Focus on LinkedIn

Author Richard Lowe Jr writes an excellent handbook on LinkedIn and how to get the best of this professional networking site. I particularly enjoyed his succinct writing style and the important links at the end of each chapter for LinkedIn users to improve their profile. The key is to create your personal brand and image to drive more traffic to your profile. I learned that your Headline is very important and to put in the right keywords so that your profile comes up in the search results. This book complements other books written on the subject of LinkedIn. It is easy to read, very valuable advice and tips, and a quick read — only takes just over one hour if you are a fast reader. I highly recommend purchasing this Kindle edition as I would refer to it time and time again. This is useful for new users to LinkedIn or expert users of LinkedIn as I found the information very helpful and will recommend to others.

This book provides a straightforward, methodical and consistent approach in using the LinkedIn professional network to establish your personal brand. I highly recommend the book for all LinkedIn user levels from beginner to well-established. For the beginner you will receive the necessary fundamentals to create a meaningful and useful LinkedIn profile. The more established and sophisticated LinkedIn user will have the opportunity to examine a variety of pre-conceived notions regarding personal branding in leveraging your LinkedIn profile. I would have gladly paid for the book as the knowledge and guidance it offers the reader far exceeds the purchase price — it’s worth it!!! Best wishes to all the potential readers of this book on their LinkedIn journey.

First off, let me say that I’m an overconfident millennial who previously already believed my LinkedIn was shiny. I had a well written summary and a catchy headliner. According to the site, I had ‘All-Star’ as my profile strength rating. However, I had SO much to learn! This book really unlocked my profile and allowed me to brand myself in a way I never dreamed possible. I get upwards of 200 profile views a week and have had several recruiters approach me. The information I have on my profile is primarily the same, but it is now presented in a sleek and attractive way. This book is very well written and concise. It is an easy read packed with practical suggestions. Written by Chris Ruiz (shared account with the wifey, Alyssa).

As a relative newcomer to LinkedIn, I have read at least 25 articles over the past few months giving tips and advice on how to make the most of your LinkedIn profile, as well as attending a couple of classes designed for the same purpose. This book contained many helpful explanations and hints that I have not seen anywhere else, and will certainly help me further develop my profile and get more involved with the LinkedIn community. It cleared up a number of aspects of LinkedIn I did not understand, and will serve as a great handbook for me going forward. I highly recommend it. His information and tips regarding blogging and setting up a LinkedIn company profile will also be helpful as I develop my consulting services business.

Richard Lowe’s Focus on LinkedIn is a good introduction for those who have yet to fully develop their professional profile. He places great emphasis on the differences between the social networks and emphasizes that LinkedIn is a professional network. He introduces the concept of ‘personal branding’ and distinguishes this from ‘business marketing.’ He emphasizes that today’s workforce calls for personal branding and that employers will have much difficulty finding employees unless employers and employees market themselves — LinkedIn is their platform. This small book is packed with information and provides hyperlinks directly into the LinkedIn website in the event the reader wants more information.

For the last couple of years I have been getting email requests from my friends to accept their LinkedIn request. Having a minor idea what it was, I just ignored the posts. Then came the career change and now LinkedIn is an important tool for me. Having no idea how to use it or what its true value is, I realized it would be best to do it right the first time. I bought this book for exactly that and am now learning to use LinkedIn. There is a lot of information and it is written in easy to read format — meaning, I don’t always know the fancy technology terms — no matter how cool I think I am. It’s a process, but I am getting there and this book is making it easier!

The book outlines the idea of creating a personal, professional brand and how to reinforce this brand based upon content updated in each LinkedIn section. I appreciate how Lowe walks through every section of your LinkedIn profile and identifies how to define your content in each. He provides detailed instructions on the components that should make up your summary statement. I always heard that your LinkedIn profile is not a copy of your resume, but didn’t understand how to differentiate the two. Now I have explicit directions, section by section, on the content to include in my profile. I can’t wait to start implementing these changes and benefit from the results.

I was in a group of professionals for which the author sent a free pdf copy to review. I have to say it is a really good guide to either set up your LI profile or improve it. For me, the value added comes from opening up your profile and reading through the book with either a highlighter and a notepad from which you will make on the spot changes and or inclusions in your LI profile. I think if you rush through this book, you will not obtain a benefit. If you read through it slowly and deliberately and reflect on what you are trying to accomplish, I think you can really add value to not only your LI profile, but to the entire concept of your brand.

If you are new to LinkedIn, or haven’t kept up with your profile in ages, Mr. Lowe’s book is for you. ‘Focus On LinkedIn’ is easy to read and understand, and filled with excellent tips. I dare say, even the most seasoned LION would find some pointers here to implement. I’m in between. I set up a profile when LinkedIn first started because someone told me to and then let it sit for years. Then, about a year ago, I started updating my profile. After reading Mr. Lowe’s book, I am going back to tweak it even more. Bottom line, if you have a profile on LinkedIn and want to bring the best out of it, then you need Mr. Lowe’s book in your library.

Richard G Lowe Jr’s book, FOCUS ON LINKEDIN, is aptly named. Rather than get too technical about the subject — thus advertising himself as just another bait-and-switch huckster for buying his services — Lowe takes his readers on a simple, how-to-and-why tour of how to build your profile on LinkedIn. Generous use of actual links to help on the platform keeps his book on a pace most readers wishing to understand the fundamentals about LinkedIn. The lesson in summary is this: If you set yourself up right and play by the rules of the platform, you can have success with it. And that is a good start for most who would be attracted to this book.

Wow, this book was like meeting with a consultant on how to create your LinkedIn profile. The book explains in detail what to include in your summary paragraph, under experience, and how to deal with gaps in work experience. He gives examples from a lot of different job fields. Tips on how to utilize the background photograph space are provided, along with several examples of backgrounds he has created. Business pages are discussed, as well as LinkedIn etiquette when conversing with others on site. Overall, this is an excellent book that is a lot less expensive than meeting with a consultant!

In the world of LinkedIn, there’s a fine line between self-promotion and promoting one’s personal brand. Mr. Lowe not only spells out the difference in this handy interactive guide, but shows how the effective use of one’s LinkedIn profile can help generate more leads while building and achieving the latter. Each chapter includes easy-to-follow links that illustrate the various strategies (such as the best order of items in one’s profile), without interrupting the flow. If you’re like me, you’ll find yourself implementing many of these ideas by the time you’ve finished the book.

Wanting to make my LinkedIn profile more effective, I started reading this book. I found myself reading it cover to cover in one sitting. The information was written in a relaxed and welcoming way, letting a newcomer create a successful LinkedIn page with little effort. For the more experienced LinkedIn user, the book offered suggestions and tips to enhance your profile to reach its full potential. The plus for me was offering links that helped with creating and revising my page. I recommend this book to anyone wanting to have a positive and productive presence on LinkedIn.

I was given a free copy of this book to review. I have used LinkedIn from its very beginnings but still found ‘Focus on LinkedIn’ to be helpful. I have led several concurrent sessions at national and regional conferences on the topic of Professional Development using LinkedIn as well as a profession-specific Proposal Development using LinkedIn. This book helped me to reflect on my profile as it was, which received compliments from many. This book helped me to improve my profile. For newbies and long-time users of LinkedIn, I believe that this book is worth the read.

This is a great resource for anyone who needs a step-by-step guide to using LinkedIn. I’m still a newbie at LinkedIn and have stumbled my way around it for the past couple years, not really understanding its potential. I wish I had read this book a lot sooner. The author has an in-depth understanding of the ins and outs of LinkedIn and provides easy-to-follow explanations of its various features and benefits. Well-written, thorough and practical. You can take the info presented here and use it immediately. Without reservation, 5 stars.

Very useful insights into optimally using a professional tool like LinkedIn to create a good personal brand. Some insights on writing a good summary and how one can ensure one’s profile is ranked higher on search engines using appropriate headlines with powerful keywords is very useful and can easily and readily applied. Overall, there is a lot for me to experiment and test in my profile to give me the necessary boost in building my professional network and establishing a personal brand.

For many years I’ve had a LinkedIn profile yet I found FOCUSED ON LINKEDIN filled with innovations and creative ideas. Richard G. Lowe knows the ins and outs of this social media network. His advice is often simple yet important. He calls to your attention the various tools yet cautions readers not to be overly promotional. Every professional and business owner can profit from the wisdom in this book. It is a well-written and well-researched book and I recommend it.

This book is a comprehensive yet easy to use guide to maximizing your LinkedIn profile. The author covers how to correctly fill out each section of the profile (with practical steps in each section). In addition, he helps you to look at the bigger picture of using LinkedIn as a networking and marketing strategy to grow your business. Make sure you have your computer close by when you read so you can update your profile as you go!

Definitely a Must Read! This book provides strategies to build your brand and make you more visible to gain the interest of potential employers or customers on LinkedIn. Richard focuses on how to use the features of LinkedIn in the best possible way to build your brand and network. Though I have been using LinkedIn for quite sometime, I have learned quite a lot from this book. Would definitely recommend this book to all.

Mr. Lowe provides a succinct, easy-to-read walk-through of the various features provided by LinkedIn highlighting best practices for creating, maintaining and building your LinkedIn Network. Perfect for the reader who’s venturing onto LinkedIn for the first time or who needs a refresher or reboot on what to do and what not to do. I implemented several pointers that had immediate impact on my business.

I have been on LinkedIn but to be honest haven’t really done much with this social network. But after reading this book I am inspired and ready to implement some new strategies. This book is full of ideas, tips, resources and examples to best explore LinkedIn. It is easy to read and follow with wonderful pictures and drawings. Well done and worth your time to read.

This book is an excellent tool to help you sharpen your LinkedIn skills. All sections of the book are great, but I particularly enjoyed Writing Up Your Brand and Network Building Strategies. This book contains a wealth of information and tips that will help me forge better business relationships and maximize the potential of my LinkedIn profile.

This is the need of the hour. Richard has done a good thing by publishing this. People will definitely learn a lot by reading it…How is it different than Facebook…Certain Do’s and Don’ts…It will help users from all walks of life…Students, Amateur Networkers, HR personnel, PR and Advertising individuals etc. Am thrilled!

Richard’s book helped me to understand LinkedIn better and how critical a well-written profile can be to my career. It used to seem so complex, yet he explains it in such a way as to be simple and easy to implement. Using this information I am confident about and excited to update my LinkedIn profile soon! Thank you Richard!

If you are new to LinkedIn and just starting there is no better book. It covers all the basics you need to get up and running quickly to get the best result. I like how it lays out each topic and uses simple basic terms. Anyone you know just getting started — this is a great gift book for them.

Interesting concise book that would help everybody learning something new and useful about LinkedIn: how to cultivate your brand, adding a company page, and real case tips to make more interesting your profile for your purpose. A ‘must have’ that you can read all in one go or bite by bite.

Great ideas on building a proper and effective LinkedIn profile. Have about twenty or so items to accomplish this week. The chapter on the difference between LinkedIn and Facebook was a little too detailed. If you don’t know the difference between the two only your brand will suffer.

This book is a must read for all job seekers, employers, or entrepreneurs. This book gives insight into how we can leverage information technology for most of our benefit. This book made me aware of many things which I was not, although having been a user of LinkedIn for a while.

The author did a thorough job of explaining what LinkedIn truly is and what it is not. I especially liked the emphasis on personal brand and networking as opposed to sales and marketing. A great book that I highly recommend. It will be a resource that I will use again and again.

A good read, with good tips, especially would be good for the more junior or novice LinkedIn user who is attempting to up their profile. A good set of guidelines and information to follow, with well laid out instructions on how to accomplish what you need to do.

Richard is a brilliant marketer. My LinkedIn profile really sucked until I bought his book. I read it and highlighted all through it, and then revamped my profile according to his advice. I’m getting a lot more views and requests to connect. His tools work!

This book has a practical and simple approach and contains several interesting and easy to implement tips. In my case, I had completed my LinkedIn profile but it was not clear what else to do, and I think this book is helping me to get more out of LinkedIn.

Richard does a great job of analyzing the professional aspect of LinkedIn with other social platforms. His thoughts and ideologies assist in branding ideas that help individuals think like brands themselves!

‘Focus on LinkedIn’ has many tips and guidelines to make your profile work for you. Thanks to Richard, and his insights, I have made more relevant connections and fine tuned my LinkedIn presence. Thank you!

A quick and easy read for a Sunday afternoon! If you are looking for a LinkedIn 101 course and updates, this resource is for you. As a regular LinkedIn user, I found many tips for improving my profile.

Thank you very much Richard Lowe, Jr. I never thought of using LinkedIn for a media outlet. Richard literally walks us through step by step. Thank you for the easy steps to get started on LinkedIn.

A must read for every job seeker. The book has some great strategies to leverage your network and strategies to be used in LinkedIn groups. The book is equally useful for entrepreneurs as well.

Excellent review of exactly what a personal brand is, and how to manage yours through the use of LinkedIn. A very no-nonsense explanation of exactly how to set everything up!

I thought I was knowledgeable on LinkedIn but Richard certainly put that to rest. Excellent reading for those who want to create a strong brand for themselves on LinkedIn.

Good tips on professional photos and headlines. This book goes in-depth on the personal branding process as it relates to LinkedIn. I strongly recommend this book!

The author has done a great deal of research on personal branding on the internet. The book is easy to understand and easy to implement the techniques.

If you need a step by step guide to set up your LinkedIn profile then this book will cover that and much more. Easy to follow and a useful resource.

It is a working introduction to a very tribalistic place, but an interesting one. I have 8604 connections and wish I had heard of this book before.

This is a good overview document about LinkedIn. It is well written and easy to read. It offers a good description of what LinkedIn has to offer.

This is an easy to read book that provides plenty of information on how to use the well-known and not-much-known tools and tips of the portal.

Very insightful, makes you rethink how you setup and manage your profile. Thank You Richard for putting this together. Really enjoyed reading.

Good stuff! Logical progression of information, easy to understand, good examples of how to do things and good links to the source material.

Just purchased this book and I highly recommend it! Very easy to read. Richard did an amazing job because I want to create my account now!

Excellent book. Highly recommended for all professionals. I have read it once and will continue reading it whenever I have the chance!

Very informative and useful book. Richard has used his insights to the fullest so that readers can have a great LinkedIn experience.

Great read for those wanting to utilize and get the most out of their LinkedIn Account. Very useful information.

Loved the topics explained in details, mainly on Personal Branding and Network building strategies the most.

Structured flow, it has educated me how to use LinkedIn in the optimal and result oriented manner.

Great Book. I found this book very helpful, I am ready to apply new tips on my profile too.

Well presented and very useful for both new and experienced professionals on LinkedIn.

This book is amazing. Has plenty of examples and I think this is a must read book.

Its a great book of social media marketing for business to business.

It was a very informative and knowledgeable book.

This is a great book. I would recommend it.

I never knew LinkedIn can be so amazing.

Five months ago I did not really use LinkedIn but I then started a business and it became a critical tool. Since then, I have learnt a lot through trial and error, building my network and generating business. After reading this book, I can see the steps I took written here, some advice about additional tasks I can undertake, such as the benefit in joining groups. The best explanation is at a dinner party, when you meet someone new, if you only talk about yourself, you will be boring them. You need to balance a little about yourself (or your business), about them and about life in general. In summary, I learnt a lot more about LinkedIn, I felt it was useful and very easy to read and understand. So I would recommend it.

I was an early adopter of LinkedIn, and have used many of the features of LinkedIn; however I was still able to pick up quite a few helpful hints from Richard Lowe’s book. I have encouraged many colleagues to polish their LinkedIn profiles, particularly when working at a company that was bought out and many jobs were being eliminated. Lowe emphasizes that it is to be used only for business and professional activities, not to be confused with the social aspects of Facebook and other social sites. He also writes that a LinkedIn profile should be updated frequently by adding experiences and contacts, recommendations, etc. I found it to be a very useful and well organized book that can be read in just over one hour.

Robert Lowe did a superb job detailing and explaining the steps I needed to build and promote my personal brand using this program. As a result of reading this book, I learned about all of the components of my account. I also got a better appreciation of the importance of this program. The message I took away from this book is that to be successful in developing my brand platform, I need to invest wisely in this endeavor taking full advantage of all of this program’s options. The dedication of time will yield positive results.

The author Richard Lowe has written and compiled a book on LinkedIn.com that is easy to read and digest fairly quickly. This is a book out of 15 books that the author has written that is in a series and has tips on using the social media platform LinkedIn.com. Pros: Easy to read, Good value, Features important topics like ‘Personal Branding’, Has paid for and been coached by a LinkedIn specialist that has worked on thousands of profiles, Doesn’t focus on wrong and right recommendations. Cons: None that I can think of.

As a LinkedIn user who hasn’t spent a great deal of time maximizing my profile, I find many tips in this book to be helpful. The only thing I would change would be to add more ‘do this/not that’ photos like he did with the profile picture examples. Perhaps that would happen in future editions. Absolutely worth the price and I advise those who do not have a robust LinkedIn profile to purchase this book and begin walking through the steps Richard Lowe Jr has outlined for us.

An advocate for personal branding and consummate believer in networking, I have been a LinkedIn citizen since 2007. Richard has published a wide and sweeping overview of LinkedIn that will prove invaluable to newbies, or to those who wish to revisit the mechanics and how-to’s. Overlooking the few grammatical errors and misuse of words, this is a quick and easy read packed full of information. I look forward to the second edition.

As a former manager I recognize the value offered by this service, I referred to it when considering potential job candidates and others have found me through it. Richard’s book helps bring to light the importance of being visible in a technology focused world and how LinkedIn can assist with this. The only missing piece might be how to use it as you transition into retirement from one career to another.

A short and sweet insightful guide to use LinkedIn effectively! I picked it up as I was looking for some help to clean up my LinkedIn profile. The book does the job by delivering the information and guidelines that I need without nonsense. I would recommend this book to anyone who is building up their professional connections.

Quick easy read. Although a little outdated, still pretty useful. I need to put some of his recommendations in my LinkedIn, just haven’t gotten around to it yet.

I love the concept of the book! However, I wish that it didn’t vaguely give suggestions about how to use LinkedIn. As a reader I was intrigued but I would have liked for the author to give examples of what he was suggesting using multiple examples. Perfect for individuals that need a step-by-step guide of the features offered via LinkedIn.

The book is purely an introduction to LinkedIn, it doesn’t serve those who have an intermediate and above knowledge of it. It also now seems outdated. I would only recommend if you are new to LinkedIn.

Good Read, lot of useful tips.