The contacts you make on LinkedIn might be able to help you find a job or find a client for your services. But even if those outcomes don’t happen immediately, you can use the opportunity to learn more about your topic, develop relationships with others in the same field, and increase your marketing skills.

1. Start with Your Address Book

Contacts are what make social media social. When you finish your profile, you’ll have an opportunity to add people you know to your contact list. Don’t just add your entire address book, but think about all the people on it, whether they would be good contacts for your new professional network.

Likely candidates would be former employers, people you’ve worked with, some of the people you know from school, family members. If you’re on the fence about someone, you should probably go ahead and try to add them. You want your network as wide as possible without including people who have nothing to add to your working life.

Kinds of Relationships

Your contacts will fall into the following categories:

Customers — people in the market for services you provide Employers — companies or individuals in your business looking to hire someone to help Mentors — people in your business with more experience and expertise than you have Associates — people on the same journey you’re on, at about the same level Learners — people in your line of work who don’t have as much experience or expertise as you do To all these people, you want to offer valuable help and information, although for each, the information will be expressed a little differently. You will craft your message to the audience you’ve chosen to talk to, because all of them can aid your job search in different ways.

3. Making New Friends

If you invest time in LinkedIn, you will meet people there whom you like, respect, or admire, and you will be able to add them to your contacts, too.

When you fill out a contact request, send along a brief, friendly note saying where you know the person from. Maybe you liked what they said about a topic in a LinkedIn discussion. Maybe you know them from a past job. Maybe you’ve read something they’ve written somewhere else. If you explain why you’re asking for the contact, you’ll increase the odds of its being accepted.

4. Get Recommended

On LinkedIn, you can ask for and receive recommendations from people. These testimonials are a powerful way to speak of your skills, reliability, perseverance — all the important characteristics an employer or client asks for.

Ask for recommendations from people who have been happy with your work. Don’t forget to include work in your field that you have done as a volunteer or for family members. If the person is not already on LinkedIn, he can set up a free LinkedIn account and say what a good job you did.

Display these recommendations prominently in your profile. They are very persuasive.

Also, in whatever way you are able, be generous in recommending other people, because what goes around really does come around.

Audition for the Job

On LinkedIn — and in fact everywhere on the internet — you are always auditioning for the job you want to do. This is both challenge and opportunity. It’s challenge because you always want to show your working side. It’s an opportunity because the proof you give through your audition is more persuasive than certifications, who you’re related to, what your background is, or anything else.

To get valuable insider tips on how job hunters can use social marketing sites to get a job fast and how to make the most of the opportunities each one affords, see Job Hunter’s Guide to Social Media

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