Ever wished you could move the items around in your LinkedIn profile?  Have you ever wanted to, say, de-emphasis your education by moving it toward the end of your profile or highlight your professional summary by moving it closer to the top? Well now you can.

LinkedIn’s new feature is great for real estate professionals who often come to the industry from other careers.  If you were, for example, a teacher or a stay-at-home parent before getting your license, you don’t have to put that upfront, especially if you’ve long since made a name for yourself in real estate.

The new feature is easy to use and lets you use your LinkedIn profile more like a functional résumé, highlighting the aspects of your background that work best for you.  To find out how it works, click the image or visit the LinkedIn blog.

If you’re using LinkedIn you know that the greatest value comes from having a large list of contacts and a wide network of connections.  But how can you get your to your network to grow once you’ve searched for and linked to all the people you know?  Here are seven great tips to help you add more contacts.

1. Ask and answer questions.  Click the “Answers” tab at the top of your profile and go the LinkedIn question and answer section.  Find topics that fit your area of expertise and post answers to open questions.   Some people position themselves as experts, answering dozens of questions each week.  Others ask questions under many different topics so that people outside of their area of expertise can become familiar with them.  Build your contact base by always taking the time to correspond privately with the people who’ve asked or answered your questions.
2. Join professional groups.  There are hundreds of groups on LinkedIn.  Find the ones that fit your area of expertise and join them.  Once inside the group, contribute to discussions, ask questions, and post links to relevant articles. Here, too, you can grow your contact base by corresponding privately with individuals who post thoughtful commentary or who provide helpful answers to your questions.
3. Join local area groups.  Use the Group search function in LinkedIn to find networking groups in your geographic area. Local groups often have meetups and business card exchange meetings that you can attend.  After the face-to-face meeting, invite the people you’ve met to connect with you.
4. Start your own LinkedIn group.  This is even better than joining an established group because as the group moderator, everyone will become familiar with you.  Publicize your group, start discussions, and get other people interacting.  In the process, your list of contacts will grow.
5. Invite connections. This is easiest to do if you’re in a group.  Inside your group, post a message indicating that are accepting connection invitations.  When people do invite you to connect, be sure to correspond with them a bit so you get to know them.  Presumably if you’re in the same group, you’ve got a number of things in common.
6. Publicize your LinkedIn URL.  Add it to your business card, your e-mail signature, your website, your newsletter, and all other marketing pieces so that when people meet you or receive a message from you, they’ll know you’re on LinkedIn.  Some of these people will offer to connect with you.
7. Ask people you meet.  When you get new clients, attend a conference, or find yourself in a social setting, always ask people if they’re on LinkedIn. Everyone you meet in the real world is a potential new connection on LinkedIn.

Did you get your vanity URL on Facebook?  If you didn’t, you may still be able to get the one you want.  It’s at least worth a try.  But before we discuss how to do that, let’s talk about what a vanity URL is and why you might want one.

If you use the Internet, you use URLs all the time.  The URL (short for Uniform Resource Locator) is the global address for documents and resources on the World Wide Web.  For example, www.google.com is the URL for the Google website.

The URL for LinkedIn’s homepage is www.linkedin.com and LinkedIn automatically assigns a unique URL to each user’s profile.  The URL it assigns, however, is full of random characters and is difficult to remember and not so appealing on a business card.  Here’s an example of a URL that was automatically assigned to one agent’s profile.

But who’s going to type all that in when they want to see the agent’s online résumé on LinkedIn?  So LinkedIn gives users the option of changing their URL to something like:
www.LinkedIn.com/in/saundrawashington

How to Get Your URL

To get your vanity URL in LinkedIn (assuming you already have a profile on LinkedIn):

1. Log on to LinkedIn
2. Click on “Accounts & Settings”near the top of the screen
3. Scroll down to “Public Profile” and click
4. Choose one of the suggestions offered by LinkedIn or create one of your own (Your custom-created URL must be 5-30 characters—letters and numbers but no spaces, symbols, or special characters.)
5. Click the “Set Address” button to save your selection

To get your vanity URL in Facebook (assuming you already have an account)

1. Navigate to www.facebook.com/username
2. Select the username Facebook recommends or create one of your own (click “Check Availability” to see if the one you want is available).
3. Click “Confirm” to save your selection

Now that you have your vanity URL, add it to your business card, your e-mail signature, and anywhere else you show your contact information so friends and clients will be able to find your profiles easily.

One secret to using LinkedIn to best advantage is to answer (and ask) questions. 

LinkedIn works best if you can expand your network and to do that you need visibility.  Once you’ve imported all you e-mail contacts and searched for all your friends and colleagues, you’ll need other ways to grow your network.  Answering questions is one great way.

Log in to LinkedIn and click the “Answers” link at the top of the screen. Ask a question immediately or scroll to find a question you have the expertise to answer.  Browse along the right-hand side of the screen to find categories of questions.  Click the category called “Personal Finance” and you’ll find sub-categories such as “Wealth Management” and “Personal Real Estate.”

The Personal Real Estate category is a no-brainer for most real estate agents.  Today, for example, people are asking questions like:  “Can anyone recommend a real estate agent in the Columbus, OH area?” and “Should a seller in a short sale continue to pay condo association fees?”  But to really extend your reach, look for questions you can answer in other categories.  You can answer a question or you can suggest the name of another LinkedIn member—a friend or perhaps even a client—who has the expertise to handle the question.

Answering questions (assuming you give good answers) gets you instant recognition and helps you gain status as an expert in your field.  It also gives you the opportunity to send a private message to the person who asked the question.

Putting LinkedIn members in touch with people you know who can help them works too and, in fact, is what LinkedIn is all about—making connections.