Tagging is something that I wish I’d done right from the start on LinkedIn but, to be totally honest, I simply didn’t know that I could. It was only much later that I realised just how useful it could be and so decided to go back through all of the people I’d connected with and add relevant tags, which certainly took a while!
So, I thought that I’d help you avoid my own mistake and save you some time in the process!
Just to be clear, tags on LinkedIn are simply keywords you can “attach” to your 1st level connections (ie. the people you are directly connected with) which essentially allow you to put them into categories, a bit like creating different folders to keep their records in. LinkedIn actually starts the process for you – when you invite people to connect as ‘colleague’, ‘friend’ or as ‘groups’ then, when they accept, they automatically get tagged as such.
However, the real benefit is that you can dd your own tags (up to 200 different ones) and apply those as you wish.
This means that you can filter (or segment) your connections in any number of different ways because you can add as many tags as you like to each person. This then gives you the opportunity to send information out to very specific tagged groups of your 1st level connections who you know are going to be interested in it, whether that’s due to their interests, their location or their job.
LinkedIn even has the messaging system built in to do this directly from the “My Connections” page, though you can only use it for individual tags containing fewer than 50 connections – quite rightly in my opinion, like LinkedIn, I’m keen to avoid anything on the site being used as a tool to potentially spam people, connected or not!
All this can be found on the “My Connections” page which you can reach via the “Contacts” tab in the main menu on the site. Lots of good information in there and the perfect place to help get your prime content out to exactly the people who’ll be interested in it. Use it wisely though!
