Why You Should Sync Your Calendar With LinkedIn

I love LinkedIn. For some, it's a struggle to gain traction in this network because it's all business and not as much fun as other networks. However, I find it really useful.

Side note: if you're struggling to get the most out of LinkedIn, consider grabbing a copy of How to Become a LinkedIn Power User.

LinkedIn has some nice (newish) features that I find really useful. One of them is the calendar sync option. Enabling this option adds some nice functionality to your LinkedIn emails. If you sync up your calendar, you will start getting emails like this one:

As you can see, LinkedIn used my calendar to see that I met with Scott yesterday, found him on LinkedIn, and then offered to let me connect with him in one click. Nice!

I find this feature very useful because it helps me stay in touch with people after a meeting without having to go do the research or remember to look them up.

By enabling this feature, you can add some productivity points to your networking process. It simply uses your calendar to prompt you.

To enable calendar sync, navigate to the LinkedIn Contacts area and choose the gear icon to go to settings. Then, connect your contacts and calendar to LinkedIn:

Since we use Google Apps at SpinWeb, I connected via Google Calendar but you also have other options (like Outlook).

That's it! Now you'll have daily follow up emails prompting you to connect with people you've met with.

How are you using this feature?