LinkedIn:

1. Increase your visibility
2. Improve your connectability
3. Improve your Google PageRank
4. Enhance your search engine results
5. Perform blind, “reverse”, and company reference checks
6. Increase the relevancy of your job search.
7. Make your interview go smoother
8. Gauge the health of a company
9. Gauge the health of an industry
10. Track startups
11. Ask for advice

Yes, there are actually eleven. Guy must be a Spinal Tap fan…

I’m impressed that he actually added two more that came in from comments since the original post:

1. Integrate into a new job
2. Scope out the competition, customers, partners, etc

So get cracking! Even my Mom is on LinkedIn now…